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Implementation Roadmap

This is the recommended build order if you want a practical path from zero to quick-commerce-grade architecture.

Phase 0: Foundations

Goal:

  • establish tenant, merchant, store, item, and source identity model

Build:

  • canonical schema in PostgreSQL
  • source mapping tables
  • object storage for raw payload archive
  • Redis cluster
  • Kafka / Redpanda cluster

Deliverables:

  • tenants
  • merchants
  • stores
  • source_mappings
  • catalog_items
  • inventory_positions

Phase 1: Catalog Ingestion MVP

Goal:

  • ingest menu / SKU changes from one provider and serve catalog quickly

Build:

  • Webhook Gateway
  • one adapter, e.g. PetPooja or one ERP provider
  • normalization service
  • catalog read API
  • Redis-backed catalog cache

Success criteria:

  • item change visible in app within 5 seconds
  • replay support for failed payloads

Phase 2: Real-Time Inventory

Goal:

  • make stock and orderability trustworthy

Build:

  • inventory ledger model
  • stock delta processor
  • reservation / release flow
  • orderability rules
  • inventory cache

Add rules for:

  • zero stock
  • blocked stock
  • store closed
  • menu item disabled

Success criteria:

  • out-of-stock reflects in app within seconds
  • no negative ATS from duplicate events

Phase 3: Dark Store and Assortment Layer

Goal:

  • support hyperlocal commerce and store-specific availability

Build:

  • store assortment table
  • slotting metadata
  • per-store price overrides
  • substitute recommendations for unavailable items

Success criteria:

  • same item can be visible in one store and hidden in another
  • store-level pricing and inventory are independent

Goal:

  • replace catalog scans with indexed search

Build:

  • search document builder
  • OpenSearch index
  • autocomplete
  • filters by category / brand / stock / price

Search document should contain:

  • item title
  • normalized title
  • synonyms
  • brand
  • category path
  • store availability
  • effective price

Success criteria:

  • p95 search latency under 200 ms

Phase 5: Recommendation System

Goal:

  • improve basket building and substitution

Build in order:

  1. rule-based complements
  2. popular-in-store lists
  3. co-purchase aggregates
  4. personalized ranking later

Examples:

  • milk -> bread, eggs, cereal
  • burger -> fries, cola
  • out-of-stock item -> same-brand substitute

Phase 6: LLM Enrichment

Goal:

  • improve data quality and searchability

Use LLMs only for asynchronous enrichment:

  • title cleanup
  • synonym generation
  • category suggestions
  • duplicate detection hints
  • missing attribute completion

Do not use LLMs:

  • in checkout path
  • for live inventory truth
  • as the sole pricing authority

Human review should still exist for high-impact changes.

  1. integration-gateway
  2. catalog-normalizer
  3. catalog-api
  4. inventory-service
  5. search-indexer
  6. recommendation-service
  7. enrichment-service

Suggested Repo Split

When you move beyond docs, split repos roughly like this:

  • catalog-platform-core
  • catalog-integration-gateway
  • inventory-service
  • search-service
  • recommendation-service
  • enrichment-service
  • pos-ui or this current frontend repo

How This Connects Back to This POS UI

The current frontend can evolve in stages:

Stage A

Replace demo product data with real catalog APIs.

Stage B

Replace local item stock display with inventory API.

Stage C

Add live inventory / store status refresh through SSE or WebSocket.

Stage D

Add recommendations to product grid, cart, and payment success flows.

Next Practical Build

If you want me to keep going from here, the best next artifact is one of:

  1. an OpenAPI spec for the catalog and inventory APIs
  2. a PostgreSQL schema for canonical catalog + inventory tables
  3. a Kafka topic and event-schema package
  4. a backend starter service for the webhook gateway

My recommendation:

  • start with 2 and 4 together
  • schema first, webhook service second