Sprint 238 delivers a set of important updates across Icecat’s ecosystem, improving user experience, security, and backend performance. This release introduces the Product Manual Tool for the Icecat Model Context Protocol (MCP), enhances SSO login flows and JWE token capabilities, and includes a variety of technical and UI improvements across icecat.biz, Brand Cloud, and supporting services. These updates collectively streamline workflows for both end users and AI-driven integrations. For additional details, please refer to the previous Icecat Release Notes.
In this sprint, we are excited to announce the release of a new Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool – Product Manual. This tool enhances the product information experience by providing direct links to product manuals, allowing users to access detailed product documentation quickly and efficiently.
Users can now obtain links to product manuals through the MCP interface. This provides a reliable reference for technical specifications, installation instructions, and usage guidelines.
While the tool is fully functional, it is important to note that not all AI Agents can fetch the PDF files directly. In some cases, users may need to instruct the AI to retrieve the requested information and provide the PDF link explicitly in their instructions.
Even when direct PDF fetching is not possible, the availability of the manual links ensures that users can still find accurate and official product information, supporting decision-making and troubleshooting.
This tool helps users gain quick access to detailed product documentation, reducing time spent searching for manuals and improving overall efficiency in product research and support.
In this sprint, we are delivering updates to the Single Sign-On (SSO) integration and user authentication for Hexagon services. These changes focus on improving security, user experience, and the richness of data available in authentication tokens.
Starting from the previous release, users can log in to Hexagon services directly via SSO. This ensures seamless access across platforms, reducing the need for multiple credentials and improving security by leveraging centralized authentication. In this sprint, the SSO login page has been fully separated from the Icecat.biz.
This separation allows for:
The SSO login page has received a complete UI/UX overhaul. The new design emphasizes:
The JSON Web Encryption (JWE) token now carries additional user information. This enrichment enables:
These updates reinforce our commitment to secure, efficient, and user-friendly authentication mechanisms, providing both technical teams and end users with enhanced experiences across Icecat platforms.
Mock token logic was removed from the MCP server. This simplifies authentication handling and reduces unnecessary placeholder logic in the backend.
All Clickhouse calls in the MCP server are now executed asynchronously. This improves query performance and allows MCP to handle higher volumes of requests efficiently.
A new internal service was implemented to manage asynchronous request data. This provides a reliable mechanism to track and process long-running ETL operations.
The AsyncRequests API was delivered to expose async request management functionality. Developers can now create, monitor, and control asynchronous tasks more effectively.
Product images are now hidden in the DOM to prevent unauthorized scraping. This change improves content security while still allowing legitimate users and AI agents to access product visuals through controlled interfaces.
AMP pages have been removed, and users visiting these pages are automatically redirected to responsive mobile pages. This ensures a consistent and modern mobile experience across all devices.
For brand and category statistics, product image links were changed from Medium to Thumb size. This simplifies the logic behind image handling and reduces the risk of errors in images displaying.
Seventeen unused MySQL tables were removed from the database. This cleanup improves database performance, reduces maintenance overhead, and simplifies future development.
The Brand Cloud product page UI was updated so that the specs block filters follow a clear visual hierarchy. Users can now more easily scan and interpret product specifications, enhancing usability.
In Brand Cloud Brand Organizations, scroll functionality was added to the category selection interface. This allows users to add many categories to a brand organization without losing context or facing UI limitations.
Numerical and alphanumeric features in the Brand Cloud product page UI were migrated from Marionette/Backbone to React. This modernizes the frontend, improving maintainability and performance.
Scripts were created and executed to clean up unused multimedia objects. This reduces storage waste and keeps the media management system more maintainable.
The last 360° multimedia object image handler was migrated from Perl to PHP. Moving this handler consolidates the backend technology stack and simplifies future maintenance.
Integration with Pipedrive was upgraded to API v2, as v1 will be retired after December 31st. This ensures continued compatibility and access to the latest features provided by Pipedrive.
With Sprint 238, Icecat continues to strengthen the ecosystem by providing faster, more secure, and more reliable tools and services. The Product Manual Tool improves access to official product documentation, SSO and JWE enhancements simplify authentication and provide richer user context, and the technical and UI improvements enhance performance, maintainability, and usability across the platform. These updates ensure that both human and AI users can work more efficiently and effectively with Icecat data.
Read further: Icecat, e-commerce, ecommerce, Icecat, MCP, release notes, SSO
