Updates are short, dated, source-linked, and mapped to practical merchant impact. The readiness score is a planning tool, not a certification.
Primary sources include protocol specs, company engineering blogs, product announcements, and official documentation. Reputable secondary sources are used only when they add market context. Links are reviewed before new updates go live.
The 13 checks total 125 points. We divide the weight of checked items by 125 and round to a whole percent. Bands begin at 42% (Basic Discoverability), 64% (Agent-Readable), and 82% (Protocol-Aware). These are editorial planning thresholds, not industry standards or probabilities of success.
The action list puts missing critical checks first, then orders by weight. Platform and business-model selections change the evidence prompts and recommendations while keeping the score comparable. The checker does not inspect a store or verify your answers. A 100% result cannot establish that an account is eligible for a sales channel or that an integration passes protocol conformance tests.
This is a curated watchlist, not a daily or exhaustive news service. A publication date belongs to the underlying announcement. Content reviewed is the last editorial assessment of that entry; older entries retain their earlier review dates. Current documentation can change after a review.
A watch item identifies an unconfirmed rollout or outcome. Confirm access with the provider before relying on an announced capability in your store.
Use the coverage guide to explore the archive. The checklist's suggested test cases interpret the cited documentation; the protocol maintainer's requirements remain the reference for conformance.
Keep evidence for each completed check, assign an owner to each gap, and test the full purchase journey in your chosen channel. Use the score to prioritize that work, then verify the result against the provider's requirements.