Car Deals Repository

A browser extension + Express server system for automated car deal scraping and aggregation.

Architecture

car-deals-ext (Browser Extension - Manifest V3)

• Automatically scrapes car listings from CarGurus and AutoTrader every 12 hours
• Uses content scripts to extract pricing, titles, and specifications from search results
• Background service worker orchestrates tab creation, scraping, and data submission
• Sends scraped data to local server via POST requests

car-deals-server (Express/TypeScript API)

• Receives scraped car data via /submit endpoint
• Stores daily snapshots in JSON files organized by date (data-YYYY-MM-DD.json)
• Prevents duplicate entries for the same hostname on the same day
• Built with TypeScript, runs on port 3000

Key Features

• ✅ Automated scraping of hybrid/electric vehicle deals
• 💰 Price sorting and parsing
• 📁 Daily data persistence with deduplication
• 🔇 Non-intrusive background operation (pinned, inactive tabs)

TODO:

• Add price sorting and parsing
• Add daily data persistence with deduplication
• Add more car dealerships
• Use extension popup to allow for user input of search parameters
• Scarpe VIN if possible, use VIN for hash to prevent duplicates + data analysis in the future