ctrack-fetch

Downloads briefs and documents from the North Dakota Supreme Court public cTrack portal. Can download all briefs for cases on the upcoming calendar or target a specific case by number.

Requirements

• Node.js v18 or later

Installation

Windows

1. Download and install Node.js from https://nodejs.org/ (LTS version recommended).
2. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell.
3. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/jet52/ctrack-fetch.git
cd ctrack-fetch
npm install

macOS

1. Install Node.js using Homebrew or download from https://nodejs.org/:

brew install node

2. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/jet52/ctrack-fetch.git
cd ctrack-fetch
npm install

Linux

1. Install Node.js using your package manager. For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs npm

For Fedora:

sudo dnf install nodejs npm

2. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/jet52/ctrack-fetch.git
cd ctrack-fetch
npm install

npm install downloads Puppeteer and a bundled Chromium browser (~150 MB). This only needs to happen once.

Usage

Download briefs from the calendar

node ctrack-fetch.js

This downloads briefs for all cases scheduled in the next 7 days. No login is required — the script uses the public cTrack portal as an anonymous visitor.

Download briefs for a specific case

node ctrack-fetch.js -c 20250384

npm scripts

npm run download               # Normal run
npm run download:debug         # Opens visible browser, verbose output
npm run download:silent        # No console output

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-h, --help	Show help message
-v, --verbose	Enable debug output
-q, --quiet	Silent mode (no output)
-o, --output DIR	Output directory for downloaded PDFs	current directory
-d, --days N	Number of days to look ahead on calendar	7
-c, --case NUMBER	Download briefs for a specific 8-digit case number

Examples

node ctrack-fetch.js -v                    # With debug output
node ctrack-fetch.js -o ~/briefs           # Save to specific directory
node ctrack-fetch.js -d 14                 # Look ahead 14 days
node ctrack-fetch.js -c 20250339           # Specific case
node ctrack-fetch.js -v -o ~/briefs -d 7   # Combine options