Medusa

# Medusa

> Medusa is a digital commerce platform with a built-in Framework for customization. When you install Medusa, you get a fully fledged commerce platform with all the features you need to get off the ground. However, unlike other platforms, Medusa is built with customization in mind. You don't need to build hacky workarounds that are difficult to maintain and scale. Your efforts go into building features that bring your business's vision to life.

Medusa ships with three main tools:

- A suite of Commerce Modules with core commerce functionalities, such as tracking inventory, calculating cart totals, accepting payments, managing orders, and much more.
- A framework for building custom functionalities specific to your business, product, or industry. This includes tools for introducing custom API endpoints, business logic, and data models; building workflows and automations; and integrating with third-party services.
- A customizable admin dashboard for merchants to configure and operate their store.

Medusa is for businesses and teams looking for a digital commerce platform with the tools to implement unique requirements that other platforms aren't built to support.

Businesses of all sizes can use Medusa, from small start ups to large enterprises. Also, technical teams of all sizes can build with Medusa; all it takes is a developer to manage and deploy Medusa projects.

> When searching for Medusa documentation, append `index.html.md` to the end of the URL to get a plain-text version of the document.

## Docs

- [Get Started](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/installation/index.html.md): Install a digital commerce application with Medusa.
- [Main docs](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/index.html.md): Chapters to learn Medusa's concepts and toolings.
- [Development guides and resources](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/index.html.md): Development guides for storefront, admin, Commerce Modules, and more.
- [Medusa UI](https://docs.medusajs.com/ui/index.html.md): A React library to build applications using Medusa's primitives and design system.
- [Admin API Reference](https://docs.medusajs.com/api/admin): List of all Admin API routes in Medusa with code snippets.
- [Store API Reference](https://docs.medusajs.com/api/store): List of all Store API Routes in Medusa with code snippets.

## Framework

- [Architecture](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/introduction/architecture/index.html.md): Overview of Medusa's architecture.
- [Medusa Container](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/medusa-container/index.html.md): The Medusa container is a registry of framework and commerce tools that's accessible across your application.
- [Modules](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/modules/index.html.md): A module is a reusable package of functionalities related to a single domain or integration. Medusa comes with multiple pre-built modules for core commerce needs, such as the Cart Module that holds the data models and business logic for cart operations.
- [Module Isolation](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/modules/isolation/index.html.md): Modules are isolated to ensure they can be integrated into your setup without side-effects.
- [Module Links](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/module-links/index.html.md): A module link forms an association between two data models of different modules, while maintaining module isolation.
- [Link](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/module-links/link/index.html.md): Link is a class with utility methods to manage links between data models.
- [Query](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/module-links/query/index.html.md): Query is a tool that fetches data across modules.
- [Data Models](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/data-models/index.html.md): A data model represents a table in the database. You create data models using Medusa's data modeling language (DML).
- [API Routes](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/api-routes/index.html.md): An API Route is an endpoint. It exposes commerce features to external applications, such as storefronts, the admin dashboard, or third-party systems.
- [Workflows](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/workflows/index.html.md): A workflow is a series of queries and actions, called steps, that complete a task.
- [Events and Subscribers](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/events-and-subscribers/index.html.md): Medusa emits events when core commerce features are performed, and you can listen to and handle these events in asynchronous functions, called subscribers.
- [Scheduled Jobs](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/scheduled-jobs/index.html.md): A scheduled job is an asynchronous function that the Medusa application runs at the interval you specify during the Medusa application's runtime.
- [Loaders](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/modules/loaders/index.html.md): A loader is a function exported by a module. When the Medusa application starts, it executes all loaders exported by configured modules.
- [Admin Widgets](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/admin/widgets/index.html.md): The Medusa Admin dashboard's pages are customizable to insert widgets of custom content in pre-defined injection zones. You create these widgets as React components that allow admin users to perform custom actions.
- [Admin UI Routes](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/admin/ui-routes/index.html.md): The Medusa Admin dashboard is customizable, allowing you to add new pages, called UI routes. You create a UI route as a React component showing custom content that allow admin users to perform custom actions.

