AirShelf Catalog MCP Server

Search the AirShelf cross-vendor product catalog by natural-language query. The catalog covers industrial-automation components (sensors, encoders, vacuum handling, motors and drives, circuit protection, machine vision — the largest category by row count), wiring devices (plugs, receptacles, connector bodies, rocker switches), multifunction printers (mfp), barcode printers, laser printers, mechanical keyboards, cybersecurity products, and threat-intelligence platforms. Industrial-automation and wiring-device rows are indexed by manufacturer part number, so a brand or part number in the query ("Pepperl+Fuchs retroreflective sensor", "IN5409") retrieves more reliably than a bare product type; those rows carry no normalized spec facets, so the `specs` filter does not apply to them. Returns ranked products with prices, specs, and per-row match accounting. Each row includes `unverified_specs`, the normalized spec names that lack claim-level receipts; never use those as decisive facts. Example queries: "tactile mechanical keyboard under $150", "Toshiba A3 colour multifunction device", "industrial barcode printer for a warehouse", "threat-intelligence platform with dark-web monitoring". Result fields: • canonical_name — the exact catalog name of the product. • spec_absence_note — spec fields absent from this product's golden record (AirShelf's verified product record); null when nothing is missing. • constraint_match_score and matched_criteria — query constraints supported by claim-level receipts. unverified_criteria names matching catalog values that still need confirmation; missing_criteria names values that are absent or conflict. • parsed.price_availability — all_null = true means every returned price is null. For quote-gated B2B pricing, a null price with a quote path is expected rather than an error; query_had_budget reports whether the query carried one. • result.commercial_data — branch on actionable before using price or stock. Observations older than 24 hours are withheld from result.price/result.inStock and retained only as labelled last_observed history. • parsed.weak_match — the response contains an unresolved constraint, query match, or product-identity warning. parsed.unverified_identity_count counts returned names without an identity receipt. parsed.no_match — no product satisfies a hard constraint, and candidates violating it were excluded server-side. On a miss or near-miss for a specific brand+model the response may also carry a `tier3` block, meaning a real-time lookup for the exact SKU asked about; it can appear alongside fuzzy-neighbour rows. • tier3.status = "resolved" — a single-source reading of the page at tier3.source_url. MPN-confirmed means the live lookup matched the manufacturer part number. Its verification is "live-unverified": confirmed on a live page during this run, but not yet matched to an AirShelf catalog record. A verified row is matched to the catalog record. tier3.cached = true means it came from a recent prior lookup, with fetched_at recording when the page was read. • tier3.status = "abstain" — the lookup could not confirm the product exists as asked, so no specs, price, or availability were established. tier3.guidance describes the quote-request path. • tier3.status = "declined" — an applicable lookup did not run; tier3.reason says why (disabled, rate_limited, daily_cap, negative_cache, error). No specs or availability were established, and none should be inferred. No tier3 block at all means a live lookup was not applicable to this query (no parseable brand+model identity). Optional `market` (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, e.g. "TH") excludes catalog rows whose country-specific URL conflicts with the buyer market and scopes tier3 lookup/cache. A remaining global URL is not local-availability proof: parsed.weak_match stays true and unsatisfied_constraints includes market_availability until every returned row has a matching country receipt. "Available in <market>" still does not guarantee stock.

Compare 2-10 catalog products side-by-side on their datasheet specs. Slugs come from search_catalog and are case-insensitive and dash-tolerant ("e-STUDIO 331AC", "toshiba-e-studio-331ac" and "e-studio331ac" all resolve to the same product). Returns one item per product with canonical_name and spec_absence_note (spec fields absent from that product's golden record, AirShelf's verified product record). Branch on each item's commercial_data.actionable before using price or stock; stale observations are withheld from action fields. A slug that does not resolve comes back as not_found with a did_you_mean suggestion. The `provenance` option adds the source page and source type already stored with each fact.

