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thorlabs.com

browse-parts-data

Installation

Adds this website's skill for your agents

 

Summary

Look up Thorlabs parts by part number or keyword search and return price (incl. quantity-tier pricing), product info (availability, ECCN, origin, weight, warranty), and datasheet/CAD document download URLs — via the site's GraphQL + Algolia APIs. Read-only.

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Thorlabs Parts, Pricing & Datasheets

Purpose

Given a Thorlabs part number (or a free-text search query), return the part's price, core product information (availability, ECCN, country of origin, weight, warranty, release/discontinued dates, item status), and the download URLs for its documents — datasheet/manual PDF plus CAD/optical model files (CAD PDF, DXF, STEP, SolidWorks, Zemax). Also supports browsing/searching the catalog to discover part numbers and product-family pages. Read-only; never adds to cart or checks out.

When to Use

  • Look up the current price of one or many Thorlabs part numbers (e.g. PDA36A2, AC254-050-A, LA1131), including quantity-tier pricing.
  • Pull a part's datasheet/manual PDF or CAD models programmatically.
  • Search the Thorlabs catalog by keyword ("mounted photodiode", "achromatic lens") to enumerate matching parts and their product-family pages.
  • Any BOM-pricing, procurement, or spec-gathering workflow across many SKUs — the API path is far faster and more reliable than scraping the rendered page.

Workflow

www.thorlabs.com is a Vue single-page app. The legacy ColdFusion URLs (/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber={PN}, /newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=…) still work but 301-redirect to clean routes (/item/{PN} for a part, /{family-slug} for a family page). A plain HTTP GET of /item/{PN} returns only a ~3.5 KB JS shell — the data arrives via a backend GraphQL API. Read the data from that API, not the DOM.

Recommended method — GraphQL API (POST /graphql). Two calls resolve a part number to full data. No login, cookies, or anti-bot stealth are required (anonymous access is allowed; userId may be an empty string). Because the sandbox has no direct network egress, run the fetch from page context after navigating to any thorlabs.com page — it is same-origin, so no CORS/headers issue. A pure-HTTP client can POST /graphql directly with content-type: application/json and apollographql-client-name: spa.

Constants for all calls: storeId: "Thorlabs-Website", cultureName: "en-US", currencyCode: "USD" (change to localize).

  1. Navigate to establish origin (browser path only): browse open https://www.thorlabs.com/item/{PN} --remote, then browse wait load + browse wait timeout 2000.

  2. Resolve the part number → product GUID with GetSlugInfo:

    query GetSlugInfo($slug:String,$storeId:String,$userId:String,$cultureName:String){
  slugInfo(slug:$slug storeId:$storeId userId:$userId cultureName:$cultureName){
    entityInfo{ objectId objectType isActive }
  }
}

    variables: { slug: "item/{PN}", storeId:"Thorlabs-Website", userId:"", cultureName:"en-US" }. entityInfo.objectId is the product GUID. If entityInfo is null (HTTP still 200), the part number does not exist → return success:false.

  3. Fetch full product data with GetProduct (pass the GUID as id):

    query GetProduct($storeId:String!,$currencyCode:String!,$cultureName:String,$id:String!){
  product(storeId:$storeId id:$id currencyCode:$currencyCode cultureName:$cultureName){
    name code slug outline itemStatusTL releasedDateTL discontinuedDateTL
    eccnTL originCountryTL weight weightUnit warrantyTextTL
    dataSheetUrlTL hasDataSheetsTL
    price{ actual{ amount formattedAmount } list{ amount formattedAmount } }
    availabilityData{ availableQuantity isAvailable isInStock isBuyable }
    assets{ id name url size mimeType group description }
    breadcrumbs{ title seoPath }
  }
}

    Price is in price.actual.formattedAmount (e.g. "$400.01").

