FAQ

What is Evolve?

Evolve is a composable commerce platform built on MACH principles (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless). It provides a production-ready backend and storefront for B2C and B2B digital commerce, composed from independent domain services behind a unified GraphQL Federation API. Evolve is also built to support AI agents through MCP and GraphQL, making it ready for agentic commerce. See the introduction for the full overview.

How does Evolve support AI agent integration?

Evolve is designed to be agent-friendly at two levels. First, its unified GraphQL Federation API gives AI agents a strongly typed, self-documenting interface to the entire commerce platform. Agents can discover available operations, understand input/output types, and execute queries and mutations without custom glue code.

Second, Evolve has built-in support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP tools are defined declaratively on top of existing GraphQL operations using @mcpTool directives, so any query or mutation can be exposed as an AI tool with automatically generated input schemas. This lets AI assistants browse products, manage carts, look up orders, and more through a standardized protocol. See the MCP architecture docs for details.

Does Evolve support ACP and UCP?

Not yet, but it is on the near-term roadmap. We are running proof-of-concept implementations for both the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) and the Unified Commerce Protocol (UCP). We expect to ship support for both protocols in the coming months.

How does Evolve relate to commercetools?

commercetools is a commerce engine. It provides the headless APIs for products, carts, orders, and customers. Evolve is the composable commerce platform that turns commercetools (and other MACH services) into a fully working commerce system. Evolve adds the GraphQL Federation API layer, storefront, domain services, payment orchestration, email delivery, AI agent integration, multi-cloud infrastructure, and more. In short: commercetools is one of the building blocks that Evolve composes into a complete platform. See the introduction for the full picture.

Why would I use Evolve instead of building from scratch?

Evolve gives you a working commerce platform from day one: checkout, payments, accounts, search, content, email, B2B, and AI agent integration. Your team focuses on business differentiators instead of rebuilding standard commerce plumbing. The architecture is designed to be extended and customized, not replaced.

What happens if I don't use Evolve?

You would assemble the same pieces yourself: a Next.js frontend, GraphQL API layer, commercetools integration, payment providers, CMS connectors, email delivery, caching, observability, AI agent tooling, multi-cloud Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and so on. Evolve bundles these into a cohesive, tested, and maintained platform with consistent patterns across all services.

What technology does Evolve use?

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js 15, React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, TypeScript
API	GraphQL Federation (Apollo Gateway), GraphQL Yoga
Backend	Node.js microservices, Fastify
Commerce engine	commercetools
CMS	Contentful, Storyblok
Search	Algolia, commercetools Search
Payments	Adyen, Stripe, Buckaroo, PayNL, invoice
Infrastructure	Terraform, Docker, MACH Composer
Cloud	AWS, GCP, Azure
AI agents	MCP, GraphQL tooling
Observability	OpenTelemetry, Sentry, Honeycomb

For the complete list of supported vendors and their integration status, see MACH integrations.

Is Evolve a replacement for MACH Composer?

No. MACH Composer is an orchestration tool that provisions and wires together cloud infrastructure for MACH-based architectures. Evolve uses MACH Composer as part of its deployment pipeline to manage services, routing, and cloud resources. They are complementary: MACH Composer handles the infrastructure layer, Evolve provides the commerce application that runs on top of it.

Can I deploy Evolve on Kubernetes?

Not out of the box. Evolve's Terraform modules target managed container services (AWS ECS Fargate, GCP Cloud Run, Azure Container Apps). Since every service is packaged as a standard Docker container, running on Kubernetes is technically possible, but you would need to write your own Helm charts or Kubernetes manifests. Kubernetes is on the integration roadmap.

Can I deploy Evolve on Vercel?

Yes. Vercel is supported as a frontend hosting option alongside the cloud-native CDN alternatives (CloudFront, Cloud CDN, Front Door). See Cloud deployment for details.

Does Evolve support SaaS system X?

Check the MACH integrations page for the full list of supported providers and their status (Full, Beta, or Roadmap). Evolve currently integrates with 40+ vendors across commerce engines, CMS, PIM, search, payments, shipping, analytics, and more.

If your system is not listed, Evolve's architecture makes it straightforward to add new integrations. Each integration is a standalone service or package. See the how-to guides for adding a CMS, adding a search engine, or adding a payment provider.

Can I use a different commerce engine than commercetools?

Yes. Evolve's domain services define their own data model and GraphQL schema. The commercetools integration lives in vendor-specific packages, not in the platform core. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is already supported, and the architecture allows swapping or combining commerce engines without affecting the frontend or other services.

Does Evolve support B2B?

Yes. Evolve runs B2C and B2B from the same backend. B2B features include business units, associate roles, approval workflows, company account management, and quote requests. A single project can be B2C-only, B2B-only, or both. See B2B architecture for details.

Is Evolve multi-tenant?

Evolve supports multi-store, multi-language, multi-currency, and multi-brand from a single deployment through its store context system. Each store can have its own catalog scope, pricing, locale, and content. For true multi-tenant isolation, MACH Composer can spin up separate Evolve instances per tenant.

What's the difference between Evolve and a regular Next.js + commercetools setup?

A bare Next.js + commercetools project gives you a frontend framework and a commerce API. Everything in between (GraphQL Federation, authentication and token management, payment orchestration, email notifications, CMS integration, search abstraction, caching, B2B support, AI agent tooling, multi-cloud Terraform, CI/CD, observability) you build yourself. Evolve provides all of those as production-tested, consistent services that work together out of the box, while still letting you customize or replace any part. See the architecture overview for how the pieces fit together.

What Node and pnpm versions does Evolve require?

Evolve requires Node.js >= 24.8 and pnpm >= 10.16.1. The exact pnpm version is pinned via the packageManager field in package.json, so Corepack will install the correct version automatically. See Getting started for the full setup instructions.

How do I upgrade Evolve?

Evolve is distributed as a Git repository that you fork for your project. To pull in updates, merge from the upstream Evolve remote into your project branch. Because Evolve follows consistent patterns across all services, most upgrades are straightforward merges. For breaking changes, release notes in the changelog describe what to update.

The ongoing framework work will make upgrades even easier. Once Evolve's core is published as versioned packages, upgrading becomes a dependency update rather than a Git merge.

How is Evolve licensed?

Evolve is proprietary software by Lab Digital BV. The source code is available under the Evolve Platform Review License, which allows you to review and evaluate the platform for internal assessment purposes. Any commercial use, modification, or deployment requires a valid Evolve Platform license agreement with Lab Digital. Contact Lab Digital for licensing terms.

How do I get started?

See Creating a new Evolve project for the step-by-step guide on forking the platform and setting up your project repository.