IDEA89 — AI Shopping Assistant for Magento 2

Turn your Magento storefront into a conversion machine. IDEA89 adds an AI-powered shopping assistant that answers product questions, recommends what to buy, and surfaces promotions — in your brand voice.

5-minute install. No theme changes. No dev work.

What it does

How it works

1. Install the module via Composer
2. Enter your API key from the IDEA89 dashboard
3. The widget appears on your storefront immediately
4. Products sync automatically — the assistant is ready to sell

Your catalogue is indexed with AI embeddings for semantic search. When a shopper asks a question, the assistant searches your products, checks stock, and responds with relevant recommendations — complete with product cards, prices, and add-to-cart buttons.

Requirements

• Magento 2.4.6 or later (Open Source, Adobe Commerce, or Adobe Commerce Cloud)
• PHP 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, or 8.5 — practically, whichever your Magento install
  supports:

  Magento	PHP range
  2.4.6	8.1, 8.2
  2.4.7	8.1, 8.2, 8.3
  2.4.8	8.2, 8.3, 8.4
  2.4.9	8.4, 8.5 (8.3 upgrade-only)

• An IDEA89 account — start your free trial

Installation

composer require idea89/magento2-assistant
bin/magento module:enable Idea89_Assistant
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento cache:flush

That's it. No layout XML changes, no theme overrides, no frontend build step.

Configuration

Navigate to Stores > Configuration > IDEA89 > AI Shopping Assistant in Magento Admin.

General

Widget Appearance

Content Sync

Choose what gets synced to IDEA89:

• Products — names, descriptions, prices, images, attributes, variants, stock, reviews
• Categories — so the assistant knows your catalogue structure
• CMS Pages — About Us, FAQs, policies — the assistant can answer "what's your return policy?"
• Store Info — store name and context description

Checkout Experience (new in v1.3.0)

Settings live under Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Checkout Experience. Four options for how far the assistant carries a shopper towards a completed order:

Native checkout talks to Magento over four same-origin routes under /idea89/checkout (context, address, method, place). The three that change the quote validate Magento's own form key as CSRF protection, and every one of the four is rate-limited per shopper session: order placement is capped at 8 attempts per session per 10 minutes, everything else at 30.

Agentic Commerce (new in v1.3.0)

Also under Checkout Experience, and independent of the checkout mode above. Lets AI shopping agents outside your widget, such as ChatGPT, find, and where a separate transactional module is installed, buy from your store.

IDEA89 never places an order or touches payment on an agent's behalf: the five checkout-session routes under /idea89/acp/checkout_sessions redirect to a separately installed transactional module (currently Magebit's free Agentic Commerce module) when one is present, and decline with a fixed, documented message otherwise. See docs/agentic-commerce-guide.md for the setup guide.

Store Locator (Pro plan and above)

Settings live under Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Store Locator. Twelve fields covering page behaviour and content:

The page also lives as a CMS widget — drop IDEA89 Store Locator into any CMS page or static block from the widget picker.

Locations themselves are managed in the IDEA89 dashboard → Locator. The chat assistant uses them automatically when a shopper asks "where is your nearest store?"

Order Tracking (every plan)

Settings live under Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Order Tracking. Five fields:

All fields support per-store-view scope. Online-only retailer? Set Enable Order Tracking = No on that store-view and the card never surfaces.

See docs/order-tracking-guide.md for the full guide — privacy model, supported carriers, troubleshooting, and the order-card JSON shape.

Advanced

How syncing works

All syncs are idempotent — sending the same product twice is safe and expected.

The widget

The assistant appears as a floating chat widget on your storefront. It includes:

• Conversational AI that understands your products
• Product cards with images, prices, ratings, and add-to-cart buttons
• Promotional banners for active cart price rules
• Quick-reply chips for common questions
• Mobile-responsive design
• Dark/light theme support
• No impact on your Magento theme or page speed (loaded asynchronously)

The widget is served from the IDEA89 CDN — no static content is added to your Magento deployment.

Pricing

Save 10% with annual billing. All plans include the full feature set.

Start your free trial — no credit card required.

Uninstalling

bin/magento module:disable Idea89_Assistant
bin/magento setup:upgrade
composer remove idea89/magento2-assistant
bin/magento cache:flush

No database tables are created in your Magento instance. All data is stored on the IDEA89 platform.

