---
name: shopify-admin-vendor-consolidation
role: merchandising
description: "Read-only: detects vendor field typos, casing variants, and trailing-whitespace duplicates across the catalog and proposes a canonical merge per cluster."
toolkit: shopify-admin, shopify-admin-execution
api_version: "2025-01"
graphql_operations:
  - products:query
status: stable
compatibility: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI
---

## Purpose
Walks every product in the catalog, normalizes the `vendor` field, and clusters near-duplicates such as `Acme`, `ACME`, `Acme Inc`, and `Acme  ` (trailing whitespace). Surfaces a recommended canonical form per cluster and the count of products that would migrate. Vendor sprawl breaks vendor-based reports, navigation, and supplier reconciliation. Read-only — no mutations; output is the worklist for a follow-up consolidation. 

## Prerequisites
- Authenticated Shopify CLI session: `shopify store auth --store <domain> --scopes read_products`
- API scopes: `read_products`

## Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| store | string | yes | — | Store domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com) |
| similarity_threshold | float | no | 0.88 | Levenshtein-ratio threshold for clustering (0.0–1.0) |
| min_cluster_size | integer | no | 2 | Only emit clusters with at least this many distinct vendor strings |
| ignore_suffixes | string | no | "Inc,LLC,Ltd,Co,Corp" | Comma-separated company suffixes stripped before comparison |
| status_filter | string | no | ALL | Product status to include: `ACTIVE`, `DRAFT`, `ARCHIVED`, or `ALL` |
| format | string | no | human | Output format: `human` or `json` |

## Safety

> ℹ️ Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time. The skill produces a recommendation worklist; consolidation must be applied through a separate, reviewed workflow.

## Workflow Steps

1. **OPERATION:** `products` — query
   **Inputs:** `first: 250`, `query: <built from status_filter>`, select `vendor`, `id`, `title`, `status`, pagination cursor
   **Expected output:** Every product with its vendor string; paginate until `hasNextPage: false`

2. Build a frequency map of distinct vendor strings → product count. Normalize each vendor with: trim whitespace, collapse multiple spaces, strip configured suffixes, lowercase for comparison.

3. Cluster vendor strings whose normalized form has a Levenshtein ratio above `similarity_threshold`. Pick canonical per cluster as the most-used variant; tie-break on shortest, then alphabetical.

4. Filter clusters with fewer than `min_cluster_size` distinct strings. Compute migration impact: number of products that would move to the canonical form.

5. Sort clusters by migration impact descending so the highest-leverage merges surface first.

## GraphQL Operations

```graphql
# products:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
query AllVendors($query: String, $after: String) {
  products(first: 250, after: $after, query: $query) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
        vendor
        status
        productType
        updatedAt
      }
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}
```

## Session Tracking

**Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.**

**On start**, emit:
```
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: Vendor Consolidation                 ║
║  Store: <store domain>                       ║
║  Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC>             ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
```

**After each step**, emit:
```
[N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION>  <OperationName>
          → Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
          → Result: <count or outcome>
```

**On completion**, emit:

For `format: human` (default):
```
══════════════════════════════════════════════
VENDOR CONSOLIDATION REPORT
  Products scanned:        <n>
  Distinct vendors:        <n>
  Clusters detected:       <n>
  Products to migrate:     <n>

  Top clusters by impact:
    Canonical: "<name>"  Variants: <n>  Products: <n>
      "<variant 1>"  (<count>)
      "<variant 2>"  (<count>)
  Output: vendor_consolidation_<date>.csv
══════════════════════════════════════════════
```

For `format: json`, emit:
```json
{
  "skill": "vendor-consolidation",
  "store": "<domain>",
  "products_scanned": 0,
  "distinct_vendors": 0,
  "clusters": [
    {
      "canonical": "Acme",
      "variants": [
        { "value": "Acme", "products": 0 },
        { "value": "ACME", "products": 0 },
        { "value": "Acme Inc", "products": 0 }
      ],
      "products_to_migrate": 0
    }
  ],
  "output_file": "vendor_consolidation_<date>.csv"
}
```

## Output Format
CSV file `vendor_consolidation_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv` with columns:
`cluster_id`, `canonical_vendor`, `variant_vendor`, `is_canonical`, `product_count`, `sample_product_id`, `sample_product_title`, `status`

## Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Recovery |
|-------|-------|----------|
| `THROTTLED` | API rate limit exceeded | Wait 2 seconds, retry up to 3 times |
| Empty `vendor` field on product | Vendor never set | Bucket as cluster `(unset)`, surface count separately |
| Two valid distinct vendors collide on similarity | False positive (e.g., `Apple` vs `Appel`) | Lower `similarity_threshold` is unsafe; review cluster manually before applying |
| Unicode-different but visually identical vendors | Smart-quote or non-breaking space | Normalization step strips these before comparison |

## Best Practices
- Start with the default `similarity_threshold: 0.88`. Below 0.85, false positives multiply quickly.
- Manually review every cluster before applying — `ABC Corp` and `ABC Co.` may or may not be the same supplier in your books.
- Use `ignore_suffixes` to absorb legal-entity noise (`Inc`, `LLC`) which rarely changes the actual vendor identity.
- After review, drive consolidation via a separate update workflow (for example, an internal product-update script) and re-run this audit until clusters drop below `min_cluster_size`.
- Pair with `product-data-completeness-score` to track vendor-field cleanliness over time alongside other catalog quality metrics.