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System architecture & technologies WIP

LITEFile is designed around a clean separation of concerns between user session state, declarative jurisdiction configurations, cloud document storage, and third-party court APIs.

High-level architecture diagram​

Core components​

1. Application layer (efile_app/)​

  • Django 5.2 ASGI core: Runs using Gunicorn with Uvicorn worker threads (uvicorn.workers.UvicornWorker) for asynchronous performance and scalability.
  • Workflow state engine (efile/workflow.py): Manages the linear progression of the 14-step filing workflow, tracks draft state, and ensures filers cannot skip required steps.
  • Custom authentication backend (efile/authentication.py): Integrates directly with the Tyler E-Filing authentication endpoint, validating credentials against the state EFSP and creating local user profiles dynamically.

2. Document handling & S3 storage​

  • Uploaded court PDFs are validated (file format, size limits, corruption checks) and securely uploaded to AWS S3.
  • All document access utilizes temporary, short-lived Pre-Signed URLs, ensuring buckets remain private while enabling Tyler's ingestion servers to fetch documents during envelope submission.

3. Declarative jurisdiction YAML system​

  • YAML configuration files (static/config/states/*.yaml) define case categories, filing types, document checklist rules, court fees, and contact info.
  • Loaded into an in-memory cache on application startup, allowing court rules to change without touching application code.