Authoring API
Commerce views are exposed via the Authoring API, a subset of the Commerce Service API. This Authoring API is based on OData, but is significantly simplified and more dynamically structured to support a data-driven user experience.
The Authoring API targets authoring and management experiences, while the Shops API targets runtime experiences for a shop or storefront. The Authoring API is logically separated from the Shops API to allow more direct control over the availability of functionality in different engine roles.
For example, you may want the Authoring API to be accessible on an internal instance of the Commerce Engine, but not on the Commerce Engine instance that is serving storefronts.