ADF/XML mapping

The Auto-lead Data Format (ADF/XML) has been the de-facto standard for delivering leads to dealer CRMs for two decades. AAP's lead.vehicle request is designed to translate losslessly to ADF/XML so a dealer's existing pipeline accepts the lead unchanged.

This page documents the field-by-field translation. The dealer agent (or the dealer's CRM adapter) generates the XML; the buyer agent only sends AAP JSON.

Mapping table

AAP field (vehicle_lead_request)	ADF element / attribute	Notes
customer.first_name + customer.last_name	<contact><name part="full">{first} {last}</name></contact>	ADF expects a full-name node; AAP keeps first/last separate. The mapper concatenates with a single space.
customer.email	<contact><email>...</email></contact>	RFC 5322 email.
customer.phone	<contact><phone>...</phone></contact>	E.164 phone (e.g. +14155550123). ADF allows free-form phones; AAP normalizes to E.164.
customer.address.line1 / line2	<contact><address><street line="1">...</street><street line="2">...</street></address></contact>	Optional.
customer.address.city	<contact><address><city>...</city></address></contact>	Optional.
customer.address.region_code	<contact><address><regioncode>...</regioncode></address></contact>	Optional.
customer.address.postal_code	<contact><address><postalcode>...</postalcode></address></contact>	Optional.
customer.address.country_code	<contact><address><country>...</country></address></contact>	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 (e.g. US).
vehicles[0].year / make / model	<vehicle><year>...</year><make>...</make><model>...</model></vehicle>	The required ADF trio. Provided either directly on vehicles[0] or by VIN-decoding the dealer-side listing.
vehicles[0].trim	<vehicle><trim>...</trim></vehicle>	Optional.
vehicles[0].vin	<vehicle><vin>...</vin></vehicle>	Optional but recommended.
vehicles[0].stock	<vehicle><stock>...</stock></vehicle>	Optional.
intent	<vehicle interest="..."> (one of buy, lease, sell, trade-in, test-drive)	Maps to ADF's interest attribute. AAP buy/lease/trade_in/test_drive map to ADF buy/lease/trade-in/test-drive; AAP has no sell.
vehicles[0].condition	<vehicle status="..."> (one of new, used)	ADF accepts only new or used. AAP certified MAPS TO status="used" AND a free-text comment such as <comments>certified pre-owned</comments> indicating CPO status.
finance_type	<finance><method>...</method></finance> (one of cash, finance, lease)	Direct mapping.
submitted_at	<requestdate>...</requestdate>	ISO 8601 (e.g. 2026-04-30T10:15:10Z).
message	<comments>...</comments>	Free-text user message. ADF aggregates here; CPO/condition note may be appended.
source_agent	<provider><name part="full">{source_agent}</name></provider>	Identifies the buyer-agent provider (e.g. chatgpt-shopping).
Dealer name (from dealer.information trade_name, or contract.dealer.name)	<vendor><vendorname>...</vendorname></vendor>	Dealer agent fills this from its own profile, not from the buyer agent.
trade_in.year / make / model / mileage	A second <vehicle interest="trade-in">...</vehicle> block with <year>, <make>, <model>, <odometer>	Trade-in vehicle goes in its own ADF <vehicle> block.

Nothing in consent, consent_grant, lead_intent (general lead), intent.body_type, intent.fuel, intent.budget_max, intent.timeline, vehicles[0].vehicle_id, or AAP's Customer.preferred_contact is part of ADF. Dealers can keep that AAP context in their CRM as an extension or in <comments>.

