Cancel And Restock

Purpose

Cancel one or many WooCommerce orders and automatically restore the stock quantities for all line items. Useful for fraudulent orders, duplicate orders, or bulk cancellations when a product batch is unavailable. Includes dry-run preview listing all affected orders and stock restores.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read/Write scope
• Orders must be in a cancellable state (pending, on-hold, processing)
• Minimum WooCommerce version: 3.5.0

Parameters

Authentication

WooCommerce uses OAuth 1.0a for HTTP and Basic Auth over HTTPS.

For HTTPS stores (recommended):

Authorization: Basic base64(consumer_key:consumer_secret)

For HTTP stores (development only): Use OAuth 1.0a — include oauth_consumer_key, oauth_nonce, oauth_signature, oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1, oauth_timestamp, oauth_version=1.0

Never log or output consumer_key or consumer_secret values.

See docs/AUTHENTICATION.md for full setup instructions.

Safety

Step 3 cancels orders — this is irreversible. Always run with dry_run: true first (the default). Cancellation triggers a customer cancellation email. restock: true returns items to inventory.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Resolve order list

If order_ids provided: fetch each via GET /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/{id}.

If using filters:

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/orders
  ?status=<filter_status>&per_page=100&page=1
  [&before=<filter_date_before>]

Validate each: status must be pending, on-hold, or processing.

Step 2 — Preview or execute

If dry_run: true: list orders, total value, and stock to be restored. Stop.

If dry_run: false and confirmed:

PUT /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/{id}
  Body: { "status": "cancelled" }

Note: WooCommerce handles stock restock automatically when orders are cancelled if woocommerce_manage_stock is enabled. Set restock: true in the request context.

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders        — filter orders
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/{id}   — fetch specific orders
PUT  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/{id}   — cancel order

Pagination Strategy

WooCommerce REST API uses page/per_page pagination (not cursor-based).

Standard pattern:

page = 1
while True:
  response = GET /endpoint?per_page=100&page=page
  process(response)
  if len(response) < 100: break
  page += 1

Maximum per_page is 100 for most endpoints. The X-WP-Total and X-WP-TotalPages response headers report totals. Always read X-WP-TotalPages on the first request to estimate job size.

Session Tracking

Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.

STARTUP:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: woo-cancel-and-restock           ║
║  STORE: <store_url>                      ║
║  TIME:  <ISO-8601 UTC>                   ║
║  MODE:  <DRY RUN | LIVE>                 ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

PER-OPERATION (emit after each API call batch):

[N/TOTAL] <METHOD> <endpoint> → <result_count> records | params: <key>=<val>

COMPLETION (human format):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  COMPLETE: woo-cancel-and-restock        ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: stdout                          ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-cancel-and-restock",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": null,
  "dry_run": <bool>
}

Output Format

Human format: table of order number, customer, total, items restocked, and cancellation note.

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Always run with dry_run: true first. Cancellations are permanent.
• For completed orders that need reversal, use woo-refund-and-reorder instead.
• Set a meaningful cancellation_note for your records (e.g., "Bulk cancel: product recall batch A").