Live lookups

Most endpoints query the source when you call: these are live lookups. The answer comes from the source at that moment, in the same JSON shape as every other endpoint. The rest are dataset endpoints, and any endpoint without the Dataset pill in its guide is live. A live lookup:

• returns what the source says right now, not as of a refresh,
• resolves one subject per call (a cédula, a plate, a radicado),
• spends 10 credits per request (see Rate limits).

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Latency

Most live lookups answer in a few seconds, at the pace of their source. The slowest run as async jobs: wait inline, poll, or get a callback; that page lists which endpoints they are. A repeated identical lookup can answer from a recent cached result (X-Cache: HIT). Cached answers spend the same credits as a miss.

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Availability

A live lookup is only as available as its source. When the source fails or is unreachable, the endpoint returns a 5xx with type: "upstream_error" (see Errors). Lookups are idempotent, so retrying is always safe.