The Tool Desk
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What does Thor Commerce provide, and what do you build?
Thor manages products, contextual prices, inventory, customers, carts, and orders. Your application supplies the buying experience: product pages, navigation, cart interface, and any custom checkout screens. Thor’s documentation describes this division as: “You build the experience; Thor manages products, contextual prices, inventory, customers, carts, and orders.” (How Thor fits together, updated September 9, 2026.)
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Thor separates its APIs by trust boundary and purpose:
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches- Storefront API: A GraphQL API for buyer-facing product and variant discovery, contextual prices and availability, customer accounts, carts, and checkout.
- Admin API: For trusted management integrations and embedded apps. Keep its credentials on the server; never place them in browser code or a client-side bundle.
The Storefront API uses shopper and market context—including store, channel, currency, country, locale, and potentially customer context—to determine what is visible and which prices, inventory, discounts, shipping options, and payment methods apply. Carry the appropriate context through product queries and cart creation rather than treating a product’s price as universal. See Thor’s Storefront API documentation.
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How should you choose a starting point?
Thor’s getting-started guide offers several routes: customize a working Next.js storefront, build a storefront from scratch, connect a service, configure an empty project, test the purchase path, or extend the dashboard. Choose the path that matches the outcome you need.
| Starting point | Useful when | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Customize the Next.js starter | You want to adapt existing storefront code and reach a working flow without rebuilding the foundation. | You will need to understand and reshape the starter’s existing structure. |
| Build from scratch | You need control over the application structure and buyer experience. | You take responsibility for more of the storefront implementation. |
Thor does not publish a comparative time or cost estimate for these choices. In either case, keep the project slug, credentials, and resource IDs tied to the same environment. Start in development, not against live commerce data.
How do you set up products shoppers can actually buy?
Configure the commerce model before relying on storefront results. An Admin record alone does not guarantee that a shopper can see or purchase a product: intended products must be published, have a price, and have available inventory. Create sellable variants and make sure the store and channels reflect where you intend to sell.
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- Set up the store and its channels in the appropriate Thor environment.
- Create products with the variants shoppers can select.
- Add prices and inventory for the relevant context.
- Activate and publish the products intended for sale.
- Check that the intended store, channel, country, and currency align with the storefront context.
Thor’s platform architecture guide explains the commerce data model and the roles of the Admin and Storefront APIs.
How do you build product discovery and product pages?
Use the Storefront API to query products, categories, or collections. Results can include variants, contextual price and availability, media, categories, collections, tags, and public metafields. Thor also supports cursor pagination, sorting, facets, and search queries, so a storefront can offer filtering and search without treating a single unpaginated list as the catalog.
Build the product page from the returned context-aware data: present the available variants and the price and availability returned for the shopper’s store and market. If the shopper’s context changes, request the relevant data under the new context rather than reusing a price from a different market. Consult the Storefront API reference for the exact fields and input shapes for the operations you implement.
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How do you create a cart and keep totals accurate?
Create the cart with the same relevant store, channel, currency, and country context used for discovery. Persist the cart identity in the shopper’s session so later requests can act on the right cart. After adding or changing lines, re-read the cart and render the returned state.
The cart response is the source of truth for line prices, discounts, tax, shipping, payment eligibility, and totals. Do not calculate the payable amount independently in browser code: context and cart changes can affect the figures Thor returns. Use the cart response to display the current amount due and available next steps.
Should you use Thor’s checkout URL or build custom checkout?
The shortest integration is to redirect the shopper to the returned checkoutUrl. A custom checkout gives you more control over the buyer-facing flow, but requires you to wire shipping and payment steps according to the methods configured for the project.
| Approach | Implementation effort | Buyer-experience control | Your responsibility |
|---|---|---|---|
Redirect to checkoutUrl |
Shorter integration | Less control over the checkout experience inside your application | Send the shopper to the returned URL and handle the resulting order flow. |
| Custom checkout | More integration work | More control over the custom flow | Wire shipping and payment steps to the project’s configured methods and use Thor’s returned cart state. |
For either approach, do not invent a payable total on the client. Follow the Storefront API’s checkout flow and configured payment methods; availability depends on project configuration.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How do you test the full purchase path and hand it off?
Test a complete purchase path in the development environment using a configured test payment method. Confirm that you can discover a published product, add it to a cart, proceed through checkout, and inspect the resulting test order in Admin. Thor’s getting-started guide includes paths for testing the purchase flow.
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Checkout is not the end of commerce operations. Payment and fulfillment are separate workflows after checkout, so make sure the team responsible for orders knows how those steps are handled. If the application must exchange data with other systems, Thor’s documentation also identifies webhooks, catalog synchronization, bulk operations and jobs, custom data, and embedded apps as extension paths. The exact work depends on the systems and project configuration.
Best Value
- PLAIN BACK, NO SORTING SECTIONS: COLORFUL STOREFRONT SCENE: Explore a lively row of jewel-toned shops with striped awnings, arched windows, leafy plants, citrus trees, and a welcoming sidewalk.
- TREASURE-HUNT DETAILS: Discover bicycles, books, musical instruments, a piano, a clock, a vinyl record, market produce, a curious cat, café tables, and distinctive architectural accents.
- MINDFUL SCREEN-FREE TIME: A satisfying 500-piece activity for quiet evenings, rainy days, solo puzzling, couples or relaxed time together at the table.
- STURDY PUZZLE BUILD: Made from thick 2.1-2.2mm cardboard with precision-cut interlocking pieces, nearly dust-free handling, and an A4 reference poster for easier assembly. Please note: the back of the pieces is plain, with no sorting sections, letters or numbers.
- AGES 14+ ADULT PUZZLE: Designed for ages 14+ and adult puzzlers who enjoy colorful scenes, detailed visual discovery, and satisfying tabletop assembly.
How can AI help build a Thor Commerce storefront?
Use AI as an implementation assistant for specific, reviewable tasks—not as an authority on the live schema or a substitute for commerce decisions. Thor’s documentation recommends using concepts for modeling choices, guides for implementation steps and expected outcomes, and API references for exact field contracts.
A useful first instruction is Thor’s suggested prompt: “Inspect my project, ask what I want to build, and propose a plan before implementing it.” Then give the agent a bounded task, such as implementing a product-list query or a cart-update component, and ask it to identify the Thor guide and API reference it is following.
- Have the agent inspect the project and propose a plan before making changes.
- Ask it to verify GraphQL fields and input shapes against the current API reference.
- Keep Admin credentials on the server, never in browser code.
- Review generated code yourself and run it against a development environment.
- Use a test payment configuration to validate the purchase path.
- Require explicit approval before changes to live commerce data.
AI-generated code is not evidence that a feature has been tested. Verify behavior by running the application and completing the relevant test flow. Thor’s documentation home provides guides and API references for that verification.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