Support

• Documentation: idea89.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Dashboard: app.idea89.com

License

This module is licensed under the Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0).

Copyright 2026 4K Technologies Ltd.

Running unit tests

Unit tests run inside a Magento install (they need magento/framework, which
is not on public Packagist). From the Magento root:

vendor/bin/phpunit -c app/code/Idea89/Assistant/phpunit.xml.dist

CI runs phpcs --standard=Magento2 and CodeQL only, for the same reason.

Built by 4K Technologies in the UK.

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog,
and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[1.3.0] - 2026-09-07

Added

• Checkout experience setting. A new Checkout Experience section,
  Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Checkout Experience, adds an
  Assistant Checkout Mode field with four options: "Off" sends a
  shopper who says "checkout" to your cart page, exactly as the assistant
  has always behaved; "Express handoff" is the shipped default, it shows a
  basket summary in chat with one button straight to your checkout and
  never touches your checkout itself; "Checkout in chat" opens your own
  Magento checkout, your payment methods, your shipping rules, your
  extensions, inside a panel over the chat; "Native checkout (beta)"
  reimplements the checkout steps inside the chat panel, the assistant asks
  for delivery details itself and places the order. Two more fields,
  Cart URL Path (default /checkout/cart/) and Checkout URL Path
  (default /checkout/), let you point the assistant at a non-default cart
  or checkout page, for example a one-step-checkout extension's own URL.
  The storefront now also publishes window.__IDEA89_PLATFORM and
  window.__IDEA89_CHECKOUT (mode, cart path, checkout path, mini-checkout
  path, form key, checkout bar flag), mirroring the WooCommerce plugin's
  bootstrap contract so the widget uses one detection idiom everywhere.

• Chrome-free checkout for the assistant panel. On "Checkout in chat",
  GET /idea89/checkout/mini (Controller/Checkout/Mini.php) renders your
  real Magento checkout, the same one-page checkout layout, the same
  payment and shipping components, the same third-party extensions, with
  the site header and footer stripped, for the chat widget to frame
  same-origin. It honours your own settings first: one-page checkout must
  be switched on, the basket must have items with no errors, and guest
  checkout must be allowed unless the shopper is signed in. IDEA89 renders
  nothing payment-related and never receives card data. A guard failure
  returns a small same-origin page carrying a machine-readable error code
  instead of redirecting, so the widget can fall back immediately rather
  than waiting out its handshake timeout.

• Test Checkout Panel. A new admin action next to Assistant Checkout
  Mode, shown once you select "Checkout in chat", that checks your store
  for anything likely to stop the framed checkout rendering before you
  switch it on: Hyvä Checkout (blocks it outright), five one-step-checkout
  extensions (Amasty, Mageplaza, IWD, Mirasvit, MageDelight), Magento's own
  checkout module being disabled, five payment methods that redirect
  shoppers off-site to pay (PayPal Express Checkout, Braintree PayPal,
  Klarna, Adyen Hosted Payment Pages, Amazon Pay), guest checkout being
  off, and reCAPTCHA on checkout. Run it before going live.

• postMessage bridge, matching the WooCommerce and Magento 1 plugins'
  contract exactly: ready and resize on the framed checkout, success
  (with the order number, total and currency) on your real checkout
  success page, and a same-origin error page carrying a machine-readable
  code for every guard failure. The bridge only ever runs inside a frame,
  so an ordinary, unframed checkout visit is completely unaffected by it
  being present.

• Native checkout (beta) is a real, working rung too. Selecting it
  lets the assistant collect delivery details in the conversation and
  place the order itself, over four new same-origin routes under
  /idea89/checkout: context (read the basket), address, method
  and place. The three that change the quote, address, method and
  place, each validate Magento's own form key as their CSRF defence,
  and all four routes are rate-limited on two dimensions at once: per
  shopper session, 8 attempts per 10 minutes for placing an order and 30
  for everything else, and per IP address, 24 and 90 over the same window
  so that shoppers sharing an office or mobile connection do not exhaust
  each other's allowance.
  A new Payment Methods the Assistant May Use field is empty by
  default, so a freshly switched-on store places no orders at all until
  you explicitly tick which methods the assistant may use. Methods it
  marks "works in chat" (cheque/money order, bank transfer, cash on
  delivery, purchase order and free orders) complete without leaving the
  conversation; anything else still sends the shopper to your real
  checkout to pay.

