# Introduction

Welcome to the Mirakl Connect Channel Platform documentation.
It gives you the information you need to build a Channel Connector with the Mirakl Connect Channel APIs and events.

Your connector lets sellers:

* import their channel stores into Mirakl Connect,
* configure their product taxonomy and their catalogs,
* manage their orders,
* sell their products through the channel.


## What is the Channel Platform?

Mirakl Connect is a Feed Manager.
It lets sellers reach buyers across many external sales channels, such as marketplaces and marketing channels, without a separate integration for each one.

The Channel Platform is the surface that makes those connections work.
It is how a seller's catalog, offers, prices, stock, and orders stay in step between Mirakl Connect and each channel.
A product listed once can then sell everywhere it is offered.

Four actors meet on the Channel Platform:

* A **channel** is an external marketplace or platform.
Sellers list their products there, and buyers place orders there.
* An **integrator** builds and runs the connector, the middleware between one channel and Mirakl Connect.
* **Sellers** run **stores** that sell through Mirakl Connect.
Their products, offers, and orders are what flow across the connection.
* **Mirakl Connect** exposes the APIs your connector calls, and it emits the events your connector receives.


If you are the integrator, your work is to keep the two platforms synchronized:

* Publish the stores, the catalog, the offers, the prices, and the stock to the channel.
* Carry the channel's orders, returns, and refunds back to Mirakl Connect.


This documentation describes the behaviour of Mirakl Connect that you build against, and the workflows those exchanges support.

## How a connector works

Your connector talks to the Channel Platform in two directions:

* Your connector **calls the Channel Platform REST APIs**, authenticated with OAuth2.
It pushes updates such as orders, returns, catalog configuration, and store business information.
Refer to [Authorization](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/developer-guide/authorization) and to the [REST APIs reference](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/rest/connect/openapi3).
* Mirakl Connect **notifies your connector through events**.
Every event carries a consistent payload.
Mirakl sets up the subscription, so the events reach the queue or the topic you own: AWS SQS, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, or Microsoft Azure Service Bus.
Refer to [Receiving events](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/developer-guide/receiving-events) and to the [Event APIs reference](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/webhooks/webhook).


```mermaid
flowchart LR
    platform["Mirakl Connect Channel Platform"]
    integration["Channel Connector"]
    channel["Channel (external platform)"]

    platform -.->|"Events"| integration
    integration -->|"Channel Platform APIs"| platform
    integration <-->|"Channel's APIs / events"| channel
```

## Related pages

* **[Integration overview](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/getting-started/integration-overview)**: where your connector sits, the two directions of exchange, and where the state and the responsibility live.
* **[Get access](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/getting-started/prerequisite-resources)**: what to request and configure before you start to build.
* **[Business use cases](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/developer-guide/business-use-cases)**: the flows you implement to synchronize catalogs and orders, which ones are yours, and where to start.
* **[REST APIs reference](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/rest/connect/openapi3)** and **[Event APIs reference](/content/product/connect-channel-platform/webhooks/webhook)**: the complete description of the operations you call and the events you consume.