Concrete worked example

Given the lead.vehicle example request:

{
  "type": "lead.vehicle.request",
  "vehicles": [
    {
      "vin": "1HGCV1F30KA000001",
      "year": 2022,
      "make": "Honda",
      "model": "Civic",
      "trim": "EX",
      "condition": "certified"
    }
  ],
  "intent": "buy",
  "finance_type": "finance",
  "timeline": "1_3_months",
  "trade_in": {
    "year": 2014, "make": "Toyota", "model": "Corolla", "mileage": 96000
  },
  "message": "Interested in this Civic; can you confirm availability and best price with my trade?",
  "customer": {
    "first_name": "Anna", "last_name": "Lee",
    "email": "anna@example.com", "phone": "+14155550123",
    "preferred_contact": "email",
    "address": {
      "line1": "200 Folsom St", "city": "San Francisco",
      "region_code": "CA", "postal_code": "94105", "country_code": "US"
    }
  },
  "consent": {
    "granted_at": "2026-04-30T10:15:00Z",
    "allowed_channels": ["email", "phone"],
    "consent_text": "I agree to share my contact info with Demo Toyota about this 2022 Honda Civic.",
    "source_agent": "chatgpt-shopping",
    "scope": ["vehicle_inquiry"]
  },
  "source_agent": "chatgpt-shopping",
  "submitted_at": "2026-04-30T10:15:10Z"
}

The dealer-side ADF/XML payload is:

<?adf version="1.0"?>
<adf>
  <prospect>
    <requestdate>2026-04-30T10:15:10Z</requestdate>

    <vehicle interest="buy" status="used">
      <year>2022</year>
      <make>Honda</make>
      <model>Civic</model>
      <trim>EX</trim>
      <vin>1HGCV1F30KA000001</vin>
      <comments>certified pre-owned</comments>
    </vehicle>

    <vehicle interest="trade-in">
      <year>2014</year>
      <make>Toyota</make>
      <model>Corolla</model>
      <odometer units="mi">96000</odometer>
    </vehicle>

    <customer>
      <contact>
        <name part="full">Anna Lee</name>
        <email>anna@example.com</email>
        <phone>+14155550123</phone>
        <address>
          <street line="1">200 Folsom St</street>
          <city>San Francisco</city>
          <regioncode>CA</regioncode>
          <postalcode>94105</postalcode>
          <country>US</country>
        </address>
      </contact>
      <comments>Interested in this Civic; can you confirm availability and best price with my trade?</comments>
    </customer>

    <finance>
      <method>finance</method>
    </finance>

    <provider>
      <name part="full">chatgpt-shopping</name>
    </provider>

    <vendor>
      <vendorname>Demo Toyota</vendorname>
    </vendor>
  </prospect>
</adf>

Note:

• condition: "certified" becomes <vehicle status="used"> PLUS a <comments>certified pre-owned</comments> line. Plain ADF has no certified value.
• intent: "buy" becomes interest="buy". AAP trade_in maps to ADF interest="trade-in"; AAP test_drive maps to interest="test-drive".
• The dealer name Demo Toyota is filled from the dealer agent's own profile, not from the buyer agent's request.
• The user message and the trade-in details land in ADF <comments> and a second <vehicle> block respectively.

What does NOT map to ADF

The ADF format predates structured agent consent. AAP's consent (ConsentGrant) is preserved alongside the lead in the dealer CRM as an audit record but does not have an ADF equivalent. Dealers typically:

• Persist the full ConsentGrant JSON in a separate consent table or audit log.
• Surface consent.allowed_channels to the dealer's BDC or CRM rules engine to decide which channels to actually use for follow-up (and to refuse unauthorized channels).

consent MUST NOT be silently dropped on the dealer side; it is a regulatory requirement that the buyer agent passes through.

ADF compatibility flag

The contract manifest sets adf_compatible: true for lead.general, lead.vehicle, and lead.appointment. Among them, only lead.vehicle carries enough vehicle context to populate ADF's required <vehicle> trio cleanly; lead.general and lead.appointment are typically forwarded into the dealer CRM as ADF leads with synthetic placeholder vehicles (e.g. omitted or left as a generic inquiry record), per the dealer's CRM conventions.

For implementation guidance on the receiving side, see your CRM vendor's ADF documentation; AAP does not specify wire-level ADF transport (FTP, SMTP, HTTP POST), only the field-level translation.