Products

The Product Catalog is the starting point for everything in Aforo. A product represents a monetizable API surface — something your customers purchase access to and consume over time.

Product Types

Aforo supports four generally available product types:

Type	Description	Credential
Standard API	REST/GraphQL/gRPC APIs	Bearer token (`sk_live_...`)
Agentic API	APIs designed for AI agent consumption	Bearer token (`sk_live_...`)
AI Agent	Autonomous AI agents billed per session	Client credentials
MCP Server	Model Context Protocol servers billed per tool invocation	Client credentials

Product Lifecycle

Every product moves through a defined maturity stage:

EXPERIMENTAL → BETA → GA → DEPRECATED → RETIRED

ℹ

Transitions are enforced — you cannot jump from GA directly to RETIRED. You must deprecate first. This prevents accidental retirement of active products.

Stage Definitions

EXPERIMENTAL — Internal testing only. Not available to customers.
BETA — Limited customer availability. New subscriptions allowed.
GA — Fully launched. All customers can subscribe.
DEPRECATED — No new subscriptions. Existing customers continue unaffected.
RETIRED — Terminal state. All subscriptions must be migrated first.

Publish Status

Separate from maturity, each product also has a publish status controlling its visibility in your storefront:

Status	Visible in Storefront	Description
`DRAFT`	No	Work in progress
`IN_REVIEW`	No	Pending approval
`PUBLISHED`	Yes	Live in your catalog
`ARCHIVED`	No	Hidden from new discovery

Gateway Mappings

Products can be linked to external API gateways (Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Azure APIM, MuleSoft). Aforo maintains sync status for each mapping:

SYNCED — Product config matches the gateway
STALE — Gateway config has drifted from Aforo's record
ERROR — Last sync attempt failed
PENDING — Sync in progress

⚠

If a product shows STALE status, billing may continue but gateway-level enforcement (rate limiting, access control) may not reflect your latest pricing configuration. Use Restore to Gateway to re-sync.

Creating a Product

Navigate to Catalog → Products
Click + New Product
Select the product type
Enter a name, description, and audience (INTERNAL, EXTERNAL, or PARTNER)
Optionally paste an OpenAPI spec URL for automatic documentation generation
Click Save as Draft

Deletion Protection

Aforo prevents deletion of products that are actively monetized. The two-step deletion check returns one of three verdicts:

Verdict	Meaning	Action Required
`ALLOW`	No active billing dependencies	Safe to delete
`WARN`	Used in draft/archived rate plans only	Confirm intent
`BLOCK`	Active subscriptions exist	Migrate customers first

Cloning a Product

Use Clone to create a copy of an existing product for a new market segment or pricing experiment. Clones always start as EXPERIMENTAL / DRAFT with reset billing metadata.

Cloned product:
  maturityStage  → EXPERIMENTAL   (never inherits GA/DEPRECATED)
  publishStatus  → DRAFT          (never auto-published)
  subscriptions  → 0              (not copied)
  gatewayMappings → none          (not copied)