Primary Market Concept
Understand the country, region, city, locale, currency, timezone, units, and capabilities that define an AutoCore primary market.
A primary market is the installation's configured country, region, city, locale, currency, timezone, distance unit, and enabled vehicle capabilities. It provides the context used by setup, presentation, validation, search, and operational workflows.
Market dimensions
| Dimension | Operational meaning |
|---|---|
| Country | Country-level formats and validation context. |
| Region | State, province, or other regional subdivision where required. |
| City | Primary city or locality for the installation's initial marketplace. |
| Locale | Default language and regional formatting, such as en-US or de-DE. |
| Currency | Marketplace money display and minor-unit interpretation, such as USD or EUR. |
| Timezone | Local date/time interpretation, such as America/Chicago or Europe/Berlin. |
| Distance unit | Distance display and input unit, such as miles or kilometers. |
| Vehicle capabilities | Explicitly enabled category/attribute behavior for the installation. |
One primary market in Commercial 1.0
Commercial 1.0 associates one primary market with an installation. The schema keeps the market normalized so additional locations can be added later, but simultaneous multi-market or multi-currency operation is not represented as an available control-plane capability in this release boundary.
Austin and Berlin examples
Austin is a demo/default market preset used by the AutoCore edition and installation validation. It is not a hardcoded product restriction. Berlin is a validation example that proves a non-US configuration can use de-DE, EUR, Europe/Berlin, and kilometers. Other markets require their own source-verified values and operational decisions.
Why the boundary matters
Market settings influence:
- How money, dates, and distances are presented and validated.
- Which address and telephone formats operators should configure.
- Which catalog categories and vehicle attributes are exposed.
- Which legal entity and policy content applies.
- Which payment provider and tax assumptions require external review.
- How listings and search facets are interpreted.
Defaults, validation, and activation
An edition can provide defaults for a market profile, while installation setup persists the selected primary market. The environment validator checks that the selected edition, default locale, currency, timezone, distance unit, namespaces, and deployment identity agree. A value that validates is not automatically a commercial approval: legal text, provider onboarding, tax treatment, address formats, and operational support still require market-specific review.
Capability scope
The source has five canonical primary category keys, but new listing creation is
currently enabled only for automobile and suv_offroad_pickup. Other category
keys and discovery definitions are capability seams or edition-scoped surfaces;
they must not be described as universally enabled production scope.
Changing a market is a migration decision
Do not change country, currency, timezone, units, or capabilities in a live installation as if they were theme settings. Back up first, assess existing listings and policy/financial records, verify search and presentation behavior, and use a reviewed migration or new installation when the data boundary is not compatible.
Safe documentation language
Use “configured for,” “validated with,” or “demo preset” when describing a market. Do not describe Austin as the only supported city, and do not infer that a country is commercially ready merely because its locale or currency validates in tests.