Inventory Adjustment

Purpose

Directly set or increment/decrement stock quantities for one or many WooCommerce products or variations identified by SKU or product ID. Useful for manual stock corrections, receiving shipments, or bulk adjustments after a physical stocktake. Includes dry-run preview before any changes are applied.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key and Consumer Secret with Read/Write scope
• Store accessible over HTTPS
• Stock management must be enabled per-product (manage_stock: true)
• 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 writes stock quantities directly. Always run with dry_run: true first (the default). Verify the before/after quantities in the preview — incorrect quantities affect order fulfillment and overselling protection.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Resolve SKUs to product/variation IDs

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products?sku=<sku>&per_page=10

If not found as a simple product, check variations:

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products?per_page=100&page=1

Then for variable products:

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations?sku=<sku>&per_page=10

Extract: id, sku, stock_quantity, manage_stock, type

Step 2 — Compute new quantities

For each adjustment entry:

• mode: set → new_qty = quantity
• mode: increment → new_qty = current_stock_quantity + quantity

Flag any item where manage_stock == false (stock not tracked — cannot be adjusted via API).

Step 3 — Preview or execute

If dry_run: true: emit the before/after table and stop.

If dry_run: false and confirmed:

For simple products:

PUT /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}
  Body: { "stock_quantity": <new_qty> }

For variations:

PUT /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{product_id}/variations/{variation_id}
  Body: { "stock_quantity": <new_qty> }

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products                                  — resolve SKU to product ID
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations                  — resolve SKU to variation ID
PUT  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}                             — update simple product stock
PUT  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations/{variation_id}   — update variation stock

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-inventory-adjustment         ║
║  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-inventory-adjustment      ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename or "stdout">          ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-inventory-adjustment",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path or null>",
  "dry_run": <bool>
}

Output Format

Preview / completion table (human format):

INVENTORY ADJUSTMENT PREVIEW (DRY RUN)

  SKU          Product              Before   Mode        After
  ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  LW-001       Leather Wallet         12     set 50        50
  CT-BL-L      Canvas Tote Blue/L      8     +20           28
  SS-M         Silver Sunglasses M     0     set 30        30
  ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ⚠️  SKU-999: not found — skipped

CSV filename: woo-inventory-adjustment_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: product_id, variation_id, sku, name, old_quantity, mode, adjustment_value, new_quantity, manage_stock, skipped

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Always run with dry_run: true first (the default). Confirm before/after quantities carefully.
• For large stocktakes, prepare the adjustments array as a CSV and convert to JSON before passing.
• After adjustment, verify in WooCommerce admin (Products → Stock) that quantities are correct.
• Enable stock management on all products before using this skill — products with manage_stock: false cannot be adjusted.