search-aliexpress

name	search-aliexpress
description	Search AliExpress as an Israel buyer — ILS pricing, Choice-first, with free-shipping / 4★ / ship-from filters, driven in the user's own Chrome.

Search AliExpress (Israel)

Search the site pinned to the Israel channel, Hebrew locale and ILS pricing, apply listing-page filters, and return the visible product cards.

Choice is the default focus. Unless the user says otherwise, apply the Choice filter (choice=true) — Choice listings ship on AliExpress's own consolidated logistics to Israel (faster, more reliable, often free) and are the recommended default for IL buyers.

When to use

User wants to find a product on AliExpress and cares about ILS prices, shipping availability to Israel, Choice listings, or filtering on free shipping / 4★+ / ship-from country. Produces a first-pass shortlist to hand to ship-options-il (logistics) or fetch-listing (landed cost).

Inputs

• query (required) — free-text product query. Hebrew or English both fine.
• filters (optional, composable):
  • choice: true — Choice / Brand+ only. Defaults true; pass false to include non-Choice listings.
  • freeshipping: true — free shipping only
  • rating4plus: true — 4★ and up only
  • premium: true — Premium Quality badge only
  • ship_from: "IL" | "CN" | "TR" | "all" (default: leave alone)
• max_results (optional, default 20)

Browser route and locale

Drive the user's own Chrome first (mcp__claude-in-chrome__*) — it is signed in, carries the locale cookies already, and is challenged far less than a fresh automation profile. Gateway Playwright is the fallback for unattended runs; headless is a last resort.

Route order, tool mapping, the ILS/Hebrew/ship-to-IL handshake and its verification snippet are all in $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/reference/browser.md. Do the handshake before reading any price. If the currency verification fails, report it and stop — never return USD prices silently as if they were ILS.

Entry point

https://he.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-<url-encoded-query>.html

Use the he. subdomain — the site honours the cookie on any host, but he. is the canonical Israel-Hebrew entry point.

Filters and card extraction

Selectors live in $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/reference/selectors.md — filter chips (aria-label="filterCode:…", click the wrapper not the input, assert aria-checked), the ship-from radio group, and the defensive product-card query.

Two rules that cost time when ignored: never anchor on hashed class names, and wait for the results to re-render after every toggle before reading cards.

Extract per card by parsing the card's innerText, not by class — the price sits in hashed-class spans and [class*="price"] matches nothing (verified broken 2026-09-01; the working parse is in reference/selectors.md). Take url (de-duped by item id — the same item appears in several ad slots), title, priceText (the first currency match; the second is the crossed-out "was"), and any Choice / Max Combo badges.

Wait for the grid to settle before reading. Results hydrate in stages over ~10s; an early read returns a fraction of the cards and none of the filter chips. Poll until the card count stops rising.

Output format

Query: <query>              Route: claude-in-chrome
Filters: choice=… freeshipping=… rating4plus=… premium=… ship_from=…
Locale verified: c_tp=ILS, b_locale=iw_IL
Results URL: <full URL>
Result count: <N>

1. <title>
   ₪<price>   ship from: <country if visible>   badges: [Choice, Max Combo, …]
   <url>
2. …

Out of scope

• Shipping options / lead times per listing — that's ship-options-il.
• Landed cost — that's fetch-listing.
• The $75 threshold — find-under-75 (hunting) or cart-vat-nudge (running total).
• Local Israeli retailer comparison. Order placement or tracking.

Validation checklist

1. Results URL contains he.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-.
2. Locale verified per reference/browser.md. Do not assume the he. host gave you ILS — an account set to EN/USD renders US $ on he.aliexpress.com (verified 2026-09-01). Switch via the on-page picker or report the mismatch.
3. At least one product price string starts with ₪ — or the currency mismatch was reported explicitly.
4. Every requested filter's wrapper reads aria-checked="true" (including the Choice default).
5. Ship-from, if requested, matches the requested ISO-2 code.
6. The browser route actually used is named in the output header.