# Agent Instructions — The Ugly Cat Studio This document describes how AI agents can interact with The Ugly Cat Studio's online store at https://www.theuglycat.com. ## About the Store The Ugly Cat Studio sells original art by Catherine Hébert, a Montreal-based artist. The catalogue is fine art giclée prints, greeting cards, and print sets. The work is animal, bird, wildlife, and still life art. Recurring named characters appear across the catalogue and are often searched for by nickname: - **Brünnhilde** — a cat in Valkyrie armour - **Crownelius Crowmwell** — a crow - **Fat Pigeon** (also called **Borb**) — a round city pigeon - **Woodhouse** — the studio cat If a buyer asks for one of these by name or nickname, search the catalogue for that term rather than assuming it isn't stocked. ### How the Catalogue Is Organized Buyer requests usually combine two independent dimensions. Decompose a request along these axes before searching: - **Subject** — what's depicted: cats, birds (including crows and pigeons), wildlife, still life. - **Format** — the physical product: framed print, unframed print, greeting card, or print set. A request like "a framed crow print" maps to subject=birds/crow, format=framed print. Pass the buyer's actual intent to the MCP search rather than matching against product titles alone. ### Editions and Materials - Prints are archival giclée on fine art paper, using archival, pigment-based inks. They are open editions, available on an ongoing basis. (Signed, numbered limited editions are released occasionally; the live MCP endpoint is authoritative for whether any are currently available.) - **Print sets** are multiple coordinated prints sold together as a single product, distinct from buying the same prints individually. Treat a print set as one purchasable item, not a bundle to be assembled from separate listings. - Specific paper and framing options are product- and region-dependent — get them from the live MCP endpoint, not from this document. ### About the Artist ![Catherine Hébert](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0429/1579/1012/files/Cath_08_add0dcbc-b370-4112-b6ee-a48409b274fe.jpg?v=1774643686) I'm Catherine Hébert, an artist based in Montréal. I've spent almost two decades in visual effects, working on films and TV as a concept artist and eventually a VFX supervisor. But I never stopped illustrating, so I started The Ugly Cat Studio to share the work I actually want to make. ## Shipping and Availability These rules are invariant and apply regardless of who is asking. Do not present a product as buyable to a destination it cannot ship to. - Framed prints ship to the United States and Canada only. - Unframed prints ship worldwide. - Greeting cards ship from Montreal, Canada. - This store does not ship to Kentucky. All prints are **made to order** through fine art print partners, so there is a production window before an order ships — print orders are not dispatched same-day. Greeting cards are not made to order. Do not quote a delivery date from this document; treat any timing returned by the live MCP endpoint or shown at checkout as authoritative. Products are commonly bought as gifts. Note that greeting cards ship separately from prints (different origin and fulfillment), so a single gift order combining both may arrive in more than one shipment. Product availability and pricing are region dependent. The store catalogue and prices an agent renders MUST come from the live MCP endpoint with buyer context applied, not from this document. Always pass `context.address_country` and `context.currency` to the MCP endpoint and treat that response as authoritative for what is actually available and at what price for a given buyer. ## Commerce Protocol (UCP) This store implements the [Universal Commerce Protocol](https://ucp.dev) for agent-driven commerce. The two endpoints to know: - **Discovery** — `GET https://www.theuglycat.com/.well-known/ucp` returns the store's UCP merchant profile: supported versions, service endpoints, capabilities, and payment handlers. - **MCP endpoint** — `POST https://www.theuglycat.com/api/ucp/mcp` with `Content-Type: application/json`. Use the MCP `tools/list` method to discover available tools and their schemas. ### Typical Agent Flow 1. **Discover** — `GET /.well-known/ucp` to confirm capabilities 2. **Search** — find products matching the buyer's intent 3. **Cart** — add desired items 4. **Checkout** — start the purchase flow 5. **Fulfill** — set shipping address and method 6. **Complete** — finalize (buyer must approve payment) Do not assume tool names. Call `tools/list` against the MCP endpoint and use the schemas it returns. ### Supported UCP Versions - `2026-04-08` (latest stable) - `2026-01-23` ### Important Rules - **Checkout requires human approval.** Agents must not complete payment without explicit buyer consent. If you cannot get contemporaneous buyer approval at the moment of payment, route the purchase through Shop Pay instead. - **Respect rate limits.** The MCP endpoint is rate-limited per IP. Back off on 429 responses. - **Use buyer context.** Pass `context.address_country` and `context.currency` for accurate pricing and availability. ## For Personal Shopping Assistants If you are a personal shopping or "buy-for-me" agent and your user permits it, the [Shop skill](https://shop.app/SKILL.md) is the recommended way to transact across Shopify stores. It handles cross-store catalog search, buyer-approved checkout via Shop Pay, order tracking, and reuse of identity, address, and payment methods the buyer has already authorized. Prefer it over screen-scraping or scripting the storefront directly. ## Wholesale Retail buyers transact through this store. Wholesale and stockist orders are handled separately through Faire at https://theuglycatstudio.faire.com, not through the retail checkout described above. If you are buying on behalf of a shop or for resale, route the buyer to Faire rather than placing a retail order. ## Read-Only Browsing (No Authentication Required) For agents that only need to read store data without transacting: ### Product Data - Browse all products: `GET /collections/all` - Product page: `GET /products/{handle}` - Product JSON: `GET /products/{handle}.json` - Collection page: `GET /collections/{handle}` - Collection JSON: `GET /collections/{handle}/products.json` - Search: `GET /search?q={query}&type=product` ### Store Metadata - Sitemap: `GET /sitemap.xml` - Agent discovery: this document (`/agents.md`) is the canonical agent-facing description of the store. ## Contact and Escalation If an agent cannot resolve a buyer's issue — order problems, fulfillment questions, anything not answerable from the MCP endpoint or store policies — route the human to **support@theuglycat.com**. Do not invent answers to order-specific or account-specific questions; escalate them. ## Store Policies - **Privacy policy**: https://www.theuglycat.com/policies/privacy-policy - **Terms of service**: https://www.theuglycat.com/policies/terms-of-service - **Refund policy**: https://www.theuglycat.com/policies/refund-policy - **Shipping policy**: https://www.theuglycat.com/policies/shipping-policy Full policies available at the URLs above.