Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

license

Apache-2.0(OSI)

source

public(the specification, schemas and documentation, with the official Python and JavaScript SDKs in sibling repositories under the same license)

core features withheld

no — the tree at bb92f11 carries one root Apache-2.0 LICENSE and no ee/, enterprise/, commercial/ or proprietary/ path, and the project's governance makes a Governing Council founded by Google and Shopify the owner of all UCP assets, with no paid edition anywhere in the project

UCP is Apache-2.0 licensed, and its public repository holds the full specification, schemas and documentation, with the official Python and JavaScript SDKs published under the same license. A Governing Council founded by Google and Shopify owns the project's assets, and nothing is kept back for a paid edition.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Universal-Commerce-Protocol/.github/main/GOVERNANCE.md recorded 2026-10-19

  The governance document says "GC serves as the ultimate owner of all UCP assets", with "1 permanent member from each founding organization (Google & Shopify)" and three elected seats, and that "Google holds proxy vote for all open seats until Dec 2028". It asks members to work towards "a more open ecosystem and agnostic to interests of the companies they represent". It describes no paid tier or commercial edition.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Universal-Commerce-Protocol/python-sdk/main/LICENSE recorded 2026-10-19

  The Python SDK's LICENSE is the Apache License text, "Version 2.0, January 2004", with the appendix line "Copyright 2026 UCP Authors".

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/universal-commerce-protocol/ucp/main/LICENSE recorded 2026-10-19

  The root LICENSE is the unmodified Apache License text, headed "Apache License" and "Version 2.0, January 2004".

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/universal-commerce-protocol/ucp/main/README.md recorded 2026-10-19

  The README calls UCP "An open standard enabling interoperability between various commerce entities" and closes "UCP is an open-source project under the" Apache License 2.0 and is "open to contributions from the community". It links the SDKs, samples and conformance tests in the project's GitHub organization. Searched the body for pricing, paid, subscription, license key, premium, enterprise and commercial, and found none of them.

• https://registry.npmjs.org/@ucp-js/sdk/latest recorded 2026-10-19

  The npm record for @ucp-js/sdk 0.5.1 declares the Apache-2.0 license and the repository "git+https://github.com/Universal-Commerce-Protocol/js-sdk.git", and depends only on zod.

• https://ucp.dev recorded 2026-10-19

  The project site says "The complete technical specification, documentation, and reference implementations are hosted in our public GitHub repository." and its footer reads "Copyright 2026 UCP Authors".

Adoption is the trailing month of downloads of the two official SDKs, @ucp-js/sdk on npm and ucp-sdk on PyPI, which the getting-started guide installs to build a UCP server. Businesses that implement the published schemas without an SDK are not counted, nor are four days npm left blank, so the figure is a lower bound on use.

• https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-month/@ucp-js/sdk recorded 2026-10-19

  npm downloads point API: 50,951 downloads for @ucp-js/sdk over 2026-09-17 to 2026-10-16.

• https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/range/last-month/@ucp-js/sdk recorded 2026-10-19

  Daily npm downloads of @ucp-js/sdk from 2026-09-17 to 2026-10-16. Four days, 2026-10-06 and 2026-10-13 to 2026-10-15, read 0, and every other day reads between 376 and 3,497.

• https://pypistats.org/api/packages/ucp-sdk/recent recorded 2026-10-19

  last_month 8,621 downloads for ucp-sdk (last_week 4,177, last_day 184).

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/universal-commerce-protocol/ucp/main/docs/specification/getting-started.md recorded 2026-10-19

  The getting-started guide builds a UCP server in Python and Node.js "using the official" Python and TypeScript SDKs, installing them with "uv add fastapi uvicorn ucp-sdk" and "npm install express uuid @ucp-js/sdk".

UCP is a specification, defining commerce capabilities and extensions that businesses implement and platforms call, so like the Agent2Agent Protocol and AG-UI it has nothing to be measured against. Neither the repository README nor the project site publishes a benchmark, leaderboard or performance figure for the protocol.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/universal-commerce-protocol/ucp/main/README.md recorded 2026-10-19

  The README says UCP defines Capabilities such as Checkout or Identity Linking that businesses implement, with Extensions layered on top, and that businesses "declare their supported Capabilities in a standardized profile" and can offer them "via REST APIs, MCP (Model Context Protocol), or A2A". Searched the body for benchmark, leaderboard, latency, throughput and performance, and found none of them.

• https://ucp.dev recorded 2026-10-19

  The project site describes UCP as "The common language for platforms, agents, and businesses" and lists its capabilities as catalog, cart, checkout, identity linking and order. Searched the body for benchmark, leaderboard, latency and throughput, and found none of them.