Free Tool · UCP Test
The UCP Test
Universal Commerce Protocol is how AI shopping agents discover, read, and buy from stores — and on Shopify, the manifest at /.well-known/ucp now ships automatically. The plumbing is the default.
This test checks the plumbing in seconds — then scores the layer agents actually quote: the depth of the catalog data they get back when they ask.
What the test checks
Data depth · 70 points
What agents get when they ask
Sampled across up to 50 real products from your public product records — the same records UCP's catalog search serves (we cross-verify that live where stores negotiate): description depth, checkable facts (materials, measurements, fit, care, ingredients), named variants and SKUs, structured attributes, quotable shipping and return policies, and Product schema on product pages. It's what an agent has to work with when it answers a shopper — and the layer no platform fills in for you.
Plumbing · Discovery
Is the manifest where agents look?
Agents start at /.well-known/ucp. The test fetches it the way an agent would — over HTTPS, with a real latency budget — and verifies it exists, parses as JSON, and answers fast enough to make an agent's cut.
Plumbing · Conformance
Does it follow the spec?
Version in date form, services with valid transports and endpoints, reverse-domain capability names, extension chains that resolve, signing keys. Strict, version-aware validation against the published ucp.dev spec.
Plumbing · Capabilities
What can an agent do here?
Declared checkout, cart, catalog search, and payment handlers — plus a live probe of the declared MCP endpoint, because a manifest that points at a dead endpoint reads as a broken store to every agent that tries.
Plumbing · Agent access
Can shopping agents read the store at all?
robots.txt rules for the ten AI agents doing real consumer shopping, structured catalog exposure, and agent instruction files. A perfect manifest behind a blocked crawler is invisible.
What is UCP?
The Universal Commerce Protocol is an open standard for agentic commerce, announced in January 2026 and developed by Google together with Shopify, Etsy, Target, Walmart, and a broad group of commerce and payments partners. A store publishes one JSON manifest declaring its protocol version, services, capabilities — checkout, cart, catalog search, fulfillment, discounts — and payment handlers. Any agent that speaks the protocol can then discover what the store supports and transact with it, no custom integration per surface.
It matters because the buyer side is already automated: shoppers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude what to buy, and those agents complete more of the journey every month. UCP is the sell side's answer — the machine-readable storefront. See the glossary for Universal Commerce Protocol, buyer agent, and brand agent.
The manifest is table stakes. What's behind it is the game.
To be clear: UCP is the best thing to happen to brand-side agentic commerce — an open, shared pipe layer is exactly what lets your data quality matter at all. And here's what most UCP checkers won't tell you: on Shopify, that pipe layer is published for you. Valid version, live MCP endpoint, checkout and cart capabilities, payment handlers — automatic. Which means a passing grade is quickly becoming the baseline, not an edge.
The edge is what an agent finds once it's in the door. Whether your variants are legible or a guess. Whether your differences read as facts or marketing. Whether the answer to “does this ship to me and can I return it?” is right. That's the agent-ready storefront problem, and it's what your brand agent exists to win.
UCP, answered
What is UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)?
UCP is an open standard, announced in January 2026 and developed by Google with Shopify and other commerce partners, that turns a storefront into a machine-readable surface for AI shopping agents. A store publishes a JSON manifest at /.well-known/ucp declaring its protocol version, services, capabilities (like checkout, cart, and catalog search), and payment handlers. Agents — Google AI Mode and Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and platform agents — read that manifest to discover what the store supports and transact with it directly.
What does the UCP Test check?
Two layers, weighted the way they matter. Plumbing (30 points): manifest discovery at /.well-known/ucp, spec conformance per ucp.dev, declared capabilities like checkout and cart, a live probe of the declared MCP endpoint, and robots.txt access for the AI agents doing real shopping. Data depth (70 points): the depth of your public product records — the same records UCP's catalog search serves — measured as description depth, checkable facts (materials, measurements, fit, care), named variants and SKUs, structured attributes, quotable shipping and return policies, and Product schema on product pages, sampled across up to 50 products.
Why is data worth 70 of the 100 points?
Because the plumbing can't differentiate anyone anymore. Shopify provisions manifests and live endpoints automatically, so competing brands mostly tie on protocol — when we scored 110 well-known brands, the plumbing scores of measured stores clustered within a few points. What differs is what an agent gets back when it asks: one catalog answers "will this fit?" and "what's it made of?" with stated facts, the other offers a 30-word vibe. UCP is the pipes; the data is the water. The 70/30 split is our weighting of that reality: the data checks measure what agents can quote, not a guarantee of how any one agent ranks you.
Does the UCP Test actually speak UCP, or just read the manifest?
It speaks it. Kinect publishes its own UCP agent profile at trykinect.ai/.well-known/ucp, and the test presents that profile when it probes a store's declared MCP endpoint — the same capability-negotiation handshake real shopping agents use, as documented in the UCP spec and Shopify's agent docs. When a store completes negotiation, your result shows the live handshake and the exact capability set the store granted. Everything stays read-only: the test runs a sample catalog search and never creates carts, checkouts, or orders — our agent profile deliberately declares catalog capabilities only, so a Kinect session can't transact even in principle.
My store is on Shopify — do I need to set up UCP myself?
Mostly no. Shopify publishes a UCP manifest for stores automatically, with MCP and embedded transports, checkout and cart capabilities, and payment handlers. Run the test to confirm yours is live and complete. The part no platform automates is what agents find once they're in: whether your product data, variants, and policies produce right answers when an agent shops on a customer's behalf.
My grade says "Standard plumbing, thin data." What does that mean?
It means your protocol layer is what Shopify ships to everyone — valid manifest, live endpoints, checkout enabled — and the data flowing through it is thin on the dimensions agents need: short descriptions, few stated facts, policies agents can't quote. It was the most common result when we scored 110 well-known brands, which is exactly the point: at parity plumbing, the brands agents can describe accurately and confidently are the ones whose catalog data answers shoppers' actual questions. The data checks above the grade show precisely where yours falls short.
How is UCP different from ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)?
They're parallel efforts. ACP was announced by OpenAI and Stripe in September 2025 and powers checkout inside ChatGPT. UCP followed in January 2026, led by Google with Shopify, Etsy, Target, Walmart, and a broad partner group, and is designed as an open, transport-flexible standard (REST, MCP, A2A) compatible with the Agent Payments Protocol. Most brands will end up speaking both — on Shopify, the platform increasingly handles that for you.
Does Kinect implement UCP for my store?
Kinect's work starts where the manifest ends. The protocol layer is increasingly table stakes — platforms publish it for you, and this free test tells you where you stand. What Kinect builds is the layer agents draw on when they represent you: one intelligence per brand that makes your catalog, differentiation, and policies legible to buyer agents, and an AI sales rep that converts the shoppers on your own site. If the test surfaced gaps you want handled, book a demo and we'll walk your store together.
Buyable is step one. Recommended is the business.
Kinect builds the intelligence behind the protocol — so the agents shopping for your customers find right answers, not guesses. Same-day setup on your live store.