From Search to Cart: The Anatomy of a UCP Transaction

UCP Core Summary: A deep dive into the Universal Commerce Protocol framework designed for Agentic Shopping.

Dissecting an Agentic Purchase

How exactly does a Universal Commerce Protocol transaction happen? Let’s break down the anatomy of an AI-driven purchase.

Phase 1: Intent and Discovery

The user states an intent. The agent pings UCP discovery endpoints to find matching merchants.

Phase 2: Cart Construction

The agent uses the merchant’s cart_url to programmatically build the shopping bag, calculating taxes and shipping dynamically.

Phase 3: Execution

The agent submits the finalized cart and an AP2 payment token to the checkout_url, completing the purchase in under two seconds.