Inspiration
Happy Customer, Happy System. Shopping should adapt to the shopper's changing needs and pace. We wanted a companion that discusses what matters, presents a few relevant options, and respects the decision to stop.
What it does
SHOP YOUR WAY connects a conversational shopping interface to Channel3's hosted Conversational Agent and catalog. Describe a product, refine a budget or style, or change category. The provider maintains conversation context; the app displays its native search query and up to three explicitly recommended products with merchant links. It does not fill spare card positions with unrelated search candidates.
The shopper can pause, resume, revise the selection or leave without buying. An optional, separately labeled $1.00 USD PayPal Sandbox demonstration provides a deliberate payment boundary. It is a demonstration token, not a purchase of catalog merchandise: no real money, goods, delivery, reservation or merchant order.
How we built it
The existing Next.js / React / TypeScript application calls Channel3 through the official @channel3/sdk 4.8.0. Requests specify the US market and USD. One native conversation service handles understanding, context and catalog recommendations instead of a homemade translation/search pipeline.
PayPal JavaScript SDK launches buyer approval. Server-side Sandbox Orders API calls bind the order to the session and confirmed cart revision, verify amount and currency, distinguish buyer from merchant, and verify capture against the canonical order. Changing the selection clears confirmation. No model can select, confirm or operate payment controls.
Codex helped implement and simplify the integration, reproduce Croatian context errors, add boundary tests, inspect actual browser behavior and document evidence. Earlier Ollama/qwen3:4b extraction experiments are inactive in the current runtime.
Challenges and what we learned
Early attempts lost product intent across Croatian-to-English interpretation and category changes. Reusing Channel3's ready-made conversational service reduced the connecting code and removed the competing extraction pipeline. Explicit recommendations define the shortlist; broad search hits are not silently promoted into suggestions.
We learned to separate what a model says from what the catalog and payment service actually verify. A browser return is not proof of payment, and a recommendation is not proof of material, size or stock.
What we verified
The current build passed 53 unit checks, seven controlled browser checks, TypeScript checking and a production build. Ten real native-agent flow assertions passed for the tested category transitions, continuity and price ceilings; these do not establish every product detail.
On November 10, 2026, the owner personally completed the separate $1.00 USD Sandbox demo. Canonical PayPal GET verified both order and capture as COMPLETED, with different buyer and merchant identities. The video includes the actual earlier receipt, clearly labeled as a prior verified Sandbox test. See evidence/paypal-completed-2026-11-10.json in the repository.
Try it
Public runnable source, MIT license, setup and judge guide: https://github.com/sirolaalen-awm/shop-your-way/tree/submission-ready-2026-11-10
Use this branch. README.md and JUDGE_GUIDE.md give complete local instructions. Install Node.js 22+, run npm ci, copy .env.example to .env.local, configure your authorized Channel3 key server-side, then npm run dev. No Ollama or OpenAI key is required for the active runtime. Channel3 calls consume the configured provider account's credits.
Start with “I need a 55-inch TV under $500. Keep it simple.” Refine to “Under $400 instead.” Pause and resume, then try a different category.
Optional payment reproduction uses your own PayPal Sandbox merchant app and a separate Personal Sandbox buyer. No access to the owner's personal PayPal account is needed. Do not use real-money credentials. Fictional samples in Demo tools are explicitly labeled and do not reproduce live AI/catalog behavior.
Public English demo with synthetic female narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH7UkUb5E5A
Limitations and next steps
External recommendations can mismatch material, fit, variants or availability and can mix response languages. Verify product details, price and stock with the retailer. In-person planning does not reserve products or appointments. Storage is single-process.
PayPal's current integration is a separate Sandbox token rather than catalog-goods purchasing or merchant fulfillment. This is an explicit prototype boundary, not a claim of production commerce. Future work would require authorized merchant checkout integration and broader relevance evaluation.
This SYW project was created after October 1, 2026.
Built With
- channel3
- codex
- next.js
- paypal
- react
- typescript
- zod
