Version 0.1 · Public Draft
An open protocol for AI-readable commerce catalogs.
The catalog semantic layer of agentic commerce. AIRCP defines how product catalogs should be structured so AI agents can reason about fit, taste, persona, and occasion. Composes with UCP, AP2, A2A, and MCP. MIT licensed.
The Stack
AIRCP composes with the protocol stack that already exists.
Four open protocols define agentic commerce today. MCP exposes tools to agents. A2A connects agents to agents. AP2 authorizes agent-initiated payments. UCP handles checkout and order management. AIRCP completes the stack with the catalog semantic layer — the layer the other four assume exists but do not define.
| Layer | Protocol | What it defines | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool exposure | MCP | How AI tools expose themselves to agents | Widely adopted |
| Agent communication | A2A | How agents talk to other agents | Adopting |
| Payment authorization | AP2 | Verifiable user consent for agent payments via Intent / Cart / Payment Mandates | Adopting (Apache 2.0) |
| Commerce transaction | UCP | Unified checkout sessions, identity linking, order management | Adopting (Apache 2.0) |
| Catalog semantics | AIRCP | Product representation with semantic depth for fit, taste, persona, occasion | Public draft (MIT) |
AIRCP defers to UCP for transactions and to AP2 for payment authorization. We did not duplicate the work of those protocols. We built the layer they assume.
Why AIRCP
The commerce internet was built for browsers, not agents.
Discovery
No standard way for an agent to find which catalogs exist or how to query them. Agents resort to web scraping, search APIs, or per-merchant integrations.
Interpretation
Product data is inconsistent across merchants. Attribute names differ, types are unspecified, important context like materials and sizing is buried in unstructured text or absent entirely.
Transaction
Even when an agent finds the right product, completing the purchase requires merchant-specific integration. No standard for add-to-cart, checkout, or purchase confirmation.
What AIRCP does
A thin, semantic protocol any catalog can implement.
Discovery
A well-known URL pattern. Any agent can find an AIRCP-compatible catalog by checking /.well-known/aircp.json on any domain.
Structured catalog
A JSON representation of products with two tiers of attributes: Core (mandatory, deterministic) and Enhanced (optional, semantic).
Transaction hooks
Standard methods for agents to query, add to cart, check out, and receive purchase confirmations.
Trust layer
Merchant verification so agents know which catalogs are legitimate. Optional for v0.1, recommended for production.
Organizing the inventories of the world into AIRCP.
AIRCP is an open standard. Implementations are welcome from anyone.
Get Started
Implement AIRCP in an afternoon.
The Core tier of AIRCP is small enough to be implemented by any commerce site in a few hours. The full specification is publicly available, MIT licensed, and free to implement.
AIRCP was authored by the Shoop team and is maintained publicly. We welcome contributions, implementations, and protocol critique.