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

# See how AI reads a product in your catalog

> Review what Layers indexed for a product, which tags, collections, and metafields were ignored and why, how variants were split, and flag issues.

<Info>
  **Beta.** This panel is available on every product page and does not need to be enabled. It is read-only in v1. The only write action is flagging an entry for review.
</Info>

The **How AI sees this product** panel answers "why does this product rank where it does?" by showing exactly what Layers indexed for a product, what it ignored and why, and how variants were treated. It reads from the state the indexing pipeline already persisted, so opening it doesn't trigger new work or extra model calls.

## When to use this

* A product isn't ranking where you expect and you want to see what the index actually contains for it.
* You want to confirm a metafield, tag, or collection made it into the index after a Shopify edit.
* You need to check how a product with variants was split into indexed entries.
* You see something that looks wrong in the indexed content and want to send it to the review team.

## Open the panel

1. In the dashboard, go to **Catalog** and open a product. See [View product details](/help/catalog/view-product-details).
2. In the sidebar, find the **How AI sees this product** card.
3. Review the freshness pill, signal counts, and one-line strategy summary.
4. Select **See full breakdown** to open the slide-over.

## What the sidebar card shows

* **Freshness pill** — Whether the indexed content reflects the current product data.
  * **Up to date** — The recorded selection matches the applied embedding.
  * **Needs a refresh** — The product has changed since it was last indexed.
  * **Never indexed** — Layers has not indexed this product yet.
* **Signal counts** — Tags, collections, and metafields shown as `included of total`. For example, `6 of 14` means six of the fourteen tags on the product made it into the index.
* **Strategy summary** — One line that says whether the product was indexed as a single entry or split into several entries by a variant option (for example, `Indexed as 3 entries, split by Color`).

If a product has never been indexed, the sidebar card still renders. The slide-over then explains there is nothing to show yet.

## What the full breakdown shows

A bar at the top of the slide-over names the indexing strategy Layers chose for this product and explains what it means in one line. Select **How this was chosen** in that bar to jump to the **Variant treatment** tab, which shows all three strategies with the active one selected.

Below the bar the slide-over has two panes.

### What the AI reads (left pane)

This pane shows the indexed content verbatim. It is the same structured view the embedded document is built from. Fields include **Title**, **Brand**, **Category**, **Attributes**, **Variant options**, **Variant metafields**, and **Description**. The description is clamped to three lines with a **Show more** toggle when the text overflows.

When the product is split into multiple indexed entries (for example, one per color), a selector at the top of this pane lets you pick which entry to view. Entries are grouped by the distinct value of the splitting dimension, not per variant. Variants that share the split value produce the same document and count as one entry.

### Signals and variant treatment (right pane)

The right pane has two tabs.

**Signals** lists what was included and what was ignored for **Tags**, **Collections**, and **Metafields**. Included values render as green pills. Ignored values render as dashed pills and are grouped by the reason they were dropped.

There are three ignore reasons. Each maps to a distinct stage of the indexing pipeline:

* **Not shopper-facing content** — Dropped before the selector saw it. Common examples are metafield definitions your store excludes, values that are only Shopify IDs, and empty values.
* **Consistently unhelpful across your catalog** — The field kept getting judged unhelpful for other products in your catalog, so Layers stopped considering it.
* **Judged not descriptive for shoppers** — The value reached the descriptiveness model, or an overriding verdict said it wasn't useful to shoppers.

Counts read `included of total`. The total includes the values dropped before the selector saw them, so it matches what you'd see for the product in Shopify.

**Variant treatment** shows how Layers decided to index a product with variants. It has three parts:

* **Indexing strategy** — Three cards showing every strategy Layers can use, with the one Layers picked for this product selected. The cards are read-only. The strategies are:
  * **One entry for the whole product** — Variant options are left out. Use for options that don't change what the product is, like size or chain length.
  * **One entry, with option values listed** — Still one entry, but the meaningful option values are listed on it so the product is findable by any of them.
  * **One entry per variant** — Each variant is indexed on its own, carrying the full product identity plus that variant's value.
* **Variant attributes or options in the index** — When the strategy is *One entry, options listed*, this section lists the option and metafield names Layers pulled onto the single entry. When the strategy is *One entry per variant*, it lists the options Layers used to split the index. Green chips mean the value shapes the index; dashed chips mean it does not.
* **What Layers indexes for this product** — The list of indexed entries. Each entry carries its splitting-dimension value as its label (for per-variant) or the product title. Select an entry to load it in the left pane.

## Flag a product for review

If something in the indexed content looks wrong and you want the review team to look at it, use the **Flag for review** action in the panel header.

1. Open the slide-over via **See full breakdown**.
2. Select **Flag for review** in the header.
3. Pick a reason:
   * **Text that should not be there**
   * **Something important was left out**
   * **Variants are handled wrong**
   * **Something else**
4. Add an optional note (up to 2,000 characters).
5. Select **Send**.

Once sent, the panel header shows the flag was submitted. Select **Undo** to withdraw the flag. Flags are unique per product and user. Sending a second flag replaces the first.

<Note>
  Flagging does not change how the product is indexed or ranked. It records the report against the product for review. Nothing in the panel or in search changes as a result.
</Note>

## Freshness and the sidebar counts

The freshness state and signal counts are derived from the recorded indexing state, not by re-running any selection. This means:

* Opening the panel is instant and doesn't cost model or API calls.
* If you edit a product in Shopify, the freshness pill reads **Needs a refresh** until the product is re-indexed. Trigger a re-index with [Manually resync a single product](/help/catalog/resync-single-product), or with **Push to Index** from the bulk actions in the catalog list.

## Tips

* If a value you expect to see is missing, check the **Signals** tab first. It will either be in the ignored list with a reason, or missing from the total. Which one it is tells you whether the value exists on the product at all.
* Field labels in the left pane are shown exactly as the index labels them, including underscores. That is on purpose. It is the label the embedding sees, not a prettified name.
* For a split-indexed product, use the entry selector in the left pane to compare what a shopper searching for one variant value sees versus another.

## Next steps

* [View product details](/help/catalog/view-product-details)
* [Manually resync a single product](/help/catalog/resync-single-product)
* [Resync your full catalog](/help/catalog/resync-catalog)