Skip to main content
Every Commerce Engine storefront needs two values: a Store ID and a publishable Storefront API key. Both come from the Admin Portal.

​
Get your keys

Each organisation has its own Admin Portal subdomain, so enter yours to open the API keys page directly.
The link opens the API keys page if you are already signed in, and the login screen if you are not. Both commercengine.io and commercengine.dev resolve to the same portal.

​
What signup already created

When you signed up, Commerce Engine provisioned a working set for you: For a single web storefront, that default set is all you need. Copy the Store ID and the Storefront API key into your environment variables and continue with the Quickstart.
The Storefront API key is publishable and intended for storefront clients. It is not an Admin API key and not a payment-provider credential. Never put admin or payment secrets in browser-visible environment variables.

​
Stores, channels, and keys

This is the part worth understanding before you build, because it determines which products your storefront can see.
Three rules follow from that shape:
  1. Products are linked to channels. A product that is not assigned to a channel does not exist as far as that channel is concerned.
  2. API keys are scoped to one channel. The key you use decides which slice of the catalog you can read.
  3. A store can have several channels. Each gets its own key.

​
Channel types

This is why POS has its own SDK and its own authentication model, and why the API reference has a separate marketplace catalog: they are different channels, not different stores.

​
If your catalog comes back empty

An API key scoped to the wrong channel does not return an error. It returns an empty list.
That is a valid response — the channel genuinely has no products visible to it. If you see this and expect products, check in order:
1

Confirm the key's channel

In the Admin Portal, open the API key and note which channel it belongs to.
2

Confirm the products are assigned to that channel

A product visible in the Admin Portal is not automatically visible to every channel.
3

Confirm the environment matches

Staging and production have separate data. A staging key against a production store ID returns nothing useful.
Empty results with error === null almost always mean channel scoping, not a broken integration. Reach for the Admin Portal before debugging the SDK.

​
Environments

The SDK selects the base URL from the environment option, so you set it once in configuration rather than per call. See Configuration.

​
Next steps

Quickstart

Install the SDK, set environment variables, and make your first catalog call.

Configuration

Every SDK option, including environment and token storage selection.