## Built-in Modules

- [Commerce Modules](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/commerce-modules): A Commerce Module provides features for a commerce domain within its service. The Medusa application exposes these features in its API routes to clients.
- [Infrastructure Modules](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/infrastructure-modules): An infrastructure module is a package that can be installed and used in any Medusa application. These modules allow you to choose and integrate custom services to modify your application's infrastructure.

## Tools and SDKs

- [Medusa CLI](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/medusa-cli/index.html.md): A CLI tool to perform database operations, create admin users, and run the Medusa application.
- [create-medusa-app](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/create-medusa-app/index.html.md): A CLI tool that creates a Medusa application.
- [Next.js Starter Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/nextjs-starter/index.html.md): The Next.js Starter storefront provides rich commerce features and a sleek design. Developers and businesses can use it as-is or build on top of it to tailor it for the business's unique use case, design, and customer experience.
- [JS SDK](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/js-sdk/index.html.md): Medusa's JS SDK is a library to easily send requests to your Medusa application. You can use it in your admin customizations or custom storefronts.
- [Integrations](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/integrations/index.html.md): Medusa provides integrations out-of-the-box, such as integrations to Stripe or AWS S3, and you can also develop your own integrations.

## Guides

- [Build a Brands Module](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/customization/custom-features/index.html.md): Customize Medusa by building a Brand Module.
- [Admin Components](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/admin-components/index.html.md): Components you can use in your admin customizations to build widgets and routes that match the Medusa Admin's design system.
- [Examples](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/examples/index.html.md): Examples and code snippets of how to use different Medusa concepts.
- [Recipes](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/recipes/index.html.md): Learn how to build common commerce use cases, such as marketplace and subscription-based purchases, with Medusa.
- [Deployment Guides](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/deployment/index.html.md): Deploy to Medusa Cloud or self-host Medusa.

## Storefront Development

- [Storefront Development Tips](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/tips/index.html.md): Tips and best practices for building storefronts with Medusa.
- [Use a Publishable API Key in the Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/publishable-api-keys/index.html.md): Learn how to use publishable API keys to scope API requests to sales channels.

### Products

- [Products in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/index.html.md): Learn how to display and manage products in your storefront.
- [Show Products in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/list/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display a list of products.
- [Retrieve a Product in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/retrieve/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display a single product's details.
- [Select Product Variants in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/variants/index.html.md): Learn how to handle product variant selection in your storefront.
- [Retrieve Product Variant's Prices in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/price/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display product variant prices.
- [Retrieve Product Variant's Inventory in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/inventory/index.html.md): Learn how to check product variant inventory availability.

### Product Categories

- [Product Categories in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/categories/index.html.md): Learn how to work with product categories in your storefront.
- [Show Product Categories in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/categories/list/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display product categories.
- [Retrieve a Category in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/categories/retrieve/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display a specific category.
- [Retrieve Nested Categories in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/categories/nested-categories/index.html.md): Learn how to handle nested category structures.
- [Retrieve a Category's Products in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/categories/products/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve products that belong to a specific category.

### Product Collections

- [Product Collections in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/collections/index.html.md): Learn how to work with product collections in your storefront.
- [List Product Collections in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/collections/list/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display product collections.
- [Retrieve a Collection in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/collections/retrieve/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve and display a specific collection.
- [Retrieve a Collection's Products in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/products/collections/products/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve products that belong to a specific collection.

### Cart Management

- [Carts in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/cart/index.html.md): Learn how to manage shopping carts in your storefront.
- [Create Cart in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/cart/create/index.html.md): Learn how to create a new shopping cart.
- [Retrieve Cart in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/cart/retrieve/index.html.md): Learn how to retrieve an existing cart.
- [Update Cart in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/cart/update/index.html.md): Learn how to update cart information.
- [Manage Cart's Items in Storefront](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/storefront-development/cart/manage-items/index.html.md): Learn how to add, update, and remove items from a cart.