  4. Documents live in product.assets[] — each is { group, name, url, mimeType, size }. Map group: "Manual" = the datasheet/manual PDF; "CAD PDF" = mechanical drawing; "Step", "Solidworks", "Zemax (ZAR)", "Zemax (ZMX)", "eDrawing / 3D Model" = CAD/optical models. Do not rely on dataSheetUrlTL/hasDataSheetsTL — they are usually null/false even when a Manual asset exists.

  5. Rewrite the asset host to download. asset.url points at the internal CDN https://thin01mstroc282prod.dxcloud.episerver.net/globalassets/…. Replace the host with https://media.thorlabs.com (keep the path + ?v= query) to get the publicly downloadable URL — verified 200 application/pdf.

  6. Batch pricing (many SKUs at once) — skip the per-part GUID round-trip with GetProductsPricing, filtering by SKU list:

    query GetProductsPricing($storeId:String!,$userId:String!,$currencyCode:String!,$cultureName:String,$filter:String,$first:Int){
  products(storeId:$storeId userId:$userId currencyCode:$currencyCode cultureName:$cultureName filter:$filter first:$first){
    items{ code price{ actual{ amount formattedAmount } list{ amount formattedAmount }
      tierPrices{ quantity price{ amount formattedAmount } } } }
  }
}

    variables: { storeId:"Thorlabs-Website", userId:"", currencyCode:"USD", cultureName:"en-US", filter:"sku:PDA36A2,AC254-050-A,LA1131", first:15 }. tierPrices carries quantity-break pricing.

Searching / browsing for parts (Algolia)

Site search is Algolia InstantSearch (a separate host — the on-site /search path is disallowed to crawlers in robots.txt, but the client hits Algolia directly). Public credentials observed in the client: applicationId = TDDBKZ98JB, search key a1937531c100eee2b1920e01075885c4.

POST https://TDDBKZ98JB-dsn.algolia.net/1/indexes/*/queries
     ?x-algolia-application-id=TDDBKZ98JB&x-algolia-api-key=a1937531c100eee2b1920e01075885c4
body: {"requests":[{"indexName":"products_en","query":"<q>","hitsPerPage":15}]}

Indexes: products_en (individual parts — hit objectID = part number, name, url = /item/{pn}, plus familyPageName/familyPageUrl, itemStatus, releasedDate), familypages_en (product-family/category pages), softwarepages_en. Feed each objectID back into step 2/3, or into the batch pricing filter. Algolia does not return price — get price from GraphQL.

Browser fallback

If GraphQL is unavailable, browse open /item/{PN}, wait for render, and read the rendered price and "Support Documents" list. Caveat: document URLs are NOT exposed as hrefs in the DOM (they are click handlers) — you must reconstruct them as https://media.thorlabs.com/globalassets/items/<path>/<filename> from the filename shown in the button label. This is slow and error-prone (an autobrowse run spent all 30 turns on it); prefer the API.

Site-Specific Gotchas

  • /item/{PN} is an empty SPA shell over HTTP (~3.5 KB, <title>Thorlabs</title>, loads /assets/index-*.js). Never parse the raw GET HTML for product data — use GraphQL or a rendered browser.
  • Legacy .cfm URLs 301-redirect. /thorproduct.cfm?partnumber={PN} → /item/{PN}; /newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=… → the family slug. Old bookmarks work but land on the SPA.
  • Not-found is a silent null. GetSlugInfo returns HTTP 200 with entityInfo: null for a non-existent part number — check for null, don't rely on an error status.
  • dataSheetUrlTL / hasDataSheetsTL are unreliable — both were null/false for every part tested even when a datasheet/manual PDF existed. The real documents are always in assets[] (group:"Manual").
  • Asset URLs need a host rewrite. They come back on the internal thin01mstroc282prod.dxcloud.episerver.net host; swap to media.thorlabs.com (same path) to download. CAD file types (.step, .dxf, .sldprt, .zip) are Disallowed in robots.txt for crawlers but are directly downloadable.
  • Price/availability are parameter-scoped, not IP-scoped. currencyCode (USD/EUR/…) and cultureName in the query drive currency and localization; Thorlabs runs separate stores (thorlabs.co.jp, thorlabschina.cn) with their own catalogs. availabilityData.availableQuantity can be 0 while isInStock/isBuyable are true (stocked overseas / made-to-order); the rendered page maps this to labels like "Today" or "In Stock Overseas".
  • No anti-bot. The pre-run probe found none; a bare Browserbase session (no --verified, no --proxies) loaded pages and returned GraphQL 200s. A residential proxy is not required. robots.txt sets Crawl-delay: 30 for generic agents and disallows /search, /thorcat/, /content/, /static/ — keep request rate polite.
  • GraphQL needs no auth. userId:"" works; storeId is the literal "Thorlabs-Website". Send content-type: application/json; the apollographql-client-name: spa header mirrors the site client.
  • Search price gap. Algolia hits carry no price — always resolve price via GetProduct or GetProductsPricing.

