Catalog Module — Admin

HTTP surface for platform-admin reads of products + variants and full CRUD over the platform-wide taxonomy (brands, categories, tags, ingredients), with a vendor-request approval workflow per taxonomy. Vendor-side product/variant/tab CRUD and the public storefront reads live in the same module but are out of scope here — see vendor/catalog.md and store/catalog.md.

Source: api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-product.controller.ts, api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-variant.controller.ts, api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-brand.controller.ts, api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-category.controller.ts, api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-tag.controller.ts, api-modules/catalog/src/controllers/admin-ingredient.controller.ts.

HSN classification lives on product_variant, not product — variants in the same family can have different HSN codes. The admin product detail endpoint surfaces both the informational product-level hsCode and the canonical per-variant hsnCode.

Conventions

Authentication

All endpoints require a Better-Auth admin session and a role granting the matching permission.

Response envelope

Successful responses are wrapped by ResponseInterceptor:

{
  "data": <payload>,
  "message": "Success",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "metadata": { /* optional, e.g. pagination */ }
}

Some admin list endpoints return a picker envelope (items[] + pinned[]) — see Picker responses.

Error envelope

Lifecycle / soft-delete

Brands, categories, tags, ingredients, products, and variants all soft-delete via deletedAt. DELETE flips deletedAt; POST /:id/restore clears it. Slugs are unique among non-deleted rows — soft-deleting frees the slug for re-use; restoring may then fail with UNIQUE_VIOLATION if the slug has been taken in the meantime.

Currency

Variant price / specialPrice fields are integer subunits (paise / cents). Single currency per tenant.

Domain types

Taxonomy item — CatalogItemResponse

Shared by brand / category / tag / ingredient.

type CatalogItemResponse = {
  id: string;
  title: string;
  description: string | null;
  slug: string;                            // lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens
  image: string | null;
  metadata: Record<string, unknown> | null;
  isActive: boolean;
  createdAt: string;
  updatedAt: string;
  deletedAt: string | null;
};

AdminCatalogItemResponse

Admin list-only variant adds an aggregated bannerCount from the polymorphic banner table — so the UI can warn before deleting a brand/category that still has banners attached.

type AdminCatalogItemResponse = CatalogItemResponse & { bannerCount: number };

AdminVariantListItem (variant picker)

type AdminVariantListItem = {
  id: string;
  productId: string;
  productTitle: string;
  sku: string | null;
  thumbnail: string | null;
  price: number | null;                    // subunits
};

Catalog request

Vendor-submitted taxonomy proposals.

type CatalogRequest = CatalogItemResponse & {
  status: "pending" | "approved" | "rejected";
  vendorId: string;
  requestedByUserId: string;
  rejectionReason: string | null;
  approvedAt: string | null;
  rejectedAt: string | null;
  resultingItemId: string | null;          // populated on approval
};

type CategoryRequest = CatalogRequest & { parentId: string | null };

Picker responses

GET /admin/catalog/brands, GET /admin/catalog/categories, GET /admin/catalog/tags, GET /admin/catalog/ingredients, and GET /admin/variants return a picker envelope that pairs the regular paginated items[] with a pinned[] list of always-shown rows. Use the selectedIds=<csv> query param to pre-pin currently-selected items so the picker never has to manually search to render an already-applied selection.

{
  "data": {
    "items":  [ /* page of unpinned rows */ ],
    "pinned": [ /* full rows for every id in selectedIds */ ]
  },
  "metadata": { "total": 412, "items": 20, "perPage": 20, "currentPage": 1, "lastPage": 21 }
}

When selectedIds is absent, pinned is [].

Products

Base path: /admin/products. Reads only — vendors own product writes.

GET /admin/products — List products

Required permission: product: view. Cross-vendor list with filters and full-text search.

Query

Response 200 — picker envelope. Items shape is the service-defined admin product list row (vendor info, brand, status, etc.). Detail-shaped via GET /:id/detail.

GET /admin/products/:id/detail — Product detail

Required permission: product: view. Returns the product with vendor info, options, variants, tabs, and full taxonomy joins. Same shape the vendor product detail endpoint returns.

Response 200 — ProductDetail (vendor info + options + variants + tabs + categories/tags/ingredients arrays).

Errors

Variants — cross-product picker

GET /admin/variants — Variant picker

Required permission: product: view. Flat list across every vendor's products. Standard QueryDto (page / limit / search / selectedIds). Search runs across product title and variant SKU.

Response 200 — picker envelope of AdminVariantListItem[]. See Picker responses.

Taxonomy CRUD (brand / category / tag / ingredient)

The four taxonomies share an almost-identical CRUD surface. Brand is the canonical example; per-taxonomy variations are listed at the end.

Base paths:

Per-taxonomy permissions:

GET /admin/catalog/<taxonomy> — List

Required permission: read. Standard QueryDto (page / limit / search / filters[] / selectedIds).

Response 200 — picker envelope of AdminCatalogItemResponse[] (items + pinned, with bannerCount).

GET /admin/catalog/categories/tree — Category tree (category only)

Required permission: category: read. Returns the full nested category tree (parent → children).

Response 200 — nested CatalogItemResponse[].

GET /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/:id — Get one

Required permission: read.

Response 200 — CatalogItemResponse.

Errors

POST /admin/catalog/<taxonomy> — Create

Required permission: create.

Body (brand/tag/ingredient)

{
  "title": "L'Oréal",
  "description": "...",                        // optional, max 2000
  "slug": "loreal",
  "image": "brands/loreal.png",                // optional
  "metadata": { "country": "FR" },             // optional
  "isActive": true
}

Category-only extras

Response 201 — CatalogItemResponse.

Errors

PUT /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/:id — Update

Required permission: update. Partial — every field is optional.

Response 200 — CatalogItemResponse.

Errors

DELETE /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/:id — Soft-delete

Required permission: delete.

Response 200 — the deleted CatalogItemResponse.

POST /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/:id/restore — Restore

Required permission: update.

Response 200 — restored CatalogItemResponse.

Errors

Vendor catalog request approvals

Vendors submit new-taxonomy proposals via the vendor-side endpoints; admins review them through these endpoints.

Base path: /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/requests. Same taxonomy table above.

GET /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/requests/all — List requests

Required permission: read. Standard QueryDto.

Response 200 — paginated envelope of CatalogRequest[].

GET /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/requests/:id — Get a request

Required permission: read.

Response 200 — CatalogRequest.

Errors

POST /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/requests/:id/approve — Approve

Required permission: approve. Transitions the request to approved, creates the canonical taxonomy row from the request's fields, and stamps approvedAt + resultingItemId. The request session's user is recorded as the approver.

Response 200 — the approved CatalogRequest (with resultingItemId populated).

Errors

POST /admin/catalog/<taxonomy>/requests/:id/reject — Reject

Required permission: approve.

Body

{ "reason": "Duplicate of brand 'Existing Brand'" }

Response 200 — the rejected CatalogRequest.

Errors

Domain events

Emitted via EventEmitter2 — consumed by the search reindexer and the cart price-cache invalidator.

Related modules

• admin-rbac — gates every endpoint via the per-taxonomy permission strings above. See admin-rbac.md.
• banner — banner rows reference the four taxonomy tables; bannerCount on the admin list comes from this join. See banner.md.
• search — consumes the catalog.* events to keep the product index in sync.
• order — order line items snapshot hsnCode from the variant. See order.md.