Create an account and generate a FetchLayer API key from your dashboard. Nothing is needed from the store itself: no consumer key, no consumer secret, no plugin, no permission from the shop owner beyond what it already publishes.

Create free account →

2. Detect the store first

Plenty of domains look like shops and are not WooCommerce, and plenty of WooCommerce stores live on a subdomain or a path. One call settles both, and tells you which data sources the store publishes.

bash

curl -X POST https://api.fetchlayer.dev/woocommerce-stores/detect-store \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"store":"weber.co.za"}'

Tip

The detection.dataSource that comes back is the source every later call will read from. catalog-api is the cheap, complete one. product-pages means the store publishes no catalog and each product has to be read from a rendered page.

3. Pull the catalog

bash

curl -X POST https://api.fetchlayer.dev/woocommerce-stores/products \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"store":"weber.co.za","category":"braai","orderBy":"price","limit":50}'

limit is a request budget, not a target

Cost here varies by store rather than by route. A store with a published catalog answers in about 102 KB; a store without one has measured up to 5 MB for nine products, because every product is read from a rendered page. Check dataSource on the response before you raise limit, and walk a large catalog with cursor instead of asking for all of it at once.

4. Read the notes

Every response carries a notes[] array. It reports truncated walks, upstream limits, and fields a particular store does not publish. A result set that is shorter than you expected is usually explained there rather than by an error, so read it before concluding a store is empty.

json

{
  "productCount": 30,
  "totalProducts": 412,
  "dataSource": "product-pages",
  "notes": [
    "Store publishes no catalog; products read from rendered pages.",
    "Walk stopped at the requested limit — 382 products remain."
  ]
}

Error responses

Every error, on every route, is JSON in one shape: error (what went wrong, in words), status, code, retryable and requestId, which also comes as the X-Request-Id header. Branch on code and retryable rather than on the text; on a 5xx the text is generic. Quote requestId when reporting a problem.

json

{
  "error": "Missing required parameter: url",
  "status": 400,
  "missing": ["url"],
  "code": "invalid_input",
  "retryable": false,
  "requestId": "922874e3-c0d0-40d8-8866-d198af132420"
}

code	Status	Retryable	Meaning
invalid_input	400	no	The request needs fixing; error names the field. A missing required parameter also lists it in missing.
unauthorized	401	no	The API key is missing or not valid.
insufficient_credits	402	no	Nothing left to spend: no credits, a used-up free trial, or a monthly allowance and credit balance both spent. error says which. Waiting does not help; topping up does.
forbidden	403	no	This key or account is not allowed this request.
not_found	404	no	What the request names does not exist or is not public.
expired	410	no	What the request refers to is no longer available; ask for it afresh.
quota_exceeded	429	no	A request-rate limit was reached; error says which. Slow down before sending more.
cancelled	499	no	The caller closed or cancelled the request before it finished. The work was stopped and nothing was charged.
time_limit	503	yes	Your timeoutMs ran out before there was anything to return; ask again, or allow more time.
temporarily_unavailable	503	yes	Not available right now; ask again shortly.
store_unreachable	503	yes	Store routes (Shopify, WooCommerce): the store itself can’t be reached right now — it may be offline. Ask again later. Where a store route doesn’t say so yet, an offline store is temporarily_unavailable.
upstream_error	502	yes	The source answered in a way that could not be used; ask again later.
internal_error	500	yes	Something failed on our side; ask again later, and quote requestId if it persists.
tool_error	—	no	MCP only: a tool call failed in a way no other code describes; error says what.

More codes may be added; treat one you do not recognise by its retryable flag. Over MCP, a tool error carries the same fields in structuredContent, and as a JSON text block beside the message.

Next steps

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