License Verify

Verify contractor license status mid-task. Returns normalized JSON with active|expired|suspended|revoked status, bond details, and insurance. Two delivery modes: MCP server (stdio, for Claude/agent use) and Apify Actor (pay-per-event, agentic-payments eligible).

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Jurisdictions

State	Status	Source	Bond + Insurance
WA	✅ Live	WA L&I open data (data.wa.gov)	✅ Real data (bzff-4fmt + ciwg-agsx datasets)
CA	⚠️ Beta	CSLB HTML (cslb.ca.gov)	✅ Parsed when CSLB is up

Washington is the reliable, production-ready jurisdiction. Official WA L&I open data is served via Socrata JSON — no scraping, no rate limits, bond and insurance data included from dedicated datasets.

California is beta. CSLB does not publish an open API; the provider fetches the HTML detail page directly. CSLB rate-limits or 503s automated requests intermittently. When unavailable, verify_license returns a clean SESSION_ERROR — you are never charged on source failures. Do not rely on CA for production workflows until a stable server-side CSLB run is confirmed.

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Apify Actor

Agentic-payments eligible — pay-per-event pricing + limited permissions + no Standby mode.

Pricing

Event	Price
license-verification	$0.03 per lookup

Charged only on found: true. Validation errors, not-found results, and source failures are not charged.

Input

{
  "jurisdiction": "WA",
  "license_number": "ECOSTSC758NN"
}

Field	Type	Required	Notes
jurisdiction	"WA" | "CA"	✅	WA = live; CA = beta
license_number	string	one of ↓	WA: alphanumeric. CA: numeric, ≤8 digits
business_name	string	one of ↑	WA only. Partial match, may return matches[]

Output (default dataset)

{
  "found": true,
  "jurisdiction": "WA",
  "query": { "license_number": "ECOSTSC758NN" },
  "result": {
    "license_number": "ECOSTSC758NN",
    "business_name": "!ECO STAR C G CONSTRUCTION LLC",
    "status": "active",
    "license_type": "CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTOR",
    "bonded": {
      "is_bonded": true,
      "details": "Surety: NORTH RIVER INSURANCE COMPANY THE; Bond #: 46CF842686; Amount: $30,000; Effective: 2025-08-05; Expires: Until Canceled"
    },
    "insured": {
      "has_insurance": true,
      "details": "Carrier: State National Ins Co Inc; Policy: NXT9PTHTLT-01-GL; Coverage: $1,000,000; Agency: Next Insurance Inc; Effective: 2026-06-12; Expires: 2027-06-12"
    },
    "effective_date": "2025-08-15",
    "expiration_date": "2027-08-15"
  },
  "source_url": "https://data.wa.gov/resource/m8qx-ubtq",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-06-26T01:34:37.598Z",
  "raw": { ... }
}

status is always one of: active | expired | suspended | revoked | unknown.

On failure: { "found": false, "error": "SESSION_ERROR|NETWORK_ERROR|...", "message": "..." } — never a crash, never a charge.

Local test

npm install
npm run build
echo '{"jurisdiction":"WA","license_number":"ECOSTSC758NN"}' \
  > storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json
npx apify run

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MCP Server (stdio)

For use with Claude Desktop, Smithery, or any MCP-compatible agent.

Tools

verify_license — verify a contractor's license status.

• jurisdiction (required): "WA" or "CA"
• license_number and/or business_name (at least one required)

list_supported_jurisdictions — list all states with their status and data source.

Config (Claude Desktop)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "license-verify": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/license-verify-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Run

npm install && npm run build
npm run start:mcp   # stdio MCP server
npm run smoke       # hit real WA + CA endpoints, must be 8/8 PASS

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Adding a State

1. Create src/providers/<CODE>.ts implementing the Provider interface ({ info, verify() })
2. Register it in src/providers/index.ts

No other changes needed in server or Actor.

License

MIT