CatchAll Initialize — preview validators and enrichments

CatchAll Initialize returns suggested validators, enrichments, and date ranges for a query before you submit a job. Use it to preview what CatchAll will generate, fine-tune your input, or check if your date range fits your plan limits — without consuming job credits.

This Actor maps to the POST /catchAll/initialize endpoint.

When to use this Actor

• Preview before committing. See which validators and enrichments CatchAll would generate for your query, then decide what to keep, modify, or remove.
• Validate date ranges. Check whether your requested dates fit within your plan's allowed search depth. The response includes adjustment messages if dates were modified.
• Build custom workflows. Pipe the suggested output into the CatchAll Create Job Actor with your modifications applied.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
apiKey	String	Yes	Your CatchAll API key
query	String	Yes	Plain-text question describing what to find
context	String	No	Extra instructions for validators and enrichments

Input example

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_CATCHALL_API_KEY",
  "query": "Executive departures at Fortune 500 technology companies",
  "context": "Include executive name, position, company name, departure date"
}

Output

The Actor returns suggested validators and enrichments as JSON in the default Dataset.

Output example

{
  "query": "Executive departures at Fortune 500 technology companies",
  "context": "Include executive name, position, company name, departure date",
  "validators": [
    {
      "name": "is_executive_departure",
      "description": "true if the web page describes an executive leaving a company",
      "type": "boolean"
    }
  ],
  "enrichments": [
    {
      "name": "executive_name",
      "description": "Extract the name of the departing executive",
      "type": "text"
    },
    {
      "name": "subject_company",
      "description": "Extract the company from which the executive is departing",
      "type": "company"
    },
    {
      "name": "departure_date",
      "description": "Extract the date of the executive's departure",
      "type": "date"
    }
  ],
  "start_date": "2026-02-01T00:00:00Z",
  "end_date": "2026-02-06T00:00:00Z",
  "date_modification_message": []
}

The suggestions are recommendations only. You can use them as-is, modify them, add new ones, or ignore them and let the system generate fresh validators and enrichments when you submit the job.

Other CatchAll Actors

Actor	Description
CatchAll	End-to-end job: submit, poll, and retrieve results
CatchAll Create Job	Submit a job without polling or fetching results
CatchAll Pull Results	Retrieve records from a completed job

For the full list, visit the Newscatcher organization page.

Resources

• CatchAll documentation
• Dynamic schemas guide
• Write effective queries