Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

How Agentic Booking relates to the Universal Commerce Protocol.

What is UCP?

The Universal Commerce Protocol is an open standard for agentic commerce launched by Google in January 2026. Co-developed with Shopify, Walmart, Target, Etsy, and Wayfair, endorsed by Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and 20+ others.

UCP is the orchestration layer. It defines how commerce happens.

Agentic Booking + UCP

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Curator                                                    │
│  Discovery + Trust                                          │
│  (Upstream of any commerce protocol)                        │
└─────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┘
                              │ feeds venue references into
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)                          │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────────┐         │
│  │ dev.ucp.shopping.*  │    │dev.ucp.hospitality.*│         │
│  │ (Retail vertical)   │    │(Hospitality mapping)│         │
│  └─────────────────────┘    └─────────────────────┘         │
│                                                             │
│  Orchestration: Capability negotiation, state machines      │
│  Transport: REST | MCP | A2A                                │
│  Payment: AP2 mandates + handlers                           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Agentic Booking defines what hospitality commerce means. UCP is one way to implement it.

The Hospitality Gap

UCP's roadmap includes "Travel, Services" as future verticals. Their initial focus is retail.

Same orchestration. Different vocabulary.

What UCP Provides

Capability Negotiation

{
  "capabilities": [
    {
      "name": "dev.ucp.hospitality.venue",
      "version": "2026-01-11"
    },
    {
      "name": "dev.ucp.hospitality.booking-terms",
      "version": "2026-01-11",
      "extends": "dev.ucp.shopping.checkout"
    }
  ]
}

Transport Bindings

Profile Discovery

Venues publish at /.well-known/ucp:

{
  "ucp": {
    "version": "2026-01-11",
    "services": {
      "dev.ucp.hospitality": {
        "rest": { "endpoint": "https://api.venue.com/ucp/v1" }
      }
    },
    "capabilities": [...]
  }
}

What Agentic Booking Provides

Curator (Discovery)

UCP explicitly doesn't standardize discovery. Hospitality needs:

• Regional authorities (DMOs)
• Trust through convergence
• Verification beyond self-assertion

Curator sits above UCP and feeds venue references into it.

Venue Vocabulary

UCP's shop doesn't capture what makes hospitality different:

• Vibe: Subjective character
• Fit: What it's good for and not
• Units: Rooms, tables with temporal availability
• Evidence: Claims with provenance

Booking Terms

UCP's checkout handles immediate payment. Folio adds:

• Deposit schedules
• Balance timing
• Cancellation tiers
• No-show policies

Stay Lifecycle

UCP's order tracks Placed → Shipped → Delivered. Stay adds:

Request → Available → Held → Booked → Confirmed → Arrived → Stayed → Completed

UCP Capability Mapping

Resources

• UCP Specification
• UCP GitHub
• AP2 Protocol