specification: API Commons Lifecycle
specificationVersion: '0.1'
provider: Kroger
providerId: kroger
generated: '2026-08-27'
method: searched
source: >-
  Kroger developer documentation, read anonymously from the portal content API
  (https://developer.kroger.com/api/v1/developer/content/search.json, HTTP 200),
  plus DNS/HTTP probes for a status page.
docs:
  - https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/public/getting-started/apis
  - https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/support/api-troubleshooting/troubleshooting
versioning:
  scheme: uri-path
  current_version: v1
  base: https://api.kroger.com/v1/
  policy_published: false
  note: >-
    Two versions of one product are visible in the catalog — Catalog API and
    Catalog API V2 — so Kroger does version its Partner surface, but no public
    statement exists on how versions are introduced, how long a prior version is
    supported, or what counts as a breaking change.
deprecation:
  policy_published: false
  sunset_header: not-documented
  deprecation_header: not-documented
  rfc8594: false
  deprecated_operations: []
  note: >-
    No public deprecation policy, no RFC 8594 Sunset/Deprecation header contract,
    and no advance-notice commitment. Kroger DOES maintain a deprecation
    discipline internally — its portal carries an API style guide with a
    "breaking-log" and "evolvable-apis" chapter, and a whole
    /documentation/deprecated-api-style-guide/ tree — but every one of those
    pages is internal-only, redirecting to a private GitHub repository
    (krogertechnology/apip-apidm-ui-docs, HTTP 404 anonymously). The governance
    exists; the external commitment does not.
changelog:
  published: false
  url: null
  note: >-
    No dated public changelog or release-notes feed for the Public or Partner
    APIs. Release-notes pages exist in the portal's route table but only under
    the internal style-guide tree.
status_page:
  published: false
  url: null
  probes:
    - url: https://status.kroger.com/
      status: 000
      result: NXDOMAIN — host does not resolve
      checked: '2026-08-27'
  note: >-
    No status page, uptime history or incident feed is published for the Kroger
    APIs. 503 Service Unavailable is not even in the published status-code table.
sla:
  published: false
  note: No availability, latency or support-response SLA is published for Public APIs. Partner terms are contractual and unpublished.
support:
  channels:
    - type: email
      value: APISupport@kroger.com
      note: >-
        Published as the API support contact on Kroger's API reference pages.
    - type: docs
      value: https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/support/api-troubleshooting/troubleshooting
    - type: partner-request
      value: https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/partner
      note: Route to request Partner API access; a Kroger developer-team member responds.
token_lifecycle:
  access_token_ttl_seconds: 1800
  refresh_token_ttl: six months
  refresh_token_rotation: single-use
  note: >-
    The clearest lifecycle commitment Kroger publishes is about credentials, not
    about the APIs themselves.
policy_documents:
  - name: Acceptable Use of Public APIs
    url: https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/public/getting-started/acceptable-use
    binds:
      - 'Products: no cross-retailer price comparison; no altering product data; no systematic scraping or crawling to build a database.'
      - 'Locations: no tracking/storing customer location; no altering location data; no systematic scraping.'
      - 'Cart: items may only be added at the customer''s explicit request; no tracking or storing cart-derived data.'
      - 'Identity: the profile ID may be displayed but not used to map or store data about a customer, and not shared.'
    note: >-
      This is the closest thing Kroger publishes to an agent policy, and it is
      restrictive in a way an autonomous shopping agent must read before acting:
      the no-silent-cart-additions rule and the no-price-comparison rule both cut
      directly against common agent use cases.
  - name: Branding Guidelines
    url: https://developer.kroger.com/documentation/public/getting-started/branding
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com