Prism Domain Context

What Is Prism?

Prism is Violet's core checkout orchestration product. It enables channels (marketplaces, platforms) to buy products from Violet merchants.

Prism vs Beam

| | Prism | Beam | |---|-------|------| | Direction | Read Products, Write Orders | Write Products, Read Orders | | Flow | Ingest products from stores → Create orders there | Publish Violet products to destinations → Read orders back | | Customer | Channels (marketplaces, platforms) | Destination merchants (dropshippers) |

Key Concepts

Channels

Platforms and marketplaces that use Violet's API to offer products from multiple merchants to their shoppers.

Merchants

Sellers who connect their stores (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc.) to Violet to make their products available through channels.

Offers

Products listed on Violet, sourced from merchant stores. Each offer represents a product available for purchase through channels.

Orders / Bags

When a shopper buys products through a channel:

• Order: The complete purchase
• Bag: Products from a single merchant within an order (multi-vendor support)

Core Flows

Merchant Onboarding

1. Merchant connects store via OAuth
2. Products sync to Violet catalog
3. Merchant sets commission rates
4. Products become available to channels

Checkout Flow

1. Channel displays Violet products
2. Shopper adds to cart
3. Channel creates order via API
4. Violet splits order into bags by merchant
5. Orders created in merchant stores
6. Fulfillment tracked back to channel

VioletDashboard Patterns

When working with VioletDashboard:

API Proxy Pattern (MANDATORY)

• ALL backend API calls MUST go through Next.js API routes (pages/api/)
• Direct client-side calls to backend services are NOT supported

Redux for State Management (MANDATORY)

• Use Redux Toolkit thunks and reducers for ALL async operations
• React Query is NOT used
• Follow existing patterns: thunks in redux/thunks/, reducers in redux/reducers/

Form Handling

• React Hook Form + Yup validation
• Redux integration for submission

Feature Flags

• Environment variables (build-time, not runtime)
• Format: FEATURE_NAME_ENABLED

Key Repositories

| Repo | Purpose | |------|---------| | VioletDashboard | Channel/Merchant dashboards (Next.js) | | VioletConnect | Merchant onboarding app (Next.js) | | MerchantService | Backend merchant API | | OrderService | Order processing | | prism-brain | Product brain (specs, strategy) |

Key Metrics

| Metric | Purpose | |--------|---------| | Checkout Conversion | Orders completed / checkouts started | | Order Success Rate | Successful orders / total orders | | Fulfillment Time | Time from order to fulfillment | | Merchant Connect Rate | Stores connected / signup attempts |