Documentation
Customers
customers.find_by_contact
REST
ShippingPOST /api/v1/customers/find_by_contactMCP tool
Livecustomers.find_by_contactExposed on: REST API · Shop MCP server · Claude connector · Dash (in-app copilot) · Zapier. Part of the Customers domain.
Operating contract
The lookup to run BEFORE customers.create, so a second record is not opened for somebody the shop already has. A split customer splits their money and their message history, and merging them back is a person's job.
Exact match, not a search: the phone is normalised the way every write path normalises it, so '+1 (403) 555-0134' finds the row stored as '+14035550134'. Use customers.list with q when you only have part of a name or number.
Pass phone, email, or both — at least one is required. When both are given the phone is tried first, because a shop's texting history hangs off it.
found is null when nobody matches, which is a normal answer and not an error. When it is set, found.id is the customer_id every other capability takes.
Who may call it
- Permission
customers.accessThe caller must hold Customers at the ACT level. A read-only dashboard grant on the same section is refused.- Plan
- Every planNo plan gate. Available on every Service VIN plan.
- Retries
naturalNaturally idempotent — running it twice leaves the same world as running it once. A retrying integration needs no key.- Rate class
readCounted against the read budget — the widest of the four.
Input
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| phone | stringmax 40 chars | A phone number in any format. Normalised before matching. |
| stringmax 200 chars | An email address. Matched case-insensitively. |
Output
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| found | object | null | — |
| found.id | string | — |
| found.name | string | — |
| found.email | string | null | — |
| found.phone | string | null | — |
| found.city | string | null | — |
| found.region | string | null | — |
| found.postal_code | string | null | — |
| found.tags | string[] | — |
| found.is_vip | boolean | — |
| found.created_at | string | — |
| matched_on | string | null | — One of:phone, email |
Examples
Built from this capability's own schema — required fields and the ones carrying a default, and nothing invented. Paste one and it validates.
export SERVICEVIN_API_KEY=svk_live_…
curl -X POST https://www.servicevin.com/api/v1/customers/find_by_contact \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SERVICEVIN_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{}'const res = await fetch("https://www.servicevin.com/api/v1/customers/find_by_contact", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SERVICEVIN_API_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json",
},
body: JSON.stringify({}),
});
// Success and failure are both envelopes. Switch on error.code, never
// on error.message — the codes are stable, the messages are for people.
const payload = await res.json();
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(payload.error.code);
const data = payload.data;import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://www.servicevin.com/api/v1/customers/find_by_contact",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SERVICEVIN_API_KEY']}"},
json={},
timeout=30,
)
payload = res.json()
if not res.ok:
raise RuntimeError(payload["error"]["code"])
data = payload["data"]{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": 1,
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"name": "customers.find_by_contact",
"arguments": {}
}
}Refusals
The four gates run in this order on every surface, and the order is not arbitrary — see Authentication.
| Status | Code | When |
|---|---|---|
| 404 | not_found | The id is unknown, or the feature is not enabled for this account. Deliberately the same answer for both. |
| 403 | forbidden | This login does not hold customers.access. |
| 422 | validation_error | An argument was wrong. The message names the field. |
| 429 | rate_limited | Too many read calls. Back off and retry. |
| 500 | internal_error | Something failed on our side. Nothing was changed. |