> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://spreecommerce.org/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Update a product type

> Updates a product type.

Changes never modify products that already carry the type — use
`apply_to_products` to backfill those.


**Required scope:** `write_products` (for API-key authentication).



## OpenAPI

````yaml /api-reference/admin.yaml patch /api/v3/admin/product_types/{id}
openapi: 3.0.3
info:
  title: Admin API
  contact:
    name: Spree Commerce
    url: https://spreecommerce.org
    email: hello@spreecommerce.org
  description: >
    Spree Admin API v3 - Administrative API for managing products, orders, and
    store settings.


    ## Authentication


    The Admin API requires a secret API key passed in the `x-spree-api-key`
    header.

    Secret API keys can be generated in the Spree admin dashboard.


    ## Response Format


    All responses are JSON. List endpoints return paginated responses with
    `data` and `meta` keys.

    Single resource endpoints return a flat JSON object.


    ## Resource IDs


    Every resource is identified by an opaque string ID (e.g. `prod_86Rf07xd4z`,

    `variant_k5nR8xLq`, `or_UkLWZg9DAJ`). Use these IDs everywhere — URL paths,

    request bodies, and Ransack filters all accept them directly.


    ## Error Handling


    Errors return a consistent format:

    ```json

    {
      "error": {
        "code": "validation_error",
        "message": "Validation failed",
        "details": { "name": ["can't be blank"] }
      }
    }

    ```
  version: v3
servers:
  - url: http://{defaultHost}
    variables:
      defaultHost:
        default: localhost:3000
security: []
tags:
  - name: Authentication
    description: Admin user login, logout, token refresh, and current user profile
  - name: Allowed Origins
    description: CORS allowlist for storefront and admin client origins
  - name: API Keys
    description: Secret and publishable API keys
  - name: Categories
    description: >-
      Hierarchical product categories — tree management, repositioning, and
      product assignments
  - name: Channels
    description: >-
      Sales channels, product publication across channels, and per-channel order
      routing rules
  - name: Custom Fields
    description: >-
      Custom field definitions for products, variants, customers, and other
      resources
  - name: Customer Groups
    description: >-
      Customer groups for segmenting customers (e.g. wholesale, VIP) used by
      pricing and promotions
  - name: Customers
    description: Customer profiles, addresses, credit cards, and store credits
  - name: Email Templates
    description: >-
      Customer email templates, the email layout and shared partials: drafts,
      previews, publishing and history
  - name: Exports
    description: Async CSV exports of admin resources
  - name: Files
    description: Uploading the files that product media, imports, logos and documents use
  - name: Fulfillments
    description: Order fulfillments — shipments, fulfill, cancel, resume, split
  - name: Gift Cards
    description: Gift cards and gift card batches
  - name: Imports
    description: >-
      Async CSV imports of admin resources, with per-row status and failed-row
      retry
  - name: Markets
    description: >-
      Markets — geographic groupings of countries used for pricing, tax, and
      fulfillment rules
  - name: Option Types
    description: >-
      Option types and option values used to build product variants (e.g. Size,
      Color)
  - name: Orders
    description: Orders, order items, applied gift cards, and applied store credits
  - name: Payment Methods
    description: Configured payment providers and their available types
  - name: Payments
    description: Order payments — list, capture, void
  - name: Pricing
    description: >-
      Prices and price lists for currency-, market-, and customer-group-specific
      pricing
  - name: Products
    description: >-
      Products, taxons/categories, product custom field values, and bulk product
      operations
  - name: Policies
    description: The store's legal documents — terms of service, privacy, returns, shipping
  - name: Reasons
    description: >-
      Merchant-owned vocabularies for why a return, claim, refund, cancellation
      or tax exemption happened
  - name: Promotions
    description: Promotions, promotion rules, promotion actions, and coupon codes
  - name: Refunds
    description: Order refunds
  - name: Settings
    description: Store-level settings — store profile, tags, and configuration
  - name: Staff
    description: Admin users, roles, and invitations to the store
  - name: Stock Locations
    description: Warehouses and physical fulfillment locations
  - name: Store Credits
    description: Prepaid customer balances across all customers, and each balance's ledger
  - name: Variants
    description: >-
      Product variants — the individual SKUs (size/color combinations) sold
      under a product
  - name: Webhooks
    description: Webhook endpoints and webhook delivery history
paths:
  /api/v3/admin/product_types/{id}:
    parameters:
      - name: id
        in: path
        description: Product type ID
        required: true
        schema:
          type: string
    patch:
      tags:
        - Product Types
