Suffolk LIT Lab Document Assembly Line

The Assembly Line Project is a collection of volunteers, students, and institutions who joined together during the COVID-19 pandemic to help increase access to the court system. Our vision is mobile-friendly, easy to use guided online forms that help empower litigants to access the court remotely.

Our signature project is CourtFormsOnline.org.

We designed a step-by-step, assembly line style process for automating court forms on top of Docassemble and built several tools along the way that you can use in your home jurisdiction.

This package contains runtime code and pre-written questions to support authoring robust, consistent, and attractive Docassemble interviews that help complete court forms.

Read more on our documentation page.

Related repositories

• https://github.com/SuffolkLitLab/docassemble-ALWeaver
• https://github.com/SuffolkLitLab/docassemble-ALMassachusetts
• https://github.com/SuffolkLitLab/docassemble-MassAccess
• https://github.com/SuffolkLitLab/docassemble-ALThemeTemplate
• https://github.com/SuffolkLitLab/EfileProxyServer

Documentation

https://suffolklitlab.org/docassemble-AssemblyLine-documentation/

Installation

Menu-driven installation

The recommended installation method is with the guided installation script.

Manual installation

Normally you do not need to manually install the Assembly Line. Use the installation script if you can. The instructions below are for your optional reference.

This package depends on the following configuration changes on your Docassemble server:

• Ensure that font-awesome is enabled (this may be on by default:

default icons: font awesome

• Add a Google API key that has access to:
  • Google Places API
  • Google Geocoding API
• Add a VoiceRSS API key
• Add a Twilio API key for SMS support
• Add an email account: Mailgun or SendGrid recommended for email support
• To show package update time and to enable the feedback form, add a GitHub Private Access token to your config.yml file, like this:

# Needs access to create new issues on repositories
github issues:
  username: "suffolklitlab-issues"
  token: "12345"
# Does not need any special access to public repositories  
github readonly:
  username: "suffolklitlab-issues"
  password: "45678"
  type: "basic"

• If you are also using the Assembly Line Weaver, you may want to set up a Docassemble API key in your config.yml file to allow you to install packages automatically, like this:

install packages api key: 12345

Migration

See discussion here

Answer Set Import Safety Configuration

Answer set JSON imports are intentionally restricted to reduce risk from malformed and malicious payloads.

Default behavior:

• Plain JSON values are imported by default, and object reconstruction is allowed only for allowlisted DAObject classes.
• Top-level variable names must match ^[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*$.
• Internal/protected variable names are blocked.
• If answer set import allowed variables is not set, imports allow safe variable names by default, still block protected/internal names, and intersect with the target interview's known variables when AssemblyLine can detect them.
• Object payloads can be imported when classes are allowlisted; by default, known docassemble.base and docassemble.AssemblyLine DAObject descendants are allowed.

Default import limits (assembly line: answer set import limits):

• max bytes: 1048576 (1 MB)
• max depth: 40
• max keys: 20000
• max list items: 5000
• max string length: 200000
• max number abs: 1000000000000000 (10**15)

Final allowlist/config policy:

• Default allowlist: unset (answer set import allowed variables omitted), which falls back to safe-name/protected-name checks plus target-interview variable detection when available.
• Recommended production policy: set an explicit allowlist to only shared/reusable variables in your jurisdiction.
• answer set import allow objects defaults to true; set it to false if you want strict plain-JSON-only imports.
• answer set import allowed object classes can extend the default DAObject class allowlist with explicit additional class paths.
• Additional classes in answer set import allowed object classes apply to object envelopes at any depth (top-level variables and nested descendants).
• answer set import remap known classes defaults to true; this safely maps known class basenames from other packages (such as playground exports) onto official allowlisted classes.
• answer set import class remap can define explicit basename-to-class mappings for additional controlled remaps.

Example hardened configuration:

assembly line:
  enable answer sets: true
  enable answer set imports: true
  answer set import require signed: false
  answer set import allow objects: true
  answer set import remap known classes: true
  answer set import limits:
    max bytes: 1048576
    max depth: 40
    max keys: 20000
    max list items: 5000
    max string length: 200000
    max number abs: 1000000000000000
  answer set import allowed variables:
    - users_name
    - users_address
    - users_phone_number
    - users_email
    - household_size
  answer set import allowed object classes:
    - docassemble.AssemblyLine.al_general.ALIndividual
    - docassemble.AssemblyLine.al_general.ALPeopleList
    - docassemble.AssemblyLine.al_general.ALAddress
  answer set import class remap:
    ALIndividual: docassemble.AssemblyLine.al_general.ALIndividual
    ALPeopleList: docassemble.AssemblyLine.al_general.ALPeopleList

Notes:

• Keeping answer set import require signed: false matches current compatibility-first behavior; unsigned imports still pass strict structural validation.
• If your environment can manage signing keys, set answer set import require signed: true to require signed payloads.
• Class allowlisting uses full dotted class names (exact match), not wildcard patterns.
• Playground-authored classes usually need explicit allowlisting, e.g. docassemble.playground1.al_general.ALIndividual.
• If a playground package name changes across environments (for example playground1 to playground2), update answer set import allowed object classes to match the runtime class path.
• With answer set import remap known classes: true, exports that use known class basenames (for example docassemble.playground1.al_general.ALIndividual) can be remapped to official allowlisted classes without instantiating the playground class.

ALDocument class

Purpose

The ALDocument class is a small utility library that makes it simpler to use the following features in an interview:

• Conditional assembly of multiple, optional documents that are triggered in different ways in your interview
• An addendum for PDF files that makes it simple to deal with overflow text
• A customizable download screen that lists the documents in a neat table
• A customizable "send" button that allows the user to email the final forms to a location of their choice

Here is a small snippet that you can copy and modify that shows how to use the most important features of the ALDocument class.

---
objects:
  - CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment: ALDocument.using(filename="CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss", title="Motion to Dismiss CRA", enabled=True, has_addendum=True, default_overflow_message="[See addendum]")  
---
objects:
  - al_user_bundle: ALDocumentBundle.using(elements=[CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment], title="Forms to download and deliver to court", filename="motion_to_dismiss_CRA.pdf")
  - al_court_bundle: ALDocumentBundle.using(elements=[CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment], title="Forms to download and deliver to court", filename="motion_to_dismiss_CRA.pdf")
---
generic object: ALDocument
attachment:
  variable name: x.addendum
  docx template file: docx_addendum.docx
---
code: |
  CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment.overflow_fields['reasons_for_request'].overflow_trigger = 640
  CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment.overflow_fields['reasons_for_request'].label = "Reasons for request"
  CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment.overflow_fields.gathered = True
  
---
attachment:
    variable name: CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment[i]
    name: CRA Motion to Dismiss
    filename: CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss
    skip undefined: True
    pdf template file: CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss.pdf
    fields: 
      - "court_county": ${ trial_court.address.county }
      - "docket_number": ${ docket_number }
      - "user_signature": ${ users[0].signature_if_final(i) }
      - "signature_date": ${ signature_date }

It is very common to have a contingent document in ALDocument. If your document is contingent, remove the enabled=True from the object declaration, and use some other method to "turn on" the attachment.

E.g.,

code: |
  CRA_Motion_to_Dismiss_attachment.enabled = condition1 and condition2

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.MD