motovaultpro/docs/changes/platform-vehicle-data-loader.md

Platform Vehicle Data Loader Refresh

Context

• Reintroduced the normalized vehicles schema (make/model/model_year/trim/engine + bridges) with a new migration under backend/src/features/platform/migrations/001_create_vehicle_lookup_schema.sql.
• Added scripts/load_vehicle_data.py, a stand-alone Python loader that hydrates the schema from data/make-models/*.json.
• Loader truncates lookup tables, seeds default transmissions (Automatic, Manual), and inserts deduplicated year → make → model → trim → engine combinations.

Follow-up Tasks (Backend API Team)

1. Wire dropdown API to refreshed data
   • Run make migrate (or npm run migrate:all inside backend container) to ensure the new schema exists.
   • Execute the loader (see command below) so Postgres has the latest lookup entries.
   • Verify VehicleDataRepository queries and Redis caching logic continue to function against the reinstated tables.
2. Add Makefile wrapper
   • Create a make load-vehicle-data task that shells into the backend container, installs psycopg if needed, and invokes python3 scripts/load_vehicle_data.py with the correct DB credentials and data directory.

Loader Command Reference

PGPASSWORD=$(cat secrets/app/postgres-password.txt) \
python3 scripts/load_vehicle_data.py \
  --db-host 127.0.0.1 \
  --db-port 5432 \
  --db-user postgres \
  --db-name motovaultpro \
  --data-dir data/make-models

Run the command from the repository root (outside of containers) while mvp-postgres is up. Adjust host/port if executing inside a container.