UCP Profile Validator

Validate any merchant's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) business profile and check if their store is ready for AI-powered commerce agents.

What does UCP Profile Validator do?

This Actor fetches and validates UCP business profiles published at /.well-known/ucp. It checks compliance with the official UCP specification and provides:

• Instant A-F grading based on compliance score (0-100)
• Detailed issue reports with error codes and severity levels
• Actionable fix recommendations for each problem found
• UCP version detection to ensure you're using the latest spec

What is UCP?

The Universal Commerce Protocol is an open standard developed by Google, Shopify, and other industry leaders. It enables AI shopping agents to:

• Discover online stores programmatically
• Understand store capabilities (checkout, orders, fulfillment)
• Transact securely with proper authentication

Merchants publish their UCP profile at https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/ucp to participate in AI-powered commerce.

Why validate your UCP profile?

• AI agents can't find you: Invalid profiles mean AI shopping assistants skip your store
• Lost sales: Customers using AI tools won't be able to purchase from you
• Compliance issues: Incorrect schemas break integrations with payment and fulfillment systems
• Competitive disadvantage: Early UCP adopters capture AI-driven traffic first

How to use UCP Profile Validator

1. Enter the domain you want to validate (e.g., mystore.com)
2. Select validation mode (Full recommended for comprehensive checks)
3. Click Run
4. Review the grade, issues, and recommendations in the output

Input options

Field	Description	Default
domain	Merchant domain to validate	Required
mode	full (comprehensive) or quick (structural only)	full
includeRecommendations	Add fix suggestions to output	true

Validation checks performed

Check	Severity	Description
Profile accessibility	Error	Can we reach /.well-known/ucp?
JSON structure	Error	Valid JSON with required ucp object
Version format	Error	Must be YYYY-MM-DD format
Services defined	Error	At least one service with transport binding
Capabilities array	Error	Required capabilities with name/version/spec/schema
HTTPS endpoints	Error	All endpoints must use HTTPS
Namespace validation	Error	dev.ucp.* must use ucp.dev URLs
Extension chains	Error	Parent capabilities must exist
Signing keys	Error	Required if Order capability is present
Trailing slashes	Warning	Endpoints should not have trailing /

Output example

{
  "domain": "example.com",
  "profileUrl": "https://example.com/.well-known/ucp",
  "valid": false,
  "score": 60,
  "grade": "D",
  "ucpVersion": "2026-01-11",
  "errors": 2,
  "warnings": 1,
  "issues": [
    {
      "severity": "error",
      "code": "UCP_NS_MISMATCH",
      "message": "dev.ucp.* spec must be on ucp.dev"
    },
    {
      "severity": "error",
      "code": "UCP_MISSING_KEYS",
      "message": "Order requires signing_keys"
    },
    {
      "severity": "warn",
      "code": "UCP_TRAILING_SLASH",
      "message": "Remove trailing slash"
    }
  ],
  "recommendations": [
    "Fix all errors before deploying",
    "Add signing_keys for Order capability"
  ],
  "checkedAt": "2026-01-14T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Grading system

Grade	Score	Meaning
A	90-100	Fully compliant, ready for AI agents
B	80-89	Minor issues, mostly ready
C	70-79	Several issues to fix
D	60-69	Significant problems
F	0-59	Profile broken or missing

How much does it cost?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a small start fee per run plus a fixed price per validated domain (one dataset row per domain, including a domain whose profile could not be fetched). Platform compute costs are included. No monthly fees or subscriptions.

Apify plan	Per validation	Per 1,000 validations	Start fee per run
Free	$0.005	$5.00	$0.001
Starter	$0.0045	$4.50	$0.001
Scale	$0.004	$4.00	$0.001
Business and above	$0.003	$3.00	$0.001

Example: validating 100 domains in one batch run costs about $0.50 on the Free plan ($0.30 on Business).

Use cases

• Pre-launch validation: Check your profile before going live with AI commerce
• Competitor analysis: See which stores in your industry are UCP-ready
• Bulk monitoring: Validate hundreds of domains programmatically via API
• Agency audits: Check all client stores at once with scheduled runs
• CI/CD integration: Add validation to your deployment pipeline

API integration

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~ucp-profile-validator/runs" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"domain": "example.com"}'

Tips for fixing UCP issues

1. Start with errors first - Warnings won't block AI agents, but errors will
2. Test locally - Use Quick mode during development for faster iteration
3. Check namespace rules - Official dev.ucp.* capabilities must reference ucp.dev URLs

Resources

• UCP Specification
• UCP GitHub Repository
• Google UCP Business Profile Guide

Support

Questions or a missing check? Open an issue on the Issues tab.