opentable-fpx

OpenTable via fpx (no MCP)

OpenTable fronts www.opentable.com with Akamai bot protection, and every booking/cancel action rides the user's own signed-in session (their loyalty account, saved cards) — there's no API key and no server-side login. fpx routes requests through the user's own signed-in browser tab (the Transporter extension), which already carries a cleared session, so the same requests the opentable.com web app makes succeed.

This is the same data/actions the opentable_* MCP tools expose, reached with one-shot CLI calls instead of a running server. Every body/header/hash below is transcribed verbatim from opentable-mcp's src/client.ts and src/tools/*.ts — not guessed.

One-time setup

npm install -g @fetchproxy/cli            # provides `fpx`
fpx profile add opentable --domain opentable.com
fpx pair -p opentable                     # prints a pair code → approve in Transporter

Requirements: the Transporter browser extension installed, an open www.opentable.com tab signed in, and its Chrome Site access allowing opentable.com. Pairing persists — after the first approval every later fpx call reuses it.

Core call pattern

Two response families:

• SSR HTML (/s, /r/{slug}, /user/dining-dashboard, /user/favorites, /booking/details) embeds the page's data as a window.__INITIAL_STATE__ = {...} (or "__INITIAL_STATE__":{...}) JSON blob inside the HTML — extract it with references/extract-initial-state.mjs before jq.
• /dapi/... JSON/GraphQL returns plain JSON on stdout — pipe straight to jq.

fpx get 'https://www.opentable.com/r/state-of-confusion-charlotte' -p opentable \
  | node references/extract-initial-state.mjs \
  | jq '.restaurantProfile.restaurant | {id: .restaurantId, name, bookable: (.type != "Listing")}'

Most GraphQL calls here are Apollo persisted queries — you send an operation name + a pre-registered sha256Hash, never GraphQL text. Write the body to a file first (a heredoc avoids shell-quoting the nested JSON), then fpx post-json @file -p opentable.

The one rule: resolve dining_area_id before you book

The numeric dining_area_id needed to lock a slot and make a reservation is not in the search or find-slots responses — it only appears on the /booking/details SSR page's timeSlot.diningAreasBySeating[]. Always fetch that page first and take diningAreasBySeating[0].diningAreaId (or match .tableCategory to the seating you want) before locking or booking. That page is also where you learn whether the slot is CC-required, has a cancellation-fee policy, or requires picking an Experience — read it before committing to a booking, same as the MCP's opentable_book_preview.

Full request catalogue

Ready-to-run bodies for every read + write (search, restaurant detail, find-slots, reservations/profile/favorites, book preview→commit, modify, cancel) with jq recipes and the persisted-query hashes are in references/opentable-fpx-requests.md.

Sign-in detection

A response is the sign-in interstitial, not real data, when the fetched URL contains /authenticate/ or the HTML body contains continue-with-email-button / header-sign-in-button. Sign into opentable.com in the bridged tab and retry.

Exit codes (fetch verbs)

• 0 — success. A GraphQL response can still carry a top-level errors array in a 0-exit body — check jq '.errors // empty'.
• 2 — bridge unavailable: extension not connected / pairing pending → fpx pair -p opentable, confirm an opentable.com tab is open.
• 3 — bot wall: the tab hasn't cleared Akamai → open/refresh a www.opentable.com tab and retry.
• 4 — upstream non-2xx from OpenTable — the body usually names the invalid/missing field.

Notes

• Booking, modifying, and cancelling are real actions with no confirm-gate here. The MCP's opentable_book/opentable_modify/ opentable_cancel tools require confirm: true and a mandatory preview step; raw fpx calls have none of that — a make-reservation POST commits immediately. Fetch /booking/details and read the cancellation policy first (§5 of the reference) before calling it.
• Same-day double-booking, CC-required slots, 3-D Secure, Experience- mandatory slots, and non-NA databaseRegion shards are all real OpenTable constraints — see references/opentable-fpx-requests.md and this repo's CLAUDE.md → "Hot spots / gotchas" for the full detail.
• fpx health -p opentable shows bridge connection state when a call fails.
• This project is developed and maintained by AI (Claude).