Expected Output

Single part (success):

{
  "success": true,
  "part_number": "PDA36A2",
  "name": "PDA36A2 Si Switchable Gain Detector, 350 - 1100 nm, 12 MHz BW, 13 mm², Universal 8-32 / M4 Taps",
  "price": { "amount": 400.01, "formatted": "$400.01", "currency": "USD" },
  "availability": { "availableQuantity": 0, "isInStock": true, "isBuyable": true },
  "item_status": "Active",
  "released_date": "2018-03-14T17:22:35.277Z",
  "eccn": "EAR99",
  "country_of_origin": "USA",
  "weight": { "value": 2.5156, "unit": "pounds" },
  "warranty": "Two year warranty. Incorporated light sources are warrantied for the lesser of one year or (to the extent applicable) the number of hours stated in the specifications.",
  "documents": [
    { "type": "Manual",     "name": "TTN135069-D02.pdf", "url": "https://media.thorlabs.com/globalassets/items/p/pd/pda/pda36a2/ttn135069-d02.pdf" },
    { "type": "CAD PDF",    "name": "TTN135069-E0W.pdf", "url": "https://media.thorlabs.com/globalassets/items/p/pd/pda/pda36a2/ttn135069-e0w.pdf" },
    { "type": "Step",       "name": "TTN135069-E0W.step","url": "https://media.thorlabs.com/globalassets/items/p/pd/pda/pda36a2/ttn135069-e0w.step" }
  ],
  "product_url": "https://www.thorlabs.com/item/PDA36A2",
  "error_reasoning": null
}

Batch pricing (multiple SKUs):

{
  "success": true,
  "currency": "USD",
  "items": [
    { "part_number": "LA1131",      "price": "$26.39",  "tier_prices": [{ "quantity": 1, "price": "$26.39" }] },
    { "part_number": "AC254-050-A", "price": "$95.34",  "tier_prices": [{ "quantity": 1, "price": "$95.34" }] },
    { "part_number": "PDA36A2",     "price": "$400.01", "tier_prices": [{ "quantity": 1, "price": "$400.01" }] }
  ]
}

Search results (browse for parts):

{
  "success": true,
  "query": "mounted photodiode",
  "total_hits": 125,
  "parts": [
    { "part_number": "PBM42",  "name": "Bias Module for Mounted Photodiodes, BNC Input, SMA Output", "url": "https://www.thorlabs.com/item/pbm42" },
    { "part_number": "AMP102", "name": "Transimpedance Amplifier, 100 kHz Bandwidth, Switchable Gain: 1, 10, or 100 kV/A", "url": "https://www.thorlabs.com/item/amp102" }
  ],
  "family_pages": [
    { "id": "282632", "name": "Mounted Photodiodes", "url": "https://www.thorlabs.com/mounted-photodiodes" }
  ]
}

Part not found:

{
  "success": false,
  "part_number": "NOTAREALPART999",
  "error_reasoning": "GetSlugInfo returned HTTP 200 with slugInfo.entityInfo = null; no product exists for this part number.",
  "error": "not_found"
}