DataForSEO Merchant API

Provenance

This is an experimental project to test how OpenCode, plugged into frontier LLMs (OpenAI GPT-5.2), can help generate high-fidelity agent skill files for API integrations.

When to Apply

• "track product listings", "monitor prices", "product availability"
• "analyze sellers", "seller competition", "seller counts"
• "fetch product reviews", "review monitoring"
• "Google Shopping products", "Amazon product research"

Integration Contract (Language-Agnostic)

See references/REFERENCE.md for the shared DataForSEO integration contract (auth, status handling, task lifecycle, sandbox, and .ai responses).

Task-based Retrieval

• Merchant is largely task-based: task_post -> tasks_ready -> task_get (Advanced/HTML where available).
• Store tasks[].id so you can resume fetching results.
• If the endpoint supports postback_url or pingback_url, prefer it over polling.

Group Notes

• Locations and languages are required for many sources; use the source-specific reference endpoints.

Steps

1. Identify the exact endpoint(s) in the official docs for this use case.
2. Choose execution mode:
   • Live (single request) for interactive queries
   • Task-based (post + poll/webhook) for scheduled or high-volume jobs
3. Build the HTTP request:
   • Base URL: https://api.dataforseo.com/
   • Auth: HTTP Basic (Authorization: Basic base64(login:password)) from https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/auth/
   • JSON body exactly as specified in the endpoint docs
4. Execute and validate the response:
   • Check top-level status_code and each tasks[] item status
   • Treat any status_code != 20000 as a failure; surface status_message
5. For task-based endpoints:
   • Store tasks[].id
   • Poll tasks_ready then fetch results with task_get (or use postback_url/pingback_url if supported)
6. Return results:
   • Provide a normalized summary for the user
   • Include the raw response payload for debugging

Inputs Checklist

• Credentials: DataForSEO API login + password (HTTP Basic Auth)
• Target: keyword(s) / domain(s) / URL(s) / query string (depends on endpoint)
• Targeting (if applicable): location + language, device, depth/limit
• Time window (if applicable): date range, trend period, historical flags
• Output preference: regular vs advanced vs html (if the endpoint supports it)

Example (cURL)

curl -u "${DATAFORSEO_LOGIN}:${DATAFORSEO_PASSWORD}"   -H "Content-Type: application/json"   -X POST "https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/<group>/<path>/live"   -d '[
    {
      "<param>": "<value>"
    }
  ]'

Notes:

• Replace <group>/<path> with the exact endpoint path from the official docs.
• For task-based flows, use the corresponding task_post, tasks_ready, and task_get endpoints.

Docs Map (Official)

• Overview: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/overview/

Google Shopping:

• Overview: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/google/overview/
• Products Task POST: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/google/products/task_post/
• Sellers Task POST: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/google/sellers/task_post/
• Reviews Task POST: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/google/reviews/task_post/

Amazon:

• Overview: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/overview/
• Products Task POST: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/products/task_post/
• ASIN Task POST: https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/merchant/amazon/asin/task_post/

Business & Product Use Cases

• Competitive price monitoring for ecommerce operators and brands.
• Marketplace intelligence dashboards (assortment, seller dynamics, review signals).
• Detect unauthorized reseller activity by tracking sellers over time.
• Support category managers with product discovery and benchmarking.
• Create sales enablement insights (who competes, where you appear, pricing gaps).
• Track reputation at SKU level via review trends.

Examples (User Prompts)

• "If you don't have the skill installed, install dataforseo-merchant-api and then continue."
• "Install the Merchant skill and monitor prices for these products weekly across top sellers."
• "Pull Google Shopping results for this query and compare our visibility vs competitors."
• "Fetch Amazon product info for these ASINs and extract key attributes into a table."
• "Analyze seller competition for our category and list top sellers by presence."
• "Track review trends for our SKU and summarize recurring complaints."