openquery 0.3.2

Query public data sources worldwide via scraping and APIs

OpenQuery

Query public data sources worldwide through a unified CLI and REST API.

OpenQuery provides a plugin-based framework for scraping government websites, public registries, and open data APIs. It handles the hard parts — browser automation, CAPTCHA solving, WAF bypass, caching, and rate limiting — so you can focus on the data.

Features

• Unified interface — one CLI and one API endpoint for all data sources
• Browser automation — Playwright-based scraping for JavaScript-heavy sites
• Multi-engine CAPTCHA solving — PaddleOCR (100%), EasyOCR+Tesseract voting (90%), with cloud and paid fallbacks
• LLM-powered knowledge CAPTCHAs — Ollama (local), HuggingFace, Anthropic, OpenAI fallback chain
• Audit & evidence — screenshots, network logs, and PDF evidence reports for compliance
• WAF bypass — browser-context API calls preserve session cookies
• Caching — in-memory, Redis, or SQLite backends with configurable TTL
• Rate limiting — per-source token-bucket to respect server limits
• REST API — FastAPI server with auto-generated OpenAPI docs
• Extensible — add new data sources by implementing a single class
• Country-organized — sources grouped by country code (co, us, etc.)

Built-in Sources

Source	Country	Description	Inputs	Browser
co.simit	CO	Traffic fines and violations	cedula, placa	Yes
co.runt	CO	Vehicle registry (SOAT, RTM, ownership)	vin, placa, cedula	Yes
co.procuraduria	CO	Disciplinary records	cedula	Yes
co.policia	CO	Criminal background	cedula	Yes
co.adres	CO	Health system enrollment (EPS)	cedula	Yes
co.pico_y_placa	CO	Driving restrictions (Bogota/Medellin/Cali)	placa	No
co.peajes	CO	Toll road tariffs (ANI)	custom	No
co.combustible	CO	Fuel prices by city/station	custom	No
co.estaciones_ev	CO	EV charging stations	custom	No
co.siniestralidad	CO	Road crash hotspots (ANSV)	custom	No
co.vehiculos	CO	National vehicle fleet data	placa, custom	No
co.fasecolda	CO	Vehicle reference prices (insurance)	custom	Yes
co.recalls	CO	Vehicle safety recalls (SIC)	custom	Yes

Installation

pip install openquery

Or with uv:

uv add openquery

System Dependencies

Playwright browsers are required for web scraping:

playwright install chromium

CAPTCHA Engines (pick one or more)

OpenQuery auto-detects installed OCR engines and builds an optimal solver chain:

Engine	Accuracy	Speed	Install
PaddleOCR (recommended)	100%	~130ms	pip install "openquery[paddleocr]"
EasyOCR + Tesseract (voting)	90%	~500ms	pip install "openquery[easyocr]" + brew install tesseract
Tesseract alone	80%	~390ms	brew install tesseract (included by default)

For knowledge-based CAPTCHAs (Procuraduria), you need at least one LLM backend:

Backend	Cost	Setup
Ollama (recommended)	Free	ollama pull llama3.2:1b
HuggingFace Inference	Free	Set HF_TOKEN env var
Anthropic	Paid	Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY env var
OpenAI	Paid	Set OPENAI_API_KEY env var

Optional Extras

pip install "openquery[paddleocr]"   # PaddleOCR — best CAPTCHA accuracy (100%)
pip install "openquery[easyocr]"     # EasyOCR — good accuracy (85%), combines with Tesseract for 90%
pip install "openquery[huggingface]" # HuggingFace Inference API (OCR + QA)
pip install "openquery[serve]"       # FastAPI server (fastapi, uvicorn)
pip install "openquery[redis]"       # Redis cache backend
pip install "openquery[captcha]"     # 2captcha paid CAPTCHA solving (last resort)

Quick Start

CLI

# List available data sources
openquery sources

# Query Colombian traffic fines by cedula
openquery query co.simit --cedula 12345678

# Query Colombian vehicle registry by plate
openquery query co.runt --placa ABC123

# Query by VIN
openquery query co.runt --vin 5YJ3E1EA1PF000001

# Disciplinary records
openquery query co.procuraduria --cedula 12345678

# Criminal background
openquery query co.policia --cedula 12345678

# Health system enrollment
openquery query co.adres --cedula 12345678

# Pico y placa — is my plate restricted today?
openquery query co.pico_y_placa --placa ABC123

# Toll tariffs
openquery query co.peajes --custom peaje --extra '{"peaje": "ALVARADO"}'

# Fuel prices in Bogota
openquery query co.combustible --custom fuel --extra '{"municipio": "BOGOTA"}'

# EV charging stations in Medellin
openquery query co.estaciones_ev --custom ev --extra '{"ciudad": "Medellin"}'

# Road crash hotspots
openquery query co.siniestralidad --custom stats --extra '{"departamento": "CUNDINAMARCA"}'

# Vehicle fleet lookup by plate
openquery query co.vehiculos --placa ABC123

# Output raw JSON
openquery query co.simit --cedula 12345678 --json

# Generate audit evidence (screenshots + PDF report)
openquery query co.runt --placa ABC123 --audit --audit-dir ./evidence