Explain the evidence behind a catalog row. Returns stored processing stages when available and always returns a golden-record field summary with source coverage. A field's evidence_sha256 is the SHA-256 of the source document AirShelf archived when it extracted that claim. A caller holding the same bytes can compare the hash to check that the cited document has not changed. AirShelf does not serve those archived bytes, and the hash does not promise they remain retrievable. record.scraped_at is the catalog row's scrape time, not a per-claim evidence capture time.

List public AirShelf merchants that have an assigned slug and at least one active product. Internal/demo and empty catalogs are excluded. Returns each merchant's name, slug, and product count; the slug is the `merchant` argument for request_quote.

Get the full golden record (AirShelf's verified product record) and latest price for one catalog product by slug ("<manufacturer>-<model>"). Returns the product's specs and provenance (which page each fact came from), plus canonical_name (its exact catalog name). A field's evidence_sha256 is the SHA-256 of the source document AirShelf archived when it extracted that claim. A caller holding the same bytes can compare the hash to check that the cited document has not changed. AirShelf does not serve those archived bytes, and the hash does not promise they remain retrievable. Branch on commercial_data.actionable before using price or stock: observations older than 24 hours are withheld from latestPrice and retained only as labelled last_observed history. For quote-gated B2B pricing, a null price with a quote path is expected rather than an error. In clients that render MCP Apps the response also draws one product card per call. related_products — relationships extracted from vendor documents (e.g. compatible toner or drum accessories with their source quotes, functional equivalents, supersessions); each entry names the related catalog slug, the relation type, its direction (direction is "from_this" when the relation reads this-product → related-product, "to_this" when it reads related-product → this-product), and the source URL and quote the relation was extracted from.

Discover candidate products for a buyer need. Takes a need in natural language (e.g. "best value home espresso machine", market "TH"), checks the verified catalog first, then uses live web discovery only when the catalog has no candidates. Returns up to 3 candidates with explicit fit accounting. find_products is the quick candidate-list tool; research_shopping is the full verified-research job. For a specific brand+model, search_catalog is cheaper and returns the same live-lookup block on a miss. Response fields: • candidates[].verification — "catalog-candidate" for a catalog starting point whose fit still needs checking, or "live-unverified" for a live page read during this run. • candidates[].status — "resolved" means both identity and the parsed buyer constraints were supported by the cited page; "abstain" means identity or need fit could not be established. Inspect constraint_check for matched, conflicting, and unverified requirements. • candidates[].constraint_check.receipts maps each receipt-backed matched requirement to its supporting source URL and trust label. • Candidates come from current web-search results, so they are a sample of what the market offers rather than a ranking. • status at the top level — "no_match" means discovery ran but no candidate was confirmed as satisfying the need; "disabled", "rate_limited", or "unavailable" means no discovery ran. • live_discovery.status="unavailable" means receipted catalog candidates were returned while live discovery was unavailable. Optional `market` (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) biases discovery and marketplace checks toward seller pages serving that country and scopes the lookup cache. "Available in <market>" means the seller page serves that market, not that stock is guaranteed.

Send a quote request for catalog products to a merchant's sales team on behalf of a named buyer. This is a two-step, double opt-in flow. The first call emails a confirmation link to `contact.email` and returns status "confirmation_required"; no lead exists and no merchant is contacted until the buyer confirms. A later call with the same arguments reports "awaiting_confirmation" while the email is unconfirmed, or "received" with a reference_number after confirmation. Merchant slugs come from list_merchants. Network-catalog brands that are absent from that list use merchant:"airshelf-network" with brandSlug:"<manufacturer-slug>"; AirShelf routes the confirmed request to that brand.

research_shopping is the full verified-research job; find_products is the quick candidate-list tool. It runs as a background job and returns status "running" with a research ID while the minutes-long research continues; the same research ID returns the run on later polls until completion. Unsafe medical, legal, financial-advice, and professional-service asks return status "refused" before any work is queued. Completed runs return a researched recommendation with per-claim source receipts, or an explicit refusal when evidence is insufficient. Missing decision details return clarification questions before research starts. `market` biases discovery and marketplace checks toward seller pages serving that country; "available in <market>" means the seller page serves that market, not that stock is guaranteed. Example answer keys include {"budget":"500 USD","market":"US","category":"espresso machine"}.