Made to be loved by devs
Our developer portal makes it easy to integrate with Commerce Layer. Explore guides, examples, resources, and references. Reference our production-ready apps and tools. Start building right now.
Commerce Layer provides the complete transactional engine for modern commerce through powerful APIs. We handle the complexity of checkout, payments, inventory, orders management, and fulfillment so you can build shopping experiences that work everywhere — from traditional websites to mobile apps to AI agents making autonomous purchases. Your frontend, your CMS, your channels. Our commerce infrastructure.
Docs-first platform
For an API-first platform, documentation isn't an afterthought — it's the primary interface between our engineering and yours. We treat documentation as a product with the same rigor we apply to our APIs themselves. Every endpoint is documented completely, every integration pattern is explained clearly, and every edge case is addressed honestly. We know that incomplete or inaccurate documentation doesn't just slow developers down — it erodes trust and creates technical debt in your integrations. That's why our documentation is comprehensive, maintained continuously, and designed to answer both "how do I do this" and "why does this work this way." Whether you're building your first integration or architecting a complex multi-market commerce system, our documentation and support are here to give you confidence that you're implementing things correctly.
This developer portal is the first entry-point to start navigating our docs. Explore our API reference, applications, developer tools, open-source components, and exhaustive documentation. Monitor our changelog regularly to stay current with platform evolution and planning for upcoming changes. Join our vibrant community of developers and technology leaders today.
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Ready for the agentic age
As a unified commerce engine that powers any transaction, anywhere, built API-first since day one, Commerce Layer is ready by design to be the enabler of a new era of interactions — agentic commerce.
Every commerce operation in Commerce Layer is accessible through clean, well-documented APIs that AI agents can call directly. But having accessible APIs is only half the equation for agentic commerce. AI agents also need to understand how to use those APIs correctly, which means they need access to documentation in formats they can effectively consume and reason about. That's why Commerce Layer docs follow close behind, offering some features you can leverage out of the box to ensure that AI systems can retrieve and provide accurate, contextual responses about Commerce Layer APIs.
LLM-friendly
Large Language Models are becoming increasingly important for information retrieval and knowledge assistance. To make Commerce Layer APIs documentation content available in text-based formats that are easier for LLMs to process, ingest, and work with, you can leverage the following llms.txt files.
Index — contains an index of all the page URLs and titles of our API docs sites, providing a comprehensive list of all available markdown-formatted pages:
https://docs.commercelayer.io/llms.txtFull content — contains the full content of our API docs sites in one file that can be passed to LLMs as context:
https://docs.commercelayer.io/llms-full.txtMCP server
Model Context Protocol gives AI tools a structured way to discover and retrieve your docs as resources — no scraping required. To allow AI assistants to access Commerce Layer APIs documentation content directly, making it easy for tools like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code extensions to answer questions using the docs, we expose via HTTP an MCP server at the following URL:
Visiting the URL above in your browser will result in an error. Instead, you can share this with tools that can make HTTP requests, like LLMs or IDEs.
Get started your way
Build your first integration
If you're ready to start integrating Commerce Layer into your application, begin with our Core API getting started guide. You'll learn how authentication works, make your first API calls, and understand the fundamental concepts. In no time, you'll have created your first order programmatically and understand how our API architecture works. Most developers start here because it gives you the foundation for everything else you'll build.
Explore with ready-made tools
Want to experience Commerce Layer's capabilities before writing backend code? Start with our CLI to explore resources from your terminal, try our React Components to see how shopping interfaces work, or embed our Drop-in library to add a complete checkout experience to any website in minutes. These tools let you see what's possible and often become permanent parts of your implementation, not just learning exercises.
Understand the architecture
If you're evaluating whether Commerce Layer fits your technical requirements, start with our data model to understand how resources relate to each other, then explore our API reference to see the breadth of capabilities available. This approach works well for technical decision-makers who need to assess scalability, flexibility, and integration patterns before committing to implementation work.
Core API
The Core API is the complete commerce engine that powers everything from simple checkout flows to complex multi-market operations. It manages your entire product catalog with SKUs and prices, handles inventory across multiple stock locations, processes orders with sophisticated routing logic, integrates with payment gateways worldwide, calculates taxes based on jurisdiction rules, and coordinates shipments with carriers. This API is designed for complexity as a first principle — multi-market, multi-currency, and end-to-end-order management scenarios are built into the foundation, not added ex post. Most developers spend the majority of their time working with the Core API because it handles the fundamental commerce operations that every implementation needs.
Pre-built applications
Accelerate your time-to-market with fully branded, production-ready commerce apps. Integrate them into any website with a single link or use them as open-source foundations for your projects.
Get started your way
Build your first integration
If you're ready to start integrating Commerce Layer into your application, begin with our Core API getting started guide. You'll learn how authentication works, make your first API calls, and understand the fundamental concepts. In no time, you'll have created your first order programmatically and understand how our API architecture works. Most developers start here because it gives you the foundation for everything else you'll build.
Explore with ready-made tools
Want to experience Commerce Layer's capabilities before writing backend code? Start with our CLI to explore resources from your terminal, try our React Components to see how shopping interfaces work, or embed our Drop-in library to add a complete checkout experience to any website in minutes. These tools let you see what's possible and often become permanent parts of your implementation, not just learning exercises.
Understand the architecture
If you're evaluating whether Commerce Layer fits your technical requirements, start with our data model to understand how resources relate to each other, then explore our API reference to see the breadth of capabilities available. This approach works well for technical decision-makers who need to assess scalability, flexibility, and integration patterns before committing to implementation work.
Join our community
Thousands of developers build on Commerce Layer every day, and many of them share knowledge, help troubleshoot integration challenges, discuss architecture decisions, and showcase what they're building in our Discord community. This is where you'll find real-time help from both Commerce Layer team members and experienced developers who have solved similar problems. Whether you're stuck on a specific API behavior, evaluating different implementation approaches, or just want to connect with other people building the future of commerce, Discord is where the conversation happens. Join us there.
Developer platform template
Welcome to your team’s new developer platform
Get started in 5 minutes
Setting up your first API call should be the easiest part of getting started. With clear endpoints, copy-paste-ready examples, and quick authentication, you’ll be up and running in minutes—not hours.
No guesswork, no complexity—just your first successful call, fast.
Learn more about the developer platform
Read guides, watch tutorials, and learn more about working with the developer platform and integrating it with your own stack.
Join a community of over 3,000 developers
Join our Discord community or create your first PR in just a few steps.
Discord community
Join our Discord community to post questions, get help, and share resources with over 3,000 like-minded developers.
GitHub
Our product is 100% open source and built by developers just like you. Head to our GitHub repository to learn how to submit your first PR.