A connected argument over several years
The reading map connects earlier publications with this book’s themes. The technical chapters and protocol passport specify their respective document snapshots.
| Thread | Publications | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Technology and creativity | Yin and Yang; early shopping and multimodal articles | human value and experience |
| Operational relief | January 2025 whitepaper; Agentic eCommerce | merchant work and complexity |
| From clicks to intent | Cheat Sheet; Thought-Chain; Customers Turn Into Code | delegation and journeys |
| Discovery and distribution | Software Ate the World; Discovery Layer | changing selection |
| Differentiation | Market Reset; adaptive storefronts | product value and commodity trap |
| Open AI and development | 140,000 Lines; When Code Writes Code; Commerce Benchmark; Open-Weight Inflection | Open weights, customization and evidence |
| Prototypes | ACP with PayPal; generated storefronts | boundaries and inspectable results |
| Shared architecture | Strategy Book; Developer Guide | protocols, trust and operations |
| Executable systems | B2B interview; Execution Layer | business truth and permissions |
| Procurement experiment | Procurement Swarm | bounded end-to-end case |
Further early writing on AI shopping, multimodality, spatial commerce and virtual try-ons appears as historical reading in the bibliography. Articles on AI-assisted development and the commerce benchmark add an engineering perspective. Historical promises and benchmark results are not carried forward as evidence of current product capability. [S71–S78]
The engineering strand in the publications
My March and April 2025 essays discuss AI-assisted development through project work. The June 2026 commerce benchmark and July’s “The Open-Weight Inflection” add open models and local execution. They inform Part V’s question: which forms of customization become economical and remain maintainable? Project accounts and research on development productivity provide different kinds of evidence. [S76, S77, S78, S91, S118]
A reading map of the public experiments
The experiment boxes describe the task, setup, finding and status. References lead to the repositories and versions used. This map supports selective reading. [S99–S116]
| Project group | Topic | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| ATELIER / YOU and Storyfront | Personal presentation and product stories | 6 |
| AXP | Experience within the assistant | 6 |
| WebMCP and SwagA2UI | Tools and interfaces in the customer channel | 9 |
| Sales Agent Harness | Shop functions for several access routes | 10 |
| Merchant Quote Agent and rfq-bench | Negotiation within agreed boundaries | 10 |
| Shopware × Claude and Starter Kit | Proposals, approval and execution | 11 |
| x402 | Paid digital services | 8 |
| Agent in a Box | Development environments for each project | 13 and 16 |
| SwagUcp and official plugin | Maintained protocol integration | 19 |
| Nyx and VEYNDO | Knowledge and adaptation in shop operations | 11 and 15 |
“After Turing” explores agent identification through behaviour or metadata. Identifying a request and authorising a purchase are different tasks. [S105]
Image credits for this edition
The 21 chapter vignettes form one conceptual visual story with the traveller, suitcase and compass agent. They are illustrations rather than captures of real projects. The Chapter 11 image moves to the merchant’s side: the merchant sets objectives and boundaries for the shop operator.
The author photograph and historical publication covers come from my website. Twelve original screenshots show the public projects discussed, Shopware documentation, and the Storyfront, Agentic Commerce Alliance and Readiness Scanner websites. Captions identify their provenance and, where documented, the capture date or project version. The team photograph comes from Shopware’s official team page. Diagrams are original explanatory models. Numerical graphics show the explicitly labelled calculations or dated published findings.