• Agentic Commerce Protocol surface, off by default. A new
  Agentic Commerce area under Checkout Experience opens with a live
  status panel explaining, in plain language, what turning this on does
  for your store right now, then lets AI agents outside the widget,
  ChatGPT and similar, find, and where a separate module supports it, buy
  from your store. Let AI agents shop your store defaults to No:
  turning it on publishes your catalog to those third parties, so it is
  never switched on without you choosing it. Once on, Publish the
  Product Feed (default Yes) serves your visible catalog, including
  out-of-stock items flagged as such, at /idea89/acp/feed.json; disabled
  products, products not visible individually, and products outside the
  current website are never included. An optional Agent Access Token
  gates the feed with a bearer token; left blank, the feed is public.
  Five new routes under /idea89/acp/checkout_sessions accept agent
  checkout requests, but IDEA89 itself never places an order or touches
  payment: when a separate transactional module is installed (currently
  Magebit's free Agentic Commerce module), the request is redirected to
  it; otherwise every request is declined with a fixed, documented
  message. This is separate from the Assistant Checkout Mode above and
  works alongside any of those settings.

• Checkout Display, shared with your IDEA89 dashboard. A new field,
  Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Checkout Experience → Checkout
  Display, shown when Assistant Checkout Mode is Native checkout. Full
  window gives checkout the whole screen and hides the conversation behind
  it; In the chat keeps checkout inside the assistant panel alongside the
  conversation. Full window is the default and is how the assistant has
  behaved so far, so nothing changes on upgrade.

  This one setting lives in your IDEA89 account rather than in Magento, and
  the dashboard has the same field. Changing it in either place changes it in
  both, so the two screens cannot show you different answers. If IDEA89 cannot
  be reached when you save, nothing is changed and Magento tells you why,
  rather than storing a value your dashboard never learned about.

• Pinned checkout bar. A new admin toggle, Stores → Configuration →
  IDEA89 → Checkout Experience → Pinned Checkout Bar, defaulted ON. When
  on, the assistant shows a full-width bar above its message box reading
  "Checkout, N items, total" whenever the shopper's basket has items. It is new
  persistent chrome, so it can be switched off per store even though it only
  ever appears on a basket with something in it. Tapping it goes through the
  same Assistant Checkout Mode already configured above; it is a second,
  always-visible way to reach checkout, not a new checkout path.

[1.2.1] - 2026-08-18

Fixed

• Coupon expiry dates are now sent to IDEA89 as UTC timestamps with a Z
  suffix (gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z', ...)) instead of the server's local
  offset (date('c'), which yields e.g. +01:00). The API accepts only the
  Z form, so on any store whose PHP timezone was not UTC, every cart price
  rule that had an expiry date set was rejected on sync and the assistant
  never mentioned that promotion. Rules with no expiry date were unaffected.
  Affects both the save observer and the daily promo cron.

[1.2.0] - 2026-07-01

Added

• Full product view (mini-PDP). New GET /idea89/product/mini?sku=|id=
  controller (Controller/Product/Mini.php + the idea89_product_mini
  layout handle) renders the real Magento product-view page — media gallery,
  price, configurable swatches, and the add-to-cart form with its JS — with
  the site chrome (header/footer/breadcrumbs) stripped. The widget loads this
  in a contained popup, so add-to-cart and swatches behave exactly like the
  storefront PDP (same session, same form key, same AJAX). Gated on the module
  being enabled and on the same visibility rules as the storefront PDP
  (canShow() + website membership), so a product that is disabled, "Not
  Visible Individually", or not assigned to the current website cannot be
  rendered by guessing a SKU/id.

• Shopper personalization (opt-in). New admin section under
  Stores → Configuration → IDEA89 → Personalization (enable toggle + an
  encrypted Signing Secret shared with the IDEA89 dashboard). When enabled:

  • GET /idea89/customer/me mints a short-lived HMAC-signed identity token
    (customer id / group / login state) that the widget forwards as an opaque
    header. The browser cannot forge it, and the shopper's details never leave
    the storefront — IDEA89 reads identity without receiving PII.
  • GET /idea89/products/live (bearer-secret authed) returns live price and
    stock for a set of SKUs so the assistant can confirm current pricing
    server-to-server.

  Both endpoints are inert until Personalization is enabled and the secret is
  set, so existing installs are unaffected.

