Compare HPH Catalog Item alternatives
Request a bounded, protected set of equivalent HPH Catalog Items without receiving their HPH Item Codes.
Submit one exact source code
The read-only POST accepts one exact HPH Item Code in its JSON body. The source code is not repeated in the response, and the operation is not a batch or browse-all catalog interface. It uses no idempotency key.
- Current Enterprise authority is required and is resolved from trusted server context.
- A Company restriction on returning HPH Item Code does not deny this operation because no source or alternative code is returned.
- Request Manufacturer list price explicitly when it is useful for comparison.
- A code supplied by the caller identifies the requested source; it grants no Company, content, or follow-up authority.
Resolve from one Company item
The Company-item operation accepts exactly one primary or alternate company item identifier and resolves its mapped HPH Item Code privately. It returns the same bounded comparison representation without disclosing the company item identity or mapped code.
- Unknown, ambiguous, and wrong-company identifiers use the same concealed outcome.
- Do not send organization, company, user, application, or authority selectors in the request body.
- The MCP peer is get_hph_item_alternatives_by_company_item and applies the same authority, disclosure, quota, and accounting policy.
- The privately resolved HPH Item Code, item_skey, and mapping revision never enter the public response or model context.
Compare all eligible alternatives
The exact source item is excluded. Every other eligible active alternative may be returned, including several items from one Manufacturer and a distinct item from the source Manufacturer.
- Alternatives are not deduplicated merely because Manufacturer, description, part number, size, or status agree.
- The service does not label an alternative as preferred, ranked, recommended, a successor, or a replacement.
- Manufacturer availability A, P, and D is distinct from HPH item lifecycle.
- An absent relationship, a source-only result, or no eligible active alternative produces not_cross_referenced.
- At most 49 alternatives are returned. When the complete equivalence collection exceeds 50 members, the outcome is collection_limit_exceeded rather than a truncated list.
Use protected option references
Each returned alternative has a separate short-lived opaque option_reference. It distinguishes choices without exposing the alternative's HPH Item Code or internal HPH identity.
- Do not parse, log, permanently store, or use an option reference as item identity.
- The selection operation requires confirmed set to true and an Idempotency-Key header, and reauthorizes the represented Company and current actor after confirmation. It requires direct-Company catalog administration authority.
- Possession of an option reference grants no mapping, selection, or publication permission.
- Expired or stale references cannot be refreshed by changing their text or resubmitting them to another operation.
Expect disclosure and quota controls
Alternative comparison exposes proprietary HPH-derived content. Requests, source-code probes, returned alternatives, and unique alternatives are therefore monitored and limited across REST and MCP together.
- The response never contains source or alternative HPH Item Codes, internal HPH item identities, relationship metadata, or Material.
- Manufacturer part number is omitted when the represented Company's current data restrictions exclude it.
- Manufacturer list price uses the standard price object only when requested and available.
- Denied and concealed probes can consume request quota without revealing whether a global HPH item exists.
- Partner applications cannot bypass the represented Company's aggregate quota.