Variant Attribute Normalizer

Purpose

Identify WooCommerce variable products where variation attribute values are inconsistently cased or spelled — e.g., "Blue", "blue", "BLUE" used interchangeably for the same color attribute. These inconsistencies break filtering, cause duplicate options in the product page, and create inventory reporting errors. Exports a normalization report. Read-only — no data is 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 variable products

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/products?type=variable&status=publish&per_page=100&page=1

Step 2 — Fetch variations for each variable product

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

Extract per variation: id, attributes[].name, attributes[].option

Step 3 — Detect inconsistencies per attribute

For each product, group variation attribute values by attribute name. If case_sensitive: true, flag attribute names where the same normalized (lowercased, trimmed) value appears in multiple different raw forms.

Step 4 — Export conflicts

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products                   — variable products
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id}/variations   — variation attributes
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/products/attributes        — global attribute definitions

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-variant-attribute-normalizer ║
║  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-variant-attribute-normalizer║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename>                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-variant-attribute-normalizer",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path>",
  "dry_run": false
}

Output Format

CSV filename: woo-variant-attribute-normalizer_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: product_id, product_name, attribute_name, conflicting_values, suggested_canonical, variation_ids_affected

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Run after bulk variation imports — CSV imports commonly introduce casing inconsistencies.
• Resolve conflicts by editing each variation in WooCommerce admin and picking a canonical value.
• Establish a style guide for attribute values before creating new products (e.g., always use title case for colors).