openchargemap-guide

Scope

Use Open Charge Map to discover registered charging stations and inspect their equipment, access conditions and community check-ins. It cannot guarantee present operation or an unoccupied stall, plan a driving route, or search a global stream of fault reports. Live station calls require the server's configured Open Charge Map API key.

Place-name resolution composes with an external geocoder such as openstreetmap_search_places; an existing coordinate or bounding box needs no geocoding step.

Identifiers

• openchargemap_find_stations returns the numeric station id used by openchargemap_get_station and openchargemap_get_station_comments. A station's uuid cannot be used to fetch it.
• openchargemap_lookup_reference returns category-specific reference IDs. Follow its filterParam when present; country entries instead supply isoCode. A numeric country ID is not a country search code, and current-type entries have no direct search filter.
• Connector families can resolve to multiple entries. Select the variants appropriate to the user's equipment and region rather than treating the first match as universal. An unknown connector entry does not establish vehicle compatibility.

Gates

1. Confirm the applied search scope before comparing results. Read the search summary and notices. An unrecognized country code is not applied, so resolve a valid country code and repeat before describing results as country-restricted.
2. Check the intended connection before recommending a station. A station can have several connector types and power ratings. Inspect the matching connection's power, status and notes with openchargemap_get_station, together with station access restrictions and cost. A search match does not establish that the user's connector supplies the station's highest power. Missing power, quantity or access evidence stays unknown; estimated power is not guaranteed delivery.
3. Separate recent evidence from registry claims. Compare status text, operational flags, verification dates and dated check-in outcomes before calling a charger usable. A station-level operational flag does not override an unavailable or partly operational status, or a fault on the intended connection. No comments and no reliability warning are not confirmations that charging works.
4. Establish coverage before claiming absence or completeness. An empty successful response may mean no matches, an offset past the end, or no matching stations in the retrieved candidate pool. Use the notice and counts to distinguish them. Follow nextOffset when supplied; if the notice says upstream stations remain beyond the pool, narrow the area or add suitable filters. A retrieved count is then a floor, not the area's total. Even an exhausted registry search establishes only what OCM records for that scope.
5. Resolve reference misses before relaxing the user's requirements. For an empty lookup, check spelling, broaden the term or browse the category. Read source with snapshotDate: a bundled snapshot may lack a recently added operator or connector. Do not silently remove an unresolved filter or conclude the network does not exist.