01
Classes of fact and their rates
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
Treated as one task, keeping a setup current has no bound. Sorted into classes, the facts underneath it change at rates that differ by orders of magnitude, and the interval is set per class.
| Class of fact | Changes on the order of | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Platform eligibility and program terms | Weeks | Which merchants may onboard to a given path |
| Policy on permitted automated use | Weeks to months | Whether automated ordering is permitted on a venue |
| Specification shape | Months | The fields an interface expects |
| Vocabulary semantics | Years | What an offer denotes as distinct from a product |
| Research findings | Slowly, and by extension rather than reversal | What a study observed in its own setting |
The first row carries the shortest interval and the least visible change. Eligibility is revised without a general announcement, and a merchant who was not already eligible is not a party to whom the revision is communicated.
02
What a continuously updated document offers
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
A versioned specification supplies a handle: the version is noted, and whether what was read is still what was built against is answerable. A continuously updated help page or set of terms supplies no such handle. It changes without a version number and often without a visible diff.
The merchant-facing OpenAI documents this course relies on are of the second kind — live terms where the current text is the only text.1 What that supports is recording the date they were read and attaching that date to any decision resting on them. A decision carrying a read-date can be re-checked against the current text; one without a read-date has to be derived again from the beginning.
03
A watch list short enough to maintain
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
The list covers documents whose change would alter something the seller currently does, which for a small operation is usually between three and eight.
- List the documents a current decision depends on.
- Assign each the interval of its fastest-changing class rather than its slowest.
- Record the date each was last read, in the same place as the decision it supports.
- Where a publisher blocks automated checking, mark it as a manual read and give it a shorter interval.
| Document | Decision it supports | Interval | Last read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live merchant terms | Every row of the money-roles sheet | Monthly | Read this week |
| Venue policy on automated ordering | Whether one channel is in the pilot | Monthly | Read this week |
| Protocol specification snapshot | The field shapes built against | Quarterly; it publishes dated snapshots | Read this week |
| Eligibility page for a surface applied to | Whether the application is pending or decided | Every two weeks, by hand — it blocks automated checking | Unknown — not read since the form was submitted |
The bottom row is the fastest-changing fact on the list, is the one that cannot be watched automatically, and is the one with no recorded read. Those three properties tend to appear together.
The fourth step states the interval rule for that case. A source that cannot be monitored is checked on a shorter human interval, because no other mechanism reports that it changed.
04
Documents that state their own status
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
Some documents describe their own instability, and the description is recorded alongside the fact taken from them. A beta specification publishing dated snapshots states both that it will change and how a reader will know.2 An in-progress standards draft carries a revision number and a defined lifespan, which is a schedule.3
What the self-description supports later is a comparison. A fact taken from a draft and a fact taken from a published standard carry different weights when either is found contradicted, and the note is where that difference is available.
05
The read-date beside the claim
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
This applies to what a seller writes for their own team, their suppliers, and their customers. An undated statement about a platform’s behavior does not carry the information a reader needs to establish whether it is current.
The read-date sits next to the claim. Where a claim cannot be kept current, the available options are shortening it or removing it. This course applies the same rule to its own sources, which is why the source register carries review dates rather than a broader undated set.
06
When the review runs
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
The review is attached to a rhythm that already exists — the hour the books are reconciled, the week a stock count runs — rather than to a new reminder.
Two events interrupt the schedule. One is an incident that involved a stale fact, which is direct evidence about which part of the list is under-watched. The other is a change to the seller’s own configuration, such as a new channel or a new integration, because a measured figure is a property of the configuration it was measured on.
07
How the source documents describe themselves
Applies to marketplace onlyown storefronthybrid
The merchant terms this course cites are continuously updated, with no version to pin.1 The checkout specification publishes dated snapshots and describes itself as in beta.2 The bot-identity draft carries a revision number and an expiry date.3
Those three self-descriptions are what set the intervals in the table above. None of the documents states how often it will change, which is why the interval is a decision the seller records rather than a figure the source supplies.
08
Practice
Exercise
Build the watch list
- List the documents your current decisions depend on and note the date each was last read.
- Assign each an interval from its fastest-changing class, shortening any that cannot be monitored.
- Attach the review to an existing recurring task rather than to a new reminder.
Check yourself
Why is one review interval for everything the wrong shape?
Because eligibility changes on the order of weeks and vocabulary semantics on the order of years. A single interval is either more frequent than the slow facts need or less frequent than the fast ones do.
A source cannot be checked automatically. What interval does it take?
A shorter manual one. Nothing else reports that it changed, so the difficulty of checking is a reason to check more often rather than less.
What does a read-date add to a recorded fact?
The ability to re-check rather than re-derive. A decision carrying the date its evidence was read can be revisited against the current text; an undated one has to be rebuilt.
Progress is saved in this browser only. No account, nothing sent anywhere.
09
Common questions
How many sources belong on the list?
The ones whose change would alter a current decision, which is typically between three and eight for a small seller. A list longer than what is actually read reports coverage it does not have.
Should change detection be automated?
Where the publisher permits it, it is inexpensive for stable documents such as specifications. Help-center pages frequently block unattended clients, which is the case the manual interval covers.
What happens when a published fact turns out to be stale?
It is corrected and the correction is dated. A visible correction records what changed and when, which an unmarked edit does not.
Does any of this apply without an integration?
The policy row does. Whether automated purchasing is permitted on a venue is a fact about that venue that changes without the seller’s involvement.
10
Research and sources
Rules and platform policies change. These primary sources were reviewed on ; confirm the current position for your jurisdiction and account before acting.
Claim evidence
- Continuously updated merchant terms and policies publish no version, so a decision resting on them can only be held by recording the date the text was read.
- current external fact. Supported by Merchant Feed Terms of Service .
- A beta specification publishing dated snapshots, and an in-progress standards draft carrying a revision and a defined lifespan, each announce how and when they will change.
- technical requirement. Supported by Agentic Commerce Protocol repository and specification , Web Bot Auth: HTTP Message Signatures protocol (Internet-Draft) .
- Merchant Feed Terms of Service OpenAI · Tier A · current policy · live terms
OpenAI merchant-feed participation. Limit: Terms can change and apply only to the covered OpenAI service and merchant.
- Agentic Commerce Protocol repository and specification Agentic Commerce Protocol · Tier A · beta · 2026-04-17 stable snapshot; unreleased development tracked separately
ACP checkout, cart, feed, order, authentication, and extension models. Limit: A beta specification maintained by OpenAI and Stripe does not prove platform adoption, merchant access, conformance, or interoperability.
- Web Bot Auth: HTTP Message Signatures protocol (Internet-Draft) Internet Engineering Task Force · Tier D · active Internet-Draft; individual submission, not adopted by an IETF working group · draft-meunier-webbotauth-httpsig-protocol-00, expires 2026-12-28
Signing and verifying automated HTTP client identity, key discovery, and deployment models. Limit: An Internet-Draft is a work in progress and must be cited only as such. It replaces draft-meunier-web-bot-auth-architecture, is an individual submission rather than working-group output, and expires 2026-12-28; nothing in it is a settled standard or an access entitlement.