# Shop MCP

A hosted MCP server that lets an agent find products from Shopify merchants, check out with them, and use the shopper's Shop account.

Shop MCP is a remote [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server at `https://mcp.shop.com/`. An agent connected to it can search the Shopify Catalog, read a product's options and prices, and open a cart or checkout with the merchant that sells it. Any MCP client can connect, and so can your own code: each tool call is one HTTP POST, with no session to set up first.

Search, carts and checkout work without an account. When the shopper connects their Shop account, the agent can also use their saved addresses and Shop Pay, look up their orders, and ask them to approve a card payment at a store that doesn't run on Shopify.

## Ways to connect

| You're building | Start with |
| --- | --- |
| An agent in Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client | [Connect an agent](connect.md) |
| An app or backend that calls the tools itself | [Quickstart](quickstart.md) |
| A script, or an agent that works in a terminal | [CLI reference](cli.md) |

Each path reaches the same 17 tools. Your app doesn't need a language model to call them.

## How a purchase works

1. Search with words, a similar product or a photo. Each result carries one featured variant with its price, availability and seller.
2. Call `get_product` when the shopper wants another size or color, or needs a fact the search didn't return.
3. Create a checkout with the merchant that sells the variant. A checkout belongs to one merchant, so items from three stores take three checkouts.
4. Give the shopper the checkout's `continue_url` to pay on the merchant's page. With a signed-in shopper, the agent can instead complete it with `complete_checkout` once they've confirmed the total and a payment method.

Only a checkout with status `completed` and an `order` confirms a purchase. [Carts and checkout](checkout.md) covers each step.

## What a Shop account adds

| Tools | Signed out | Signed in |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `search_catalog`, `lookup_catalog`, `get_product` | Available | Results can use the shopper's saved preferences |
| Carts and checkout | Available | Checkout can use saved addresses and Shop Pay |
| `get_account`, `search_orders` | Sign-in required | Available |
| The five approval tools | Sign-in required | Available |

MCP clients such as Claude and ChatGPT run the sign-in for you. Your own code can use a device flow that the shopper approves on Shop's site. [Connect a Shop account](sign-in.md) covers both.

## The Shop skill

Shop publishes a skill for agents with what the tool descriptions leave out, such as when to create a checkout and what to do after a write fails. It's at `https://mcp.shop.com/skill.md`, and over MCP at `skill://shop/SKILL.md`. The CLI prints its own version, written for its commands, with `shop skill`. Give an agent the one that matches how it connects. [Load the skill](connect.md#load-the-skill) lists the files and how clients find them.

## Versions

Shop MCP uses MCP protocol version `2026-07-28`. Catalog, cart and checkout documents follow version `2026-08-25` of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), and each one reports that version in `ucp.version`.