Catalog & data
Category attribute template
Definition
A fixed, reusable list of the attribute fields every SKU in a given category must carry — e.g. every hiking boot gets material, closure, waterproof rating, sole type, weight — built once per category and then applied to every SKU in it.
Defined in Enriching a 10,000-SKU Catalog Without a Team of Ten.
Related terms
- Structured attribute
- A named, machine-readable field with a discrete value — material: leather, sleeve_length: short — as opposed to the same fact buried in a marketing sentence.
- Shopify metafield
- A custom structured field on a Shopify product, collection, or variant — the mechanism most mid-market merchants use to add attributes without a separate PIM.
- Product taxonomy
- The hierarchical category structure a catalog is organized under, which agents use to scope what "kind" of product they're reasoning about before checking specific attributes.
- Compatibility data
- Structured "works with" or "fits" relationships between products, which agents rely on heavily because shoppers frequently ask compatibility questions by exact model or part.
- Constraint query
- A shopping request framed by conditions the answer must satisfy — a device it must fit, a system it must work with, a situation it must handle — rather than by a product category alone.
- Shopping-context alt text
- Alt text written to answer a shopper's implicit question about that specific image — what product, which attribute, what context — rather than to maximize keyword density for search ranking.
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