California Vehicle Registration Status Check

Purpose

Given a California license plate plus one secondary identifier (last 5 of the VIN, the registered owner's last name, or the company/lessor name), return the vehicle's current California DMV registration status, expiration date, fees owed, and any holds. Read-only — the skill stops at the results page; it never advances into the renewal-payment flow.

The lookup is the CA DMV's free public "Vehicle Registration Status" service, a server-rendered Java/Struts (.do) flow gated by AWS WAF + CloudFront. It works without an account and is the only first-party way to verify CA registration status without making a Public Records Request.

When to Use

• A driver/owner agent verifying whether their plate is currently registered before a road trip or smog check.
• A fleet/lessor agent reconciling registration status across multiple CA plates.
• A used-car-buying agent confirming a seller's claim that the registration is "current" before exchanging money.
• Any agent that needs "registered? yes/no + expiration date" for one CA plate without paying for a commercial VIN service.

Do not use this skill for:

• Out-of-state plates (CA-only).
• Title status, lienholder info, or registered-owner identity disclosure — those require a formal Vehicle Record Request (different skill, fees apply, requires a justified purpose under CA Vehicle Code).
• Driver's-license status — separate DMV tool.

Workflow

The flow is a three-step server-rendered form. There is no public JSON API for registration status — confirmed by surveying the dmv.ca.gov surface. Everything goes through wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do. Use a remote Browserbase session with --proxies --verified because the WAF is sensitive to datacenter IPs and missing browser fingerprints.

1. Open a Verified + residential-proxy session

SID=$(browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive --proxies --verified | jq -r .id)
export BROWSE_SESSION="$SID"

A bare session (no --proxies) regularly trips the AWS WAF banner ("Your request has been blocked...") on the first POST. The --verified flag (Verified browsers) is what passes the fingerprint check during form submission. Both are required — do not omit either.

2. Navigate directly to step 1 (license-plate form)

browse open --remote "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do"
browse wait load --remote
browse snapshot --remote

Skip the marketing portal page (/portal/vehicle-registration/vehicle-registration-status/) — its only useful link is /wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do, so going direct saves one navigation and one cookie round-trip.

The form has a single visible input:

Fill it and submit:

browse fill --remote "input#licensePlateNumber" "8ABC123"
browse click --remote 'button[value="Continue"]'   # name="method" value="Continue"
browse wait load --remote

The form POSTs to itself (action="/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do", method=post) with method=Continue and licensePlateNumber=<value>. The backend issues a 302 to step 2.

3. Step 2 — secondary identifier

Step 2 asks for one of:

• Last 5 digits of the VIN (or HIN for vessels)
• Registered owner's last name (private ownership)
• Company / lessor name (leased or company-owned)

Pick whichever the user supplied. The form is a radio-group + single text input. Snapshot and use refs:

browse snapshot --remote                                  # find the radio for the chosen identifier
browse click  --remote '@<radio-ref>'                    # select identifier type
browse fill   --remote 'input[type="text"]' "12345"      # the secondary value
browse click  --remote 'button[value="Continue"]'
browse wait load --remote

If the user gives "last 5 of VIN", strip dashes/spaces and uppercase. The DMV accepts only alphanumerics here.

4. Step 3 — extract status

The results page is keyed off plate + identifier match. Read the page text:

browse get markdown body --remote
browse screenshot --remote --path screenshots/04-results.png

Map the visible content to the output schema in §Expected Output. Don't click "Renew Registration" / "Pay Now" / any forward CTA — read-only.

5. Release the session

browse cloud sessions update "$SID" --status REQUEST_RELEASE

Site-Specific Gotchas

• No public JSON/GraphQL API exists. Surveyed dmv.ca.gov and wasapp/* paths — every registration-status route is server-rendered Struts. Confirmed wasapp/ipp2/initRegInfoInquiry.do (a sometimes-cited "alt" endpoint) returns 404 as of the build date. Don't waste time looking for a faster surface; the only path is the form flow.
• The form is two pages, not one. Step 1 takes only the license plate (input#licensePlateNumber, maxlength 8). Step 2 asks for one secondary identifier. New agents commonly stub a one-shot POST with both fields — that returns the step-1 page again because the secondary input doesn't exist in the step-1 form bean.
• Submit-button selector. The Continue button is button[name="method"][value="Continue"] — the button is the form's only name="method" element, and its value is what drives Struts dispatch. Targeting button[type="submit"] works too but is less specific.
• CloudFront / WAF behavior. The pages are fronted by CloudFront with x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN and an active AWS WAF rule (AWSALB, AWSALBCORS, PD_STATEFUL_*, TS01dc4fc6 cookies are issued on every visit and must be preserved across the multi-step flow). Browserbase's session model handles this automatically; if you're rolling your own HTTP client you must keep the cookie jar.
• No CAPTCHA observed on step 1. The form has no visible CAPTCHA on initial load. Aggressive POST repetition (>~5 within a minute from the same fingerprint) trips a WAF block page with "Your request has been blocked..." — back off and let the residential proxy rotate.
• autocomplete="off" everywhere. The form sets autocomplete off; if you browse fill and the input still appears empty on snapshot, the page may be using a non-standard CA-DMV input wrapper. Use browse press Tab after fill to force the blur event before clicking Continue.
• Plate format. California plates are 1–7 chars (modern: 7 alphanumeric, older: shorter). Max 8 is just the input maxlength. Strip dashes, spaces, and any special chars before filling. Kid-plate symbols (heart, star, hand, plus) are not enterable here — the DMV portal warns "For Kids Plates, please leave out any symbols."
• Step-2 invalid-secondary path. If the plate exists but the secondary identifier doesn't match, the result page renders a generic "We could not locate a record matching the information provided" — this is not_found from the user's perspective, but it is not proof the plate is unregistered (could be a typo in the secondary). Surface this distinction in the output.
• Cross-jurisdiction. Non-CA plates always render not_found. There is no way to look up registration status for a non-CA vehicle on dmv.ca.gov. For non-CA plates, the agent should refuse and recommend the relevant state's DMV.
• Don't follow the "Renew" CTA. The success page includes a "Renew Registration Now" link that goes to /wasapp/vrir/start.do (the renewal flow). Read-only skill — stop at the status page.
• Spanish locale. dmv.ca.gov/portal/es/vehicle-registration/vehicle-registration-status/ exists, but the actual /wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do form is English-only. Localization happens only on the portal page, not the underlying app.

Expected Output

Return a JSON object with one of the following shapes.

Success — current registration

{
  "success": true,
  "license_plate": "8ABC123",
  "registration_status": "current",
  "expiration_date": "2026-08-31",
  "fees_due_usd": 0,
  "holds": [],
  "raw_status_text": "Your vehicle registration is current. Expires: 08/31/2026.",
  "renewal_available": false,
  "source_url": "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do"
}

Success — expired or pending renewal

{
  "success": true,
  "license_plate": "8ABC123",
  "registration_status": "expired",
  "expiration_date": "2025-04-30",
  "fees_due_usd": 312.00,
  "holds": [
    {"type": "smog_certification_required", "detail": "Smog certification is required to renew."}
  ],
  "raw_status_text": "Your registration expired on 04/30/2025. Renewal fees: $312.00. Smog certification required.",
  "renewal_available": true,
  "source_url": "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do"
}

Not found — plate / secondary mismatch

{
  "success": true,
  "license_plate": "8ABC123",
  "registration_status": "not_found",
  "expiration_date": null,
  "fees_due_usd": null,
  "holds": [],
  "raw_status_text": "We could not locate a record matching the information provided.",
  "renewal_available": false,
  "source_url": "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do",
  "note": "Plate may exist but the secondary identifier (VIN-last-5 / last-name / company-name) didn't match. Re-prompt the user."
}

Site-blocked / WAF wall

{
  "success": false,
  "error_reasoning": "waf_blocked",
  "raw_status_text": "Your request has been blocked. ... Request ID: <hex>",
  "source_url": "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do",
  "remediation": "Rotate the residential proxy and retry once after 60s. Confirm `--verified` Verified browsers is enabled."
}

Tool offline / maintenance

{
  "success": false,
  "error_reasoning": "service_unavailable",
  "raw_status_text": "<verbatim DMV maintenance banner>",
  "source_url": "https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/rsrc/vrapplication.do"
}

Out-of-state plate (user error)

{
  "success": false,
  "error_reasoning": "non_ca_plate",
  "raw_status_text": null,
  "remediation": "This skill only checks California plates. For other states use that state's DMV registration lookup."
}