A catalog and a feed have different roles
Your catalog represents product truth. A feed is a delivery format for a destination. Mapping, unit conversion, taxonomy and eligibility filters happen between them. Preserve the original identity and explain every transformation. A successful upload cannot prove that a price was correct or that every item was accepted.
Design for updates and removals
Stock, price and availability change. Define delivery cadence, partial failure handling, retries and removal behavior for each destination. OpenAI’s file-upload documentation recommends at least daily full snapshots; that is one destination’s guidance, not a rule to apply to every platform. Check whether an omitted item disappears immediately or remains eligible until a retention period expires.
Use validation before distribution
Test a small sample before expanding. Separate structural errors, missing values and business-rule errors. Our feed checker looks at a deliberately limited JSON sample in your browser. It does not upload to any surface, certify protocol compliance or validate private catalog acceptance.