FAQ
What is Evolve?
Section titled “What is Evolve?”A set of versioned packages for a commerce storefront and the API behind it.
The @evolve-framework/* packages run the backend: one GraphQL API in front
of your commerce engine, CMS, search, and payment providers. The
@evolve-storefront/* packages add features to a Next.js storefront, such as
the cart, checkout, and account pages. You start from a copy of a reference
site and keep your own code in your project.
Which commerce engines are supported?
Section titled “Which commerce engines are supported?”commercetools, Medusa, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. All three serve the same GraphQL API, so the storefront’s queries do not change with the engine. Not every engine can do everything, and an operation an engine cannot answer says so in the API.
See Engines, capabilities, and errors and Switch commerce engine.
How does Evolve relate to commercetools?
Section titled “How does Evolve relate to commercetools?”commercetools is one of the engines Evolve runs on.
@evolve-framework/commercetools
serves the Evolve API from commercetools, and the commercetools payment
packages connect providers such as Adyen and Stripe to it. Evolve adds what
sits around the engine: the shared API, sessions, CMS content, search, events,
and the storefront packages.
Which CMSes are supported?
Section titled “Which CMSes are supported?”Contentful, Storyblok, and Payload. They serve the same content pages and blocks, so the storefront renders them the same way. See Add a CMS and Pages and routes.
A vendor I use is not on the list. Can I still use it?
Section titled “A vendor I use is not on the list. Can I still use it?”Yes. Check the package reference first: Evolve may already have a package for it. For a vendor Evolve has no package for, write the adapter in your project. See Build your own adapter.
How do I get access to the packages?
Section titled “How do I get access to the packages?”The packages are on a private registry. Ask the Evolve team for an invite, then sign in once per machine with the GitHub account that got the invite:
npm login --registry=https://npm.registry.evolve-platform.comA reference site already points both scopes at that registry:
registries: "@evolve-framework": https://npm.registry.evolve-platform.com "@evolve-storefront": https://npm.registry.evolve-platform.comYou also need Node.js 26, and pnpm through Corepack
(corepack enable). See Installation.
How do I start a project?
Section titled “How do I start a project?”Start from a copy of one of the reference sites: B2C or B2B. See Installation.
How do I upgrade Evolve?
Section titled “How do I upgrade Evolve?”Raise the package versions in the pnpm catalog of your project and install. Your own code stays in your project, so an upgrade is a dependency update. A release that needs changes in your code says so in the upgrade guides. See Your code and ours and the changelog.
Which browsers does Evolve support?
Section titled “Which browsers does Evolve support?”The storefront supports the browsers Next.js supports, with one exception: Tailwind CSS 4 needs Firefox 128 or later.
| Browser | Version |
|---|---|
| Chrome and Edge | 111 or later |
| Safari, on macOS and iOS | 16.4 or later |
| Firefox | 128 or later |
The reference sites set no browserslist of their own, so the defaults of
Next.js and
Tailwind CSS decide. A release
that changes this list says so in the upgrade guides.
Does Evolve support B2B?
Section titled “Does Evolve support B2B?”Yes. The engine packages have modules for business units, order approvals, and quotes, and the storefront has feature packages for organizations and quotes. The B2B reference site shows them working together. What an engine cannot answer shows up as described in Engines, capabilities, and errors.
Can one project serve several stores, languages, and currencies?
Section titled “Can one project serve several stores, languages, and currencies?”Yes. Every request carries a store context: the store, the locale, and the
currency. The backend answers each request for that store, so one backend
serves several stores. A storefront deployment serves one store and one
currency, in several locales, each under its own URL prefix. Another store or
currency is another deployment of the same storefront. With Payload, the
multiTenant option scopes content to a store.
See Stores and markets and Add a language.
How does Evolve support AI agents?
Section titled “How does Evolve support AI agents?”Mark a GraphQL operation with @mcpTool, and the codegen of
@evolve-framework/mcp-core turns it into a
tool on an MCP server. You run that server as a module in a service of your
own, and customers connect it to their assistant by signing in on your storefront.
The tools call the same GraphQL gateway as the storefront. See
Expose your API to AI assistants.
Can I run Evolve on Kubernetes?
Section titled “Can I run Evolve on Kubernetes?”Yes, but you write the manifests. Every service and the storefront build into a Docker image, so any platform that runs containers can host them. Evolve ships no Kubernetes manifests or Helm charts. The reference sites run on Google Cloud Run. For events and file storage, Evolve has adapter packages for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. See Deploying.
How is Evolve licensed?
Section titled “How is Evolve licensed?”The source repositories carry the Evolve Platform Review License of Lab
Digital BV. It allows you to review and evaluate Evolve, to decide whether it
suits your business. Commercial use, changes, and deployment need an Evolve
Platform license agreement. The packages say UNLICENSED in their
package.json: they come with no open-source license.
For license terms, ask the Evolve team.