Ecommerce Core

Shared foundation for standalone ERPNext ecommerce integrations

Documentation - Repository - AI Development Guide

Ecommerce Core

Ecommerce Core provides the shared contracts and provider-neutral infrastructure used by standalone ecommerce connector apps on Frappe and ERPNext. It centralizes the common models, workflows, and utilities while keeping provider-specific APIs, authentication, webhooks, and business logic inside separate connector apps.

Ecommerce Core is not an ecommerce connector by itself. Install a compatible connector app to integrate ERPNext with a supported ecommerce platform.

Key Features

• Product mapping: Maintain mappings between ERPNext items and ecommerce platform products and variants.
• Integration logs: Record synchronization jobs, retries, and errors across connector apps.
• Warehouse mapping: Map platform locations to ERPNext warehouses.
• Inventory synchronization: Detect stock changes and synchronize inventory across channels.
• Scheduling: Provide configurable synchronization intervals for connector apps.
• Customer management: Create and reuse ERPNext customers from ecommerce orders.
• Address mapping: Convert platform addresses into ERPNext-compatible records.
• Tax and pricing utilities: Provide shared tax and price list safeguards for integrations.
• Shared utilities: Reuse common controllers, client scripts, and helper functions across connector apps.

Under the Hood

• Frappe Framework: A full-stack web application framework written in Python and JavaScript. The framework provides a robust foundation for building web applications, including a database abstraction layer, user authentication, and a REST API.

• ERPNext: The open-source ERP that remains the source of truth for items, stock, accounting and sales documents. Ecommerce Core maps provider data onto ERPNext masters and transactions.

• Connector Apps: Implement provider-specific APIs, authentication, webhooks, synchronization workflows, and business logic on top of Ecommerce Core.

Compatibility

Frappe Version	ERPNext Version	Python Version
Version 16 (develop)	Version 16 (develop)	3.14+

Installation

Ecommerce Core targets Frappe and ERPNext version 16 through the develop branch.

Set up a Frappe bench by following the Frappe installation guide, then install ERPNext and Ecommerce Core:

bench get-app erpnext --branch develop
bench get-app https://github.com/aerele/ecommerce-core --branch develop
bench --site <site-name> install-app erpnext
bench --site <site-name> install-app ecommerce_core

Install a compatible connector app after Ecommerce Core. Refer to the connector's documentation for provider-specific configuration.

Building a Connector

A standalone ecommerce connector should:

1. Declare required_apps = ["ecommerce_core"] in hooks.py.
2. Implement the required settings controller and shared contracts provided by Ecommerce Core.
3. Keep provider-specific APIs, authentication, webhooks, and business logic inside the connector app.
4. Reuse the shared models, utilities, and synchronization workflows provided by Ecommerce Core.

See the Developer Documentation for the connector architecture and integration workflow.

For AI-assisted development, see the AI Development Guide, which defines the implementation contract and development guidelines.

Learning and Community

1. Frappe School - Learn Frappe Framework and ERPNext from the various courses by the maintainers or from the community.
2. Official documentation - Extensive documentation for Frappe Framework.
3. Discussion Forum - Engage with the community of ERPNext users and service providers.

Contributing

1. Contributing Guide
2. Issue Guidelines
3. Pull Request Requirements
4. Send pull requests to the develop branch only.

License

GNU GPL v3.0. See license.txt.