CarJam NZ

Goal

Query public/basic CarJam NZ vehicle information from the no-login HTML report page through a deterministic Python CLI.

Use this when

• A user asks for public CarJam details for a New Zealand plate, VIN, or chassis
• A user wants a quick make/model/year/colour/plate/VIN summary
• A workflow needs machine-readable public vehicle metadata with source URLs
• A user wants to know which fields are report-gated versus visible for free

Do not use this for

• Paid CarJam report purchase, checkout, subscription, login, or account actions
• Owner name/address lookup, personal information extraction, or bypassing report gates
• Updating stolen status, reminders, watchlists, or any write/mutation flow
• Treating public snippets as official legal advice; direct users to NZTA/Waka Kotahi or CarJam for authoritative/current status

Preferred workflow

1. Run scripts/cli.py lookup <plate> for one vehicle
2. Add --json for structured output or chaining
3. Use --raw only when the task needs all parsed public fields rather than the concise summary
4. Use batch for a small set of plates; keep the default delay to avoid hammering the public site
5. Clearly distinguish public/basic fields from paid/report-gated fields shown as Get Report, May be in Report, or Subscribe

CLI

Run with:

python3 skills/carjam-nz/scripts/cli.py <command> [flags]

Commands

• lookup <identifier> [--type plate|vin|chassis] [--json] [--raw] — lookup one vehicle
• batch <identifier...> [--type plate|vin|chassis] [--sleep seconds] [--fail-fast] [--json] — compact summaries for multiple identifiers

Examples:

python3 skills/carjam-nz/scripts/cli.py lookup ABC123
python3 skills/carjam-nz/scripts/cli.py lookup ABC123 --json
python3 skills/carjam-nz/scripts/cli.py lookup 7A8CJ0P0797205527 --type vin --json
python3 skills/carjam-nz/scripts/cli.py batch ABC123 KMM42 --json

Resources

• CLI entrypoint: scripts/cli.py
• Live smoke test: scripts/smoke_test.py
• Source/stability notes: references/api-notes.md

Notes

• No API key, username, password, account cookie, browser automation, or paid report purchase is required for supported commands
• This skill parses public HTML, not a published API; CarJam page structure can change
• Some fields are intentionally report-gated by CarJam and are preserved as locked/gated rather than bypassed