Order Hold And Release

Purpose

Place a set of WooCommerce orders into on-hold status (with a timestamped reason note) or bulk-release them back to processing. Common uses: hold orders pending fraud review, payment verification, or stock availability, then release them when cleared. Includes dry-run preview.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read/Write 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

Step 3 changes order status. Always run with dry_run: true first (the default). Review the affected order list before holding or releasing.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Resolve order list

If order_ids provided: fetch each directly.

Otherwise:

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

For action: release: fetch orders with status=on-hold.

Step 2 — Preview or execute

If dry_run: true: list orders. Stop.

If dry_run: false and confirmed, use batch:

POST /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/batch
  Body: {
    "update": [
      { "id": <id>, "status": "on-hold" }  // for hold
      // OR
      { "id": <id>, "status": "<release_target_status>" }  // for release
    ]
  }

API Endpoints Used

GET   /wp-json/wc/v3/orders          — filtered order list
POST  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/batch    — bulk status update
PUT   /wp-json/wc/v3/orders/{id}     — add hold reason note

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-order-hold-and-release       ║
║  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-order-hold-and-release    ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: stdout                          ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-order-hold-and-release",
  "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, and new status.

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Always run with dry_run: true first.
• Include a specific hold_reason for audit purposes (e.g., "Held pending fraud review 2025-04-14").
• Pair with woo-fulfillment-status-digest to monitor how many orders are accumulating in on-hold.