1.1. Introduction
Medusa is a digital commerce platform with a built-in framework for customization.
Medusa ships with three main tools:
- A suite of commerce modules with core commerce functionalities, such as tracking inventory, calculating cart totals, accepting payments, managing orders, and much more.
- A framework for building custom functionalities specific to your business, product, or industry. This includes tools for introducing custom API endpoints, business logic, and data models; building workflows and automations; and integrating with third-party services.
- A customizable admin dashboard for merchants to configure and operate their store.
When you install Medusa, you get a fully fledged commerce platform with all the features you need to get off the ground. However, unlike other platforms, Medusa is built with customization in mind. You don't need to build hacky workarounds that are difficult to maintain and scale. Your efforts go into building features that brings your business's vision to life.
Who should use Medusa#
Medusa is for businesses and teams looking for a digital commerce platform with the tools to implement unique requirements that other platforms aren't built to support.
Businesses of all sizes can use Medusa, from small start ups to large enterprises. Also, technical teams of all sizes can build with Medusa; all it takes is a developer to manage and deploy Medusa projects.
Below are some stories from companies that use Medusa:
Who is this documentation for#
This documentation introduces you to Medusa's concepts and how they help you build your business use case. The documentation is structured to gradually introduce Medusa's concepts, with easy-to-follow examples along the way.
By following this documentation, you'll be able to create custom commerce experiences that would otherwise take large engineering teams months to build.
How to use the documentation#
This documentation is split into the following sections:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
The documentation you're currently reading. It's recommended to follow the chapters in this documentation to understand the core concepts of Medusa and how to use them before jumping into the other sections. | |
Product | Documentation for the Commerce and Architectural Modules. You can browse those to learn more about Medusa's commerce and architectural features, and find guides specific to each of these modules. |
Build | Recipes, How-To & Tutorials, Integrations, and Storefront Development guides. You can follow these guides after you've learned Medusa's core concepts. |
Guides on how to setup and use Medusa's CLI tools, JS SDK, Next.js Starter, and Medusa UI | |
API Routes References | References of the Store and Admin API routes in Medusa. They also include instructions related to authentication, parameter types in requests, and more. |
Useful during your development with Medusa to learn about different APIs and how to use them. Its references include the Events Reference, Core Workflows Reference, and more. | |
Guides that introduce merchants and store managers to the Medusa Admin dashboard and helps them understand how to use the dashboard to manage their store. |
To get started, check out the Installation chapter.
Using with LLM Editors#
This documentation provides an llms-full.txt file to support LLM editors. To access the documentation directly from your editor and benefit from code generation, add https://docs.medusajs.com/llms-full.txt as a custom documentation source in your LLM editor, such as Cursor.
Useful Links#
- Need Help? Refer to our GitHub repository for issues and discussions.
- Join the community on Discord.
- Have questions or need more support? Contact our sales team.
- Facing issues in your development? Refer to our troubleshooting guides.