[1.1.5] - 2026-06-07

Added

• sale_price and is_on_sale in catalog sync payload, computed from
  Magento's special_price / special_from_date / special_to_date.
  Enables the IDEA89 on_sale shopper intent (e.g. "anything on sale?").

[1.1.4] - 2026-06-07

Added

• Category names in catalog sync. ProductSerializer now sends a
  category_names: string[] field alongside the existing category_path
  (which still carries the raw Magento category IDs joined by " > ").
  The API stores lowercase trimmed names in its category_slugs column
  and uses them for per-row category filtering — needed for queries like
  "cheapest in living" to actually narrow to the right category. Without
  this field the API's category filter is a silent no-op on Magento data
  because the legacy split_part(category_path, '/', 2) derivation
  expects slash-delimited names, not >-delimited IDs. Cached per
  process to avoid repeat lookups across the sync batch.

[1.1.3] - 2026-05-30

Added

• PHP 8.5 support. Adobe Commerce 2.4.9 (GA 2026-05-15) officially
  supports PHP 8.5 — composer.json require.php widened to
  ~8.1.0||~8.2.0||~8.3.0||~8.4.0||~8.5.0. Module code uses only
  standard PHP 8.1+ syntax (typed properties, attributes, readonly,
  declare(strict_types=1)) and was confirmed compatible against the
  PHP 8.5 deprecation / removal list. The full Magento → PHP matrix is
  now: 2.4.6 → 8.1/8.2; 2.4.7 → 8.1/8.2/8.3; 2.4.8 → 8.2/8.3/8.4;
  2.4.9 → 8.4/8.5 (8.3 upgrade-only). README and MARKETPLACE.md updated.

Changed

• README PHP badge 8.1–8.4 → 8.1–8.5.

[1.1.2] - 2026-05-30

Added

• Always-visible IDEA89 brand strip above the General group in Stores >
  Configuration > IDEA89 > AI Shopping Assistant. Renders via a Fieldset
  override (Block\Adminhtml\System\Config\AboutFieldset) so there is no
  collapsible header, no group label, and no static-content-deploy step
  needed. Includes inline lightbulb SVG, tagline, version pill (auto-read
  from PackageInfo), and trust links to Documentation, Website, Support,
  and the merchant dashboard.
• Pulsing emerald glow + click-through on the lightbulb (opens
  https://idea89.com in a new tab). CSS-only animation, hover scales to
  1.08x and speeds up the pulse.

Changed

• composer.json author email [email protected] -> [email protected]
  so all merchant contact funnels through one inbox (matches SECURITY.md).
• composer.json author name 4K Technologies -> 4K Technologies Ltd,
  added role: Developer per Adobe Commerce Marketplace EQP guidance.
• composer.json require.php widened to PHP 8.1 | 8.2 | 8.3 | 8.4. Module
  code is forward-compatible across the whole range; the practical limit
  is whichever PHP version the host Magento install supports.
• composer.json require.magento/* moved off * to specific minor
  pins matching the 2.4.6 / 2.4.7 release vectors (EQP red-flags *).
• README PHP badge 8.2+ -> 8.1-8.4; Requirements section now maps
  Magento version to its PHP range.

Added (submission readiness)

• MARKETPLACE.md — internal submission brief covering the portal field
  map, EQP compliance status, MEQP pre-submission commands, and the
  outstanding human-action checklist.
• Copyright header on all 36 PHP files (4K Technologies Ltd, OSL-3.0).

Removed

• Stale screenshot drift from working tree via repo-root *.png
.gitignore rule (not user-visible, but cleans the dev experience).

[1.0.0] - 2026-05-21

Added

• AI shopping assistant widget (floating chat, mobile-responsive)
• Full product catalogue sync with variants, attributes, and stock
• Real-time sync via observers (product save, stock update, price rule save)
• Nightly full catalogue re-sync cron
• Minute-by-minute queue drain cron
• Promotion sync (active cart price rules)
• CMS page and category content sync
• Admin configuration panel (Stores > Configuration > IDEA89)
• Test Connection button in admin
• Sync Now button in admin
• Configurable widget position (bottom-left / bottom-right)
• Configurable brand colour
• Configurable assistant name and store context
• API URL override for self-hosted deployments
• CSP whitelist for IDEA89 API domain
• Encrypted API key storage