      summary: Update a product type
      description: |-
        Updates a product type.

        Changes never modify products that already carry the type — use
        `apply_to_products` to backfill those.


        **Required scope:** `write_products` (for API-key authentication).
      parameters:
        - name: x-spree-api-key
          in: header
          required: true
          schema:
            type: string
        - name: Authorization
          in: header
          required: true
          description: Bearer token for admin authentication
          schema:
            type: string
      requestBody:
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/ProductTypeUpdateParams'
        required: true
      responses:
        '200':
          description: product type updated
          content:
            application/json:
              example:
                id: pt_UkLWZg9DAJ
                name: Premium T-Shirt
                products_count: 0
                created_at: '2026-01-15T12:00:00.000Z'
                updated_at: '2026-01-15T12:00:00.000Z'
                delivery_profile_id: null
                option_type_ids: []
                category_ids: []
                custom_field_definitions: []
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/ProductType'
      security:
        - api_key: []
          bearer_auth: []
      x-codeSamples:
        - lang: javascript
          label: Spree Admin SDK
          source: >-
            import { createAdminClient } from '@spree/admin-sdk'


            const client = createAdminClient({
              baseUrl: 'https://your-store.com',
              secretKey: 'sk_xxx',
            })


            const productType = await
            client.productTypes.update('pt_UkLWZg9DAJ', {
              name: 'Premium T-Shirt',
            })
        - lang: bash
          label: Spree CLI
          source: spree api patch /product_types/{id} -d '{"name":"Premium T-Shirt"}'
components:
  schemas:
    ProductTypeUpdateParams:
      type: object
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
          example: Hoodie
        delivery_profile_id:
          type: string
          description: >-
            Delivery profile stamped onto products created with this type. Null
            leaves new products on the store default profile.
          example: fp_86Rf07xd4z
          nullable: true
        option_type_ids:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: >-
            Option types seeded onto products that get this type. Use apply to
            products to backfill existing ones.
        category_ids:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: >-
            Categories seeded onto products that get this type. Categories from
            other stores are ignored.
        custom_field_definitions:
          type: array
          items:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/ProductTypeCustomFieldDefinitionParams'
          description: >-
            The custom field definitions the product form shows. Definitions not
            listed are removed from the type.
    ProductType:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: string
        name:
          type: string
        translations:
          type: object
        products_count:
          type: number
        created_at:
          type: string
        updated_at:
          type: string
        delivery_profile_id:
          type: string
          nullable: true
        option_type_ids:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
        category_ids:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
        custom_field_definitions:
          type: array
          items:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/ProductTypeCustomFieldDefinition'
      required:
        - id
        - name
        - products_count
        - created_at
        - updated_at
        - delivery_profile_id
        - option_type_ids
        - category_ids
        - custom_field_definitions
      x-typelizer: true
    ProductTypeCustomFieldDefinitionParams:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: string
          description: The custom field definition.
          example: cfdef_abc123
        required:
          type: boolean
        sort_order:
          type: integer
      required:
        - id
    ProductTypeCustomFieldDefinition:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: string
        key:
          type: string
        namespace:
          type: string
        label:
          type: string
        field_type:
          type: string
          enum:
            - short_text
            - long_text
            - rich_text
            - number
            - boolean
            - json
        required:
          type: boolean
        sort_order:
          type: number
      required:
        - id
        - key
        - namespace
        - label
        - field_type
        - required
        - sort_order
      x-typelizer: true
  securitySchemes:
    api_key:
      type: apiKey
      name: x-spree-api-key
      in: header
      description: Secret API key for admin access
    bearer_auth:
      type: http
      scheme: bearer
      bearerFormat: JWT
      description: JWT token for admin user authentication

````

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