INDEPENDENT MERCHANT INTELLIGENCEPUBLIC BETA / SEPTEMBER 2026 BASELINE
learn / Merchant field guide

How the commerce stack works

Follow one product from your source of truth to an agent-assisted shopping decision.

Merchant answer / Evidence review pending

Your operational systems know what you sell. A product record needs an identity that survives transformations: a variant should not become a different item when it moves from a PIM to a storefront to a feed. Price and stock may change more quickly than descriptive content. Record who owns each field and how an update reaches each destination.

What this establishes
A practical way to inspect evidence and make the next merchant decision.

What it cannot establish
An unresolved dependency remains. Treat affected claims as provisional. Live merchant deployment, private account eligibility, purchase completion or guaranteed AI selection.

Evidence dates and document versions remain attached to the ledger below. Editorial presentation reviewed 30 September 2026; this is not a new source verification.

Begin with a product record

Your operational systems know what you sell. A product record needs an identity that survives transformations: a variant should not become a different item when it moves from a PIM to a storefront to a feed. Price and stock may change more quickly than descriptive content. Record who owns each field and how an update reaches each destination.

Distribution and commerce are separate jobs

A feed packages information for a destination. A commerce interface can expose operations such as creating or updating a checkout. A transport carries messages. Payment and authorization mechanisms address how an action can be funded and permitted. One provider may span several jobs, but the jobs remain separate. This is why two protocols can be complementary even when both appear in an integration diagram.

Close the loop with evidence

Monitor what is actually observable: a successful feed delivery, a correctly displayed item, a sampled public field or an authorized test in the provider’s sandbox. Keep the environment and date with the observation. Do not combine laboratory tests, vendor announcements and live merchant results into one unlabeled readiness claim.

Your next step

Evidence ledger

Go to the source.

Primary documentation records what is publicly stated. It does not independently prove outcomes or your account’s eligibility.

  • UCP overview, 2026-08-25

    UCP · official primary · Checked 2026-09-28

    Claim scope: Discovery profile and commerce capabilities

    Version-pinned profile discovery; declared capabilities do not prove successful transactions.

    Source ID: ucp-spec · Published: Not stated

  • MCP specification 2026-07-28

    MCP project · official primary · Checked 2026-09-28

    Claim scope: Tools, resources, prompts and transport

    Source ID: mcp-spec · Published: Not stated

  • Agentic Payment Protocol v0.2

    AP2 project · official primary · Checked 2026-09-28

    Claim scope: Authorization mandates and receipts

    Payment authorization within a commerce protocol; catalog API details are out of scope.

    Source ID: ap2-spec · Published: Not stated

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