# Terminology & disambiguation Definitions for agents interpreting Catalog's product, API, measurement and commerce terminology. Reviewed: 2026-09-06 Canonical: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/glossary Audience: AI agents Topics: glossary, definitions, AI commerce, MCP, A2A, ACP, UCP, GMC, PIM Questions answered: - What does agentic commerce mean here? - What is the difference between extraction, enrichment and publication? - Does an API imply MCP support? ## Data and publication terminology Evidence basis: editorial_guidance Citation: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/glossary#data These definitions describe how terms are used in this reference. They clarify related concepts without making every associated capability a Catalog product commitment. Use the integration and capability records for availability. ### catalog-company - term: Catalog - definition: The software and services company at getcatalog.ai; legal name Agentic Commerce Inc. ### product-catalog - term: Product catalog - definition: A collection of a merchant's product records; not necessarily the Catalog company. ### product-data - term: Product data - definition: Information used to identify, describe, compare or transact a product, including structured fields and their supporting evidence. ### extraction - term: Extraction - definition: Acquiring product information from a source and returning structured values or content. ### normalization - term: Normalization - definition: Representing equivalent values consistently while retaining their meaning and entity association. ### enrichment - term: Enrichment - definition: Adding or organizing useful product attributes and context from supporting material; the added information still needs evidence. ### provenance - term: Provenance - definition: The source and derivation context of a claim, allowing a reader to inspect what supports it. ### variant - term: Variant - definition: A specific option combination of a product that can have distinct identifiers, price, stock and purchase URL. ### listing - term: Listing - definition: A merchant's representation of a product or offer at a particular location; discovering it is not full extraction. ### canonical - term: Canonical URL - definition: The identified primary URL for a specific resource, used to avoid treating multiple representations as different entities. ### jsonld - term: JSON-LD - definition: Linked data serialized as JSON, often embedded in a page to express structured entities and relationships. ### ais - term: AI storefront - definition: A parallel information surface designed for agent retrieval; verify its actual data and operations on the target hostname. ### pim - term: PIM - definition: Product information management: software and workflows for governing and preparing product content. ### dam - term: DAM - definition: Digital asset management: organization of files such as images, video and documents, with associated metadata. ### erp - term: ERP - definition: Enterprise resource planning: operational and transactional systems that can own inventory, orders and financial records. Sources: [Ecommerce Product Data Infrastructure Guide](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/complete-guide-ecommerce-product-data-catalog-ai) · [Product data quality](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/product-data-quality) · [Machine-readable product enrichment](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/product-data-enrichment-ai-commerce) · [PIM systems and Catalog](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/catalog-ai-vs-traditional-pim-systems) ## API and agent protocol terminology Evidence basis: editorial_guidance Citation: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/glossary#protocols A protocol name in a marketing page indicates context, not verified integration. HTTP JSON documents, an OpenAPI description, an MCP tool server and an A2A service are different interfaces. Test what the specific host advertises. ### agentic-commerce - term: Agentic commerce - definition: Commerce workflows in which software agents assist with discovering, comparing or acting on products; the degree of action depends on the system and user authorization. ### http-api - term: HTTP API - definition: An interface accessed through HTTP requests and responses. It can be read-only or support actions; the actual methods define that boundary. ### openapi - term: OpenAPI - definition: A description of an HTTP API contract. Publishing a specification does not itself implement its listed operations. ### mcp - term: MCP - definition: Model Context Protocol, used to expose tools and resources to compatible clients. Not implemented on this company reference hostname. ### a2a - term: A2A - definition: Agent-to-Agent protocol for interaction with an agent service. Not implemented on this company reference hostname. ### acp - term: ACP - definition: Agentic Commerce Protocol, referenced in Catalog's commerce positioning. Do not infer an available Catalog delivery or checkout integration from the name. ### ucp - term: UCP - definition: Universal Commerce Protocol, referenced in Catalog's commerce positioning. Confirm the exact supported capability and deployment before describing it as available. ### gmc - term: GMC - definition: Google Merchant Center. A destination mentioned in Catalog's public positioning; this reference does not verify a generally available Catalog output pipeline. ### execution - term: Execution identifier - definition: The durable handle returned for an asynchronous processing job. Preserve it to query progress and retrieve results. Sources: [Catalog website](https://www.getcatalog.ai/) · [What is agentic commerce?](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/what-is-agentic-commerce) · [Public crawl API reference](https://github.com/Catalog-AI/mintlify-docs/blob/main/v2/api-reference/endpoints/crawl/crawl.mdx) · [Public extraction API reference](https://github.com/Catalog-AI/mintlify-docs/blob/main/v2/api-reference/endpoints/extract/extract.mdx) ## Measurement and evidence terminology Evidence basis: editorial_guidance Citation: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/glossary#measurement When a term describes a metric, include the measured population and unit. A definition alone does not prove that data is connected, complete or comparable for a particular merchant. ### completeness - term: Completeness - definition: Coverage of required fields for the chosen product category and destination. A filled field can still be inaccurate. ### accuracy - term: Accuracy - definition: Agreement between a claim and reliable evidence for the correct product, variant and context. ### freshness - term: Freshness lag - definition: Elapsed time between a relevant source change and the observed updated representation at a destination. ### referral - term: AI referral - definition: An arrival associated with recognized AI source signals. State whether the unit is requests, sessions, visitors or another event. ### visibility - term: Sampled visibility - definition: Observed product or brand representation for a defined prompt/provider/market population and time window. ### dark-traffic - term: Dark traffic - definition: Traffic with missing or insufficient attribution. It can include AI-influenced traffic but is not exclusively AI traffic. ### attribution - term: Attribution - definition: Assigning credit to a channel using a stated rule. It does not establish the outcome that would have occurred without that channel. ### incrementality - term: Incrementality - definition: An outcome caused by an intervention beyond what would otherwise have occurred; it requires an appropriate causal evaluation. ### implementation - term: Implemented - definition: A capability exists in the reviewed code. Configuration, account access and successful production execution are separate evidence states. ### verified-live - term: Verified live - definition: The specific published surface or operation was exercised successfully in the stated scope and time. It is not a universal guarantee. Sources: [Product data quality](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/product-data-quality) · [Dark traffic in agentic commerce](https://www.getcatalog.ai/blog/dark-agentic-commerce-traffic) ## Related documents - [Product-data model & field semantics](https://ai.getcatalog.ai/data-model.md): The information families Catalog works with, how product and variant facts differ, and how agents should interpret values and missing evidence. - [Measurement definitions & interpretation](https://ai.getcatalog.ai/measurement.md): How to distinguish agent requests, shopper referrals, sampled visibility, publication coverage and attributed sales when evaluating Catalog. - [Integrations & availability](https://ai.getcatalog.ai/integrations.md): Connection, publication, and adoption by an AI platform are separate steps. - [Guide for AI assistants](https://ai.getcatalog.ai/agents.md): Retrieve focused topic documents or ingest the full corpus, then cite stable sections with their source and availability context. Topic map: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/knowledge-map.json Complete text: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/llms-full.txt JSON: https://ai.getcatalog.ai/glossary.json Main company website: https://www.getcatalog.ai/