CAD Parts

Overview

Use the hosted step.parts machine endpoints instead of scraping HTML or relying on local repository files. Treat https://api.step.parts as the canonical API origin and https://www.step.parts as the site/static-asset origin unless the user provides a different hosted mirror. If the domain does not resolve or the API is unavailable, report that the hosted service is not reachable yet instead of falling back to repo-specific assumptions.

Quick Workflow

1. Interpret the requested part into search terms and optional facets:
   • q for fuzzy tokens, standards, aliases, dimensions, source/product URLs, and attribute names/values.
   • category, family, standard, or tag when the user gives an exact facet.
2. Search /v1/parts and inspect items, total, and facets.
3. If results are ambiguous, present the best few options with id, name, standard, and key attributes before choosing. If one result clearly matches, return the selected record details without downloading unless the user asked for a local STEP file.
4. When the user asks to download or save a STEP file, download its stepUrl, then verify the file with the record's sha256 when present.
5. Return the local path when downloaded, plus the selected part id and page/API URLs so the user can trace provenance.

Bundled Downloader

Use scripts/download_step_part.py for deterministic search, download, and checksum verification: