BigCommerce and personal agents: discovery, the Cloudflare route and what a provider can do Free & Pro

BigCommerce hosts the storefront and the checkout, like Shopify, but it exposes more of the store through APIs and lets a merchant run a headless front end on their own hosting. That gives a BigCommerce store two possible positions under the Personal Agent Protocol, and this page sets out both as of 16 October 2026. Where we have not confirmed something on a live store, it says so. Agent Adapt is a WooCommerce plugin and is not affiliated with or endorsed by BigCommerce, Sierra or Meta.

The test

An agent fetches https://your-domain/.well-known/poppy.json. It needs JSON served on your domain, naming your domain and an issuer that answers; since 16 October 2026 a redirect to another host does not count. See Making any website agent-ready.

A Stencil storefront

Stencil, BigCommerce’s hosted theme platform, lets a theme control pages and assets but not arbitrary files at the root of the domain, so a theme cannot serve poppy.json, and nothing in the platform proxies a path either.

BigCommerce’s 301 redirects (in the control panel under server settings) accept an old path and a new destination on another domain, and until 16 October 2026 a redirect to a provider was the thing to try. The protocol now says the document speaks for the host that serves it after any redirects, so a redirect to the provider’s host gives agents a document for that host, not yours. Whether BigCommerce applies redirects under /.well-known/ no longer matters: the redirect manager has no part in this.

Cloudflare in front is the route. With the proxy on, a Cloudflare Worker answers the path before BigCommerce does and serves the provider’s document on your domain; the store stays on BigCommerce. BigCommerce itself uses Cloudflare as its CDN, so check BigCommerce’s own guidance on proxying your domain through your own Cloudflare account before changing DNS. The Worker itself is in Serving poppy.json with a Cloudflare Worker.

The Worker serves the document of a hosted Company, a provider that runs the issuer and API for your domain and knows your store through BigCommerce’s APIs with a permission you grant. The catalogue, prices, stock, categories and policy pages are reachable that way, and the customer is handed to your BigCommerce checkout to pay. What a provider can do with customer accounts depends on BigCommerce’s customer APIs and on the provider; expect signed-out shopping first. Agent Adapt’s hosted Company for stores that cannot run its plugin is built and running, in early access by email, and not yet on sale; [email protected] takes requests.

A headless storefront (Catalyst, Next.js, your own)

If your front end runs on your own hosting (Catalyst on Vercel, a Next.js site, anything else) with BigCommerce as the back end, you control every path on the domain. You can serve poppy.json as a static file or a route, and either point its issuer at a provider or implement the protocol yourself against BigCommerce’s APIs. That store is in the same position as any custom store; see Headless and custom stores.

What BigCommerce has said

Nothing we can cite about the Personal Agent Protocol specifically, as of this page’s date. BigCommerce does publish its own work on AI and agent commerce, and a platform-level implementation would make everything above unnecessary. Check their announcements, and we will update this page when something changes.

What to do this month

1. Fetch https://your-store/.well-known/poppy.json. Note whether you get BigCommerce’s 404 or something else.
2. If you run headless, decide who writes the file: you, or a provider whose document your host proxies.
3. If you run Stencil and your DNS is on Cloudflare with the proxy on, you can add the Worker the day you have a provider.
4. Make your policy pages (returns, shipping, terms, privacy) say their substance in text. Whatever reads your store for agents will quote them.

Common questions

Can a BigCommerce app make the store agent-ready?

An app could run the issuer and API, but discovery still needs the path to answer on your domain, which an app cannot arrange on a Stencil storefront. A Cloudflare Worker in front of the store, serving the provider’s document on your domain, is the missing piece; BigCommerce’s redirect manager cannot be, because since 16 October 2026 a redirect to another host does not count.

Does the customer still pay on my BigCommerce checkout?

Yes. Under the protocol’s current draft an agent has no way to pay; the customer does, on your checkout, with your payment methods.

Is Agent Adapt available for BigCommerce?

Not as a plugin. The hosted Company is built and running, in early access by email, and not yet on sale. The WooCommerce plugin is the only product you can download today.