target-research

Target research

Browse and search Target's catalog and pull product detail, pricing, availability, questions, and reviews — all as normalized JSON from the Crawlora API, with no HTML scraping.

When to use this skill

• "What does X cost on Target?" or "find X on Target."
• "Browse this Target category" / "what's in Target's [department]?"
• "Filter Target results by [brand/size/price]."
• "Pull the Q&A / reviews for this Target product."
• "Check price or availability for this Target item at a specific store."

Setup (one-time)

• Get a free Crawlora API key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net.
• Set CRAWLORA_API_KEY in the environment before running the helper.
• The helper reads CRAWLORA_API_KEY from the environment and sends requests to https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1. Missing/invalid key → 401.

How it works

1. Browse or search — /target/categories lists the category menu and ids; /target/category-products (category_id) or /target/search (q) return paginated products plus the filter groups/options available for that result set.
2. Filter — /target/filter-options returns the dynamic filter groups for a query (q) or category (category_id) on its own, if you need them before browsing; pass selected option ids back through filter_ids (comma-separated) on category-products or search to narrow results.
3. Detail — /target/product (tcin) fetches full product content, images, price, rating, category, and store-level availability.
4. Q&A and reviews — /target/questions and /target/reviews (both keyed by tcin) pull paginated product questions/answers and written reviews.
5. Compare the JSON fields (price, rating, availability) across items or stores and answer.

Full endpoint list, methods, and params: reference/endpoints.md.

Calling the API

# Search Target (GET, key=value params):
scripts/crawlora.sh /target/search q="standing desk" sort=price-low | jq '.'

# Browse a category, filtered and priced for a store:
scripts/crawlora.sh /target/category-products category_id=5xtg6 store_id=1234 filter_ids=5xtvw | jq '.'

# Product detail:
scripts/crawlora.sh /target/product tcin=54191097 | jq '.data'

# Reviews:
scripts/crawlora.sh /target/reviews tcin=54191097 per_page=20 | jq '.'

Use scripts/crawlora.sh for all requests; it keeps the API key out of command-line arguments.

Endpoint reference

See reference/endpoints.md for every Target endpoint this skill uses (method, path, params, description).

Examples

• Category sweep with pricing: /target/categories to find a department's category_id, then /target/category-products paginated with store_id set, to list local prices and availability.
• Product due diligence: /target/product for price/rating, then /target/questions and /target/reviews (both by tcin) to summarize what shoppers ask and say before recommending it.
• Filtered search: /target/search for a query, inspect the returned filter groups, then re-call with filter_ids set to narrow by brand/size/price band.

Notes & limits

• Credits / pay-on-success: billed only on 2xx; free tier 2,000 credits/mo. Key at https://crawlora.net.
• Public data only — public Target product/category pages; respect Target's terms.
• Security: key lives in CRAWLORA_API_KEY only — never hardcode, query-param, or commit it.
• Results are paginated — pass page (and per_page/count where supported) to walk listings.
• Product identity is tcin (numeric Target item id), not a SKU or ASIN — /target/product, /target/questions, and /target/reviews all key off it.
• Pagination isn't uniform: category-products/search use one-based page (max 50), while questions/reviews use zero-based page (also max 50 on reviews).
• store_id is optional but drives store-specific pricing and availability — omit it for a generic/national result.