CarClever – Buying Assistant

A remote MCP server that helps US shoppers find and compare new and used cars from inside an AI chat. It searches a daily-refreshed catalogue of US dealer listings, checks vehicles by VIN with NHTSA data, and links each car to its Edmunds listing.

Live MCP endpoint: https://carclever-db.getcarwise.app/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no sign-in, no API key)

Built by GetCarWise (Broekman Consulting Pty Ltd) · https://getcarwise.app · MIT licence

What it does

• Search new and used listings by make, model, price, year, mileage, body style, drivetrain, ZIP and radius, including hybrid and electric options

• Choose a ranking priority: best for budget, cheapest, lowest mileage or newest

• Refine a search in conversation and browse the results as vehicle cards

• Spot price drops and compare a shortlist of two to four cars side by side

• Check a vehicle by VIN, with decoding and recall information from NHTSA

• Take the next step with the dealer through Edmunds. Edmunds links are affiliate links and are disclosed

Related MCP server: CarMax MCP Server

Tools

All four tools are read-only.

Connect

Add the endpoint as a remote MCP server (custom connector) in any client that supports Streamable HTTP. No sign-in and no API key are needed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "carclever": { "url": "https://carclever-db.getcarwise.app/mcp" }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• Find a used Toyota RAV4 under $30,000 near 90210

• Show me all-wheel-drive SUVs under $45,000 near 90210, then compare my top three

• Check the VIN of the car I picked and show any recalls

Data

• Listings: the Edmunds catalogue, supplied through Impact and loaded once a day into a Neon Postgres database by a scheduled job (scripts/fetch-feed.sh, scripts/load-feed.sh). It is a daily refresh, not a real-time feed.

• Vehicle data: decoding, specifications, recalls and ratings from NHTSA.

• Not in the data: the catalogue feed carries no accident history, ownership history, Carfax link or certified-pre-owned status. When a buyer asks for those, the result is reported as unconfirmed and the buyer is pointed to the dealer.

• Search log: stores only make, model, price band, state and result counts.

Architecture

• Next.js on Vercel (serverless), TypeScript, Zod validation

• Neon Postgres for the catalogue; NHTSA lookups

• MCP served with mcp-handler; MCP Apps cards for results and comparisons

• /api/catalog-status reports catalogue size and the last load

Branches

• release/catalog: the live Buying Assistant (this README)

• catalog-db/v1: the same code on the test and nightly-load track, kept level with release/catalog

• release/v2: CarClever – Find My Car, a separate app on a different data source (Auto.dev)

Run and test

• npm install, npm run dev, npm test

• Configuration names are in .env.example

• Database tests need a local PostgreSQL (TEST_DATABASE_URL) and are skipped without one. See TESTING.md and scripts/local-e2e/README.md.

Licence

MIT, see LICENSE. The code licence does not cover listing data, Edmunds content or trademarks, which stay subject to their owners' terms.

Contact

info@getcarwise.app · https://getcarwise.app