Preparing your store for personal agents: a checklist Free & Pro

Agent Adapt works with no settings. What decides whether an agent does a good job for your customer is the store around it: product titles, stock, policy pages, caching. This checklist goes through each, in the order to do them. Most stores need twenty minutes.

Before you install

• HTTPS everywhere, with WordPress Address and Site Address under Settings → General starting https://. The protocol is HTTPS-only.
• WordPress at the root of your domain. Agents look for /.well-known/poppy.json at the root. If WordPress is in a sub-folder, your server must forward that one path.
• Pretty permalinks on (Settings → Permalinks, anything but Plain).
• PHP 8.1 or newer, WordPress 6.8 or newer, WooCommerce 10.0 or newer. The plugin stays inactive and tells you which one is missing otherwise.
• Coming soon mode off (WooCommerce → Settings → Site visibility), unless you mean it. The agent API works regardless; an agent’s browser sees the coming-soon page like any visitor.

Install and check

• Install and activate the plugin. See Getting started.
• Open Tools → Site Health and fix anything marked Agent Adapt. The common one is the Authorization header not reaching PHP, with a one-line .htaccess fix. See Site Health checks.
• Exclude /.well-known/, /agent-adapt/ and /wp-json/agent-adapt/ from page caching, CDN caching and bot-blocking rules. See Caches, CDNs and security plugins.
• Open https://your-store/.well-known/poppy.json in a private window and check it is JSON naming your store.

Product data

An agent searches by words and SKUs, reads the fields WooCommerce gives it, and describes the result to a person. It cannot see your product photos, so the words carry everything.

• Titles say what the product is, in the words a customer would use. "Stormline Insulated Jacket" beats "SL-INS-22". Agent Adapt matches each search term against the title and the SKU, so both count.
• SKUs are set, especially for variations. A customer who reorders by SKU from a receipt gets an exact match.
• Stock is managed where it matters. An agent reads stock status and won’t add an out-of-stock item. If you don’t manage stock, everything reads as available.
• Variations have clear attribute names. "Size: M, Colour: Navy" is what the agent passes on. "Option 2" is not.
• Short descriptions answer the obvious questions: material, dimensions, what’s in the box, compatibility.
• Hidden products are deliberate. Products set to Catalog visibility: Hidden are invisible to agents, in search and by ID. Check that nothing you sell is hidden by accident, and that anything hidden on purpose stays that way.
• Prices are right at the product level. The agent builds a real WooCommerce cart, so sale prices, tax settings and per-product rules apply exactly as they do on your site.

Policy pages

Agents read three pages as plain text and quote them to customers: your returns and refunds page, your terms, and your privacy policy. A clear returns page is the difference between "you can return it within 30 days" and "I couldn’t find out".

• Set the Refund and Returns Policy page under WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Page setup.
• Set the Terms and Conditions page in the same place.
• Set the Privacy Policy page under Settings → Privacy.
• Each page is published, not password-protected, and says its substance in text, not in an image or a PDF.

How to write them so an agent gets it right: Writing store policies an agent can read.

Coupons

• Coupon codes work in the cart as usual. An agent applies a code the customer gives it; your usage limits, minimum spends and product restrictions apply.
• Know that agents can’t discover coupons. There is no list of valid codes. A customer who has a code tells their agent; a customer who doesn’t gets your normal prices.

Accounts and staff

• Don’t shop with staff accounts. Administrator and shop manager accounts can never be connected to an agent. A staff member who wants their assistant to shop with the store needs a customer account.
• Decide who sees the Agents screen. Anyone with the Manage WooCommerce capability can view and block agents.

Privacy wording

• Add a paragraph to your privacy policy saying that customers can connect an AI assistant to their account, what it can access with their approval, that they can disconnect it from My Account, and that your store fetches an assistant’s public details to verify it. See What Agent Adapt stores and shares.

Test it

• Run the five requests in Check that your store answers agents, or at least open poppy.json and the OpenAPI document.
• Place a test order if you can borrow an agent that supports the protocol, and check the order’s Origin box names it.

Afterwards

• Look at WooCommerce → Agents from time to time. Block anything you don’t want.
• Watch your changelog feed. The protocol is a draft and will change; each change we follow is in the changelog.
• With Pro, set your policy: switch off any action you don’t want agents to take, set your return window, cap individual agents, or run an allowlist. See Merchant policy.

Common questions

Do I need to add structured data or a product feed?

No. Agents use the API Agent Adapt publishes, which reads your products directly from WooCommerce. Structured data on your pages still helps search engines, and that is unchanged.

Does an agent see product images?

It receives image URLs with product details and can show them to the customer. It does not interpret them, so put the facts in words.

What about products with required add-ons or custom fields?

An agent adds products with their standard variations and quantities. Add-ons from other plugins that need a form on the product page are not part of the agent API, and such a product may arrive in the cart without them. Check how your add-on plugin handles a cart line without its fields before relying on it.

How do I know it is working?

Site Health passes, poppy.json is JSON, and once an agent visits it appears under WooCommerce → Agents.