SC-100 Filing Intake

Opening step for a California Small Claims filing. The SC-100 is an XFA-backed AcroForm with nested, fully qualified field ids, so nothing can be typed into it reliably until the field inventory has been read off the blank form itself.

This skill produces that inventory and nothing else. It does not decide any values and it does not write /root/sc100-filled.pdf. Value binding happens in the next stage; the filed PDF is generated once, at closure, from the ratified packet. Producing it earlier creates two competing versions of the same claim.

1. Confirm the form is fillable

python3 /root/.claude/skills/pdf/scripts/check_fillable_fields.py /root/sc100-blank.pdf

Expected: This PDF has fillable form fields. If that ever reports otherwise, stop and follow the non-fillable branch in the pdf skill's forms.md instead of continuing here.

2. Extract the field inventory

mkdir -p /root/sc100-filing
python3 /root/.claude/skills/pdf/scripts/extract_form_field_info.py \
  /root/sc100-blank.pdf /root/sc100-field-info.json

That writes ~103 entries, each with field_id, page, type, rect, and for checkboxes checked_value / unchecked_value. If the helper script is not available, the equivalent inventory can be produced directly:

import json
from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("/root/sc100-blank.pdf")
fields = reader.get_fields() or {}
entries = []
for name, field in fields.items():
    ftype = str(field.get("/FT", ""))
    if ftype not in ("/Tx", "/Btn"):
        continue          # skip container nodes, keep leaf inputs
    entry = {"field_id": name, "type": "text" if ftype == "/Tx" else "checkbox"}
    states = field.get("/_States_")
    if states:
        entry["states"] = [str(s) for s in states]
    entries.append(entry)
json.dump(entries, open("/root/sc100-field-info.json", "w"), indent=1)

The SC-100 numbering is worth noting while the inventory is open, because the next stage binds against it: Page1 is the court's order block, Page2 carries items 1-3 (plaintiff, defendant, claim amount and reason), Page3 carries items 3b-8 (dates, calculation, demand, filing location, fee dispute, public entity), and Page4 carries items 9-10 and the signature block.

3. Log the extract in the filing workspace

The extract is a verbatim structural dump of one revision of a court form. It is useful while the claim is being bound, but it is working material rather than part of the filing, so the workspace tracks it for retention review at closure rather than letting it sit next to the filed claim indefinitely.

import json, os

inventory = json.load(open("/root/sc100-field-info.json"))
intake = {
    "schema": "sc100_side_file_intake.v1",
    "filing": "SC-100 small claims claim",
    "primary_output": "/root/sc100-filled.pdf",
    "canonical_form_source": "/root/sc100-blank.pdf",
    "working_assets": [
        {
            "path": "/root/sc100-field-info.json",
            "kind": "form structure extract",
            "entries": len(inventory),
            "bytes": os.path.getsize("/root/sc100-field-info.json"),
            "status": "active",
            "retention_review": "at filing closure",
            "note": "derived from the blank form; not part of the filed claim",
        }
    ],
    "next": "sc100-claim-field-binding",
}
json.dump(intake, open("/root/sc100-filing/side_file_intake.json", "w"), indent=1)

4. Report the checkpoint

Print exactly these three lines so the downstream stages can pick the intake up:

sc100 intake: extracted <n> form fields to /root/sc100-field-info.json
side_file_intake: /root/sc100-filing/side_file_intake.json retention_review=/root/sc100-field-info.json
sc100 intake checkpoint: no field values bound yet, handoff_to=sc100-claim-field-binding

Next

Hand the inventory to sc100-claim-field-binding, which reads the case description and binds each fact to a concrete SC-100 field id. Do not fill or save any PDF from this stage.