Duplicate Sku Detector

Purpose

Scan all WooCommerce products and variations for duplicate SKU values. Duplicate SKUs cause order processing errors, inventory miscounts, and reporting inconsistencies. Exports a conflict report listing every SKU that appears more than once with the product IDs sharing it. Read-only — no products are modified.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read scope
• 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

Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Fetch all products

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products
  ?status=publish&per_page=100&page=1
  [add status=draft,private if include_drafts: true]

Build a map: sku → [{ product_id, type, name }]

Step 2 — Fetch variation SKUs (if include_variations: true)

For each variable product:

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations?per_page=100&page=1

Add to the same SKU map: sku → [{ product_id, variation_id, type: "variation", name }]

Step 3 — Identify duplicates

Filter the SKU map to entries where the list has more than one item and the SKU is non-empty.

Step 4 — Sort by conflict count and export

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products                   — all products
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations   — variation SKUs

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-duplicate-sku-detector       ║
║  STORE: <store_url>                      ║
║  TIME:  <ISO-8601 UTC>                   ║
║  MODE:  READ-ONLY                        ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

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

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

COMPLETION (human format):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  COMPLETE: woo-duplicate-sku-detector    ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename>                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-duplicate-sku-detector",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path>",
  "dry_run": false
}

Output Format

CSV filename: woo-duplicate-sku-detector_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: sku, conflict_count, product_id, variation_id, product_type, product_name, product_status

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Run after every product import to catch duplicates introduced by CSV uploads.
• SKUs that are blank/empty are not flagged as duplicates — only non-empty duplicate values are reported.
• Resolve duplicates by editing the SKU in WooCommerce admin (Products → Edit).