REST API

# Start the API server
openquery serve

# Or with custom host/port
openquery serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 3000

Then query via HTTP:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/v1/query \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "source": "co.simit",
    "document_type": "cedula",
    "document_number": "12345678"
  }'

Response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "source": "co.simit",
  "queried_at": "2026-03-31T10:30:00Z",
  "cached": false,
  "latency_ms": 4523,
  "data": {
    "comparendos": 0,
    "multas": 0,
    "total_deuda": 0.0,
    "paz_y_salvo": true
  }
}

API Endpoints:

Method	Path	Description
POST	/api/v1/query	Query a data source
GET	/api/v1/sources	List available sources
GET	/api/v1/health	Health check and cache stats
GET	/docs	Interactive API documentation

Docker

docker compose up

This starts the API server with Redis caching on port 8000.

Configuration

All settings use environment variables with the OPENQUERY_ prefix:

Variable	Default	Description
OPENQUERY_API_KEY	(none)	API key for server authentication
OPENQUERY_CACHE_BACKEND	memory	Cache backend: memory, redis, sqlite
OPENQUERY_CACHE_TTL_DEFAULT	3600	Default cache TTL in seconds
OPENQUERY_REDIS_URL	redis://localhost:6379/0	Redis connection URL
OPENQUERY_BROWSER_HEADLESS	true	Run browser in headless mode
OPENQUERY_BROWSER_TIMEOUT	30.0	Browser operation timeout in seconds
OPENQUERY_RATE_LIMIT_DEFAULT_RPM	10	Default requests per minute per source
OPENQUERY_LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Logging level
TWO_CAPTCHA_API_KEY	(none)	2captcha.com API key (paid fallback)
HF_TOKEN	(none)	HuggingFace token (free OCR + QA)
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	(none)	Anthropic API key (paid QA fallback)
OPENAI_API_KEY	(none)	OpenAI API key (paid QA fallback)

Adding a New Source

Create a new source by implementing the BaseSource class:

# src/openquery/sources/us/nhtsa.py
from pydantic import BaseModel
from openquery.sources import register
from openquery.sources.base import BaseSource, DocumentType, QueryInput, SourceMeta


class NhtsaResult(BaseModel):
    manufacturer: str = ""
    model: str = ""
    year: int = 0
    recalls: list[dict] = []


@register
class NhtsaSource(BaseSource):
    def meta(self) -> SourceMeta:
        return SourceMeta(
            name="us.nhtsa",
            display_name="NHTSA Vehicle Safety",
            description="US vehicle safety recalls and VIN decoding",
            country="US",
            url="https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/",
            supported_inputs=[DocumentType.VIN],
            requires_captcha=False,
            requires_browser=False,
            rate_limit_rpm=30,
        )

    def query(self, input: QueryInput) -> NhtsaResult:
        import httpx
        resp = httpx.get(
            f"https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/decodevin/{input.document_number}",
            params={"format": "json"},
        )
        data = resp.json()
        # Parse and return NhtsaResult...

The @register decorator automatically makes the source available in the CLI, API, and source listing.

Architecture

openquery/
├── core/
│   ├── browser.py    # Playwright browser management
│   ├── captcha.py    # Multi-engine CAPTCHA solvers (PaddleOCR, EasyOCR, Tesseract, voting)
│   ├── llm.py        # LLM QA chain (Ollama, HuggingFace, Anthropic, OpenAI)
│   ├── audit.py      # Evidence capture (screenshots, network logs, PDF reports)
│   ├── cache.py      # Caching backends (memory, Redis, SQLite)
│   └── rate_limit.py # Token-bucket rate limiting
├── sources/          # Data source plugins, organized by country
│   ├── base.py       # BaseSource ABC — implement this to add sources
│   ├── co/           # Colombia (SIMIT, RUNT, Procuraduria, Policia, ADRES)
│   └── us/           # United States (future)
├── models/           # Pydantic response models, organized by country
├── server/           # FastAPI REST API
└── commands/         # Typer CLI commands

Development

git clone https://github.com/dacrypt/openquery.git
cd openquery
uv sync --all-extras
playwright install chromium

# Run tests
uv run pytest

# Lint
uv run ruff check src/ tests/

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.

Documentation

Guide	Description
Getting Started	Installation, first query, engine setup
Sources Guide	All 5 Colombian sources with field reference
CAPTCHA Guide	OCR engines, voting, LLM backends, benchmarks
Audit Guide	Evidence capture, PDF reports, compliance
API Guide	REST endpoints, authentication, deployment
Adding Sources	Step-by-step guide to create new source plugins
Changelog	Version history

License

MIT