Policy Inheritance API for Multi-Merchant Platforms

A policy-inheritance API for multi-merchant platforms that need organization, location, device, and merchant settings to resolve through one public rules model.

Teams searching policy-inheritance APIs usually need more than shared defaults. They need one model for how organization, merchant, location, and device settings override each other without rebuilding inheritance logic in app code.

Flint already exposes effective settings plus scope-bound policy rules for merchant, organization, location, and device descendants on the public API.

Inheritance is explicit instead of implied, which makes platform rollout and override debugging much easier once many merchants share one software surface.

Teams can separate raw merchant settings from higher-level policy rules rather than pretending copied settings records are the same thing as inheritance.

Open the Technical Surface

Quickstart

Start with the first request.

API Reference

Open the REST surface.

Orders First

See the core model.

Benchmark

Compare developer workflows.

Use This Platform Shape When

Platform 1

Your platform owns many merchants, locations, or devices and needs one inheritance model instead of copied settings records.

Platform 2

Checkout controls and payment-method rules should resolve through organization, merchant, location, and device scopes predictably.

Platform 3

Operators need to understand which policy won, not reverse-engineer overrides from duplicated config.

Scenario 1

Platform-wide checkout defaults

Push top-level payment-method or checkout policy from an organization scope while still allowing scoped overrides lower in the hierarchy.

Scenario 2

Location and device exceptions

Resolve narrower point-of-sale or device behavior without forking a separate settings model for every physical environment.

Scenario 3

Multi-merchant rollout

Launch new merchant accounts into an existing inherited policy tree instead of re-entering the same configuration manually each time.

Scenario 4

Override debugging

Read the effective settings path when operators need to understand why a location or device behaves differently from the platform default.

Choose Something Narrower When

Use organization-scoped settings alone when shared defaults are enough and deeper inheritance rules are not the current bottleneck.

Use merchant onboarding when the real problem is activating new tenants rather than governing live settings across them.

Use direct merchant config when each