references/theories/commerce-protocol-readiness.md

# Commerce Protocol Readiness

## Theory

Use this as an applied decision model, not as proof that the model is correct in every market.

## Use when

- When a merchant is considering protocol-mediated agent shopping or checkout.

## Mechanism

Audit whether the merchant can expose accurate product, offer, transaction, and policy data through currently supported commerce interfaces.

## Applied marketing use

Route the diagnosis to the specialist agents and skills connected in `neural/graph.json`; verify current platform facts using `references/2026/agentic-commerce-2026.md`.

## Failure modes

- Treating a current platform feature as a permanent law of marketing.
- Selecting the theory because it sounds modern rather than because it explains the observed constraint.

## Related principle

- `machine-readable-product-truth`

## Sources

- `source:google-agentic-commerce-2026`
- `source:google-agentic-shopping-gml-2026`
- `source:google-ai-max-shopping-2026`