Commodities (the catalog)
The commodity catalog is the backbone of OnlyTons. Every supply entry and every demand entry is about a commodity, so a clean, shared catalog is what lets a producer's offer and a buyer's need line up at all.
What a commodity is
A commodity is a canonical product curated by the broker — for example "Durum wheat", "Chickpeas", "Extra-virgin olive oil", "Passata". Each commodity has:
- a name and a URL slug;
- a category: Raw, Semi-processed, or Processed;
- an organic-by-default hint and a default unit (kg, t, L, or units);
- an attributes schema — the extra fields that supply/demand for this commodity can fill in (see below);
- an optional description and image.
The Commodities screen
Everyone lands here. It's a grid of commodity cards you can:
- Search by name — or use Search, which looks across products, availability and requirements at once and works in both languages;
- Filter by category (and product group);
- read at a glance — each card shows how much active supply exists and the next availability window opening up.
Filters are reflected in the URL, so a filtered view is shareable and bookmarkable.
Commodity detail & the availability timeline
Opening a commodity shows its details and — the centerpiece — the availability timeline: every supply window for that commodity drawn against a time axis, with past windows dimmed, current windows solid, and forward windows striped with a "Forward" badge, plus a "today" line. This is where a buyer sees future supply forming. The timeline is described in detail in Supply → The availability timeline.
Each row on the timeline identifies its seller by operator handle and area
(OP-7K3QMD · Puglia) rather than by company name, with its certification
badges alongside — enough to judge the offer, never enough to go around the
portal. Your own listings show your own name. See
Operator privacy.
The commodity page is also where a buyer can jump into posting demand for that product. The open-demand panel below the timeline shows buyers the same way.
Attributes schema
Different products need different details. A commodity's attributes schema defines those fields — each with a key, a label, a type (text, number, select, boolean), and optionally a unit or a set of options. Examples:
- Durum wheat: protein % (number), variety (select).
- Olive oil: acidity (number), extraction (select: cold / …).
When someone posts supply or demand for that commodity, these fields appear on the form automatically, and the values are stored with the entry. This keeps the catalog flexible without hard-coding product-specific fields.
Who manages the catalog
Only the broker creates and edits commodities and their attributes, from Catalog admin. This keeps the catalog canonical — no duplicate or inconsistent product names competing in matching.
Requesting a commodity
If an organization needs a product that isn't in the catalog yet, they can request a commodity from the Commodities screen. The request notifies the broker, who can add it. This keeps the catalog broker-curated while still being responsive to what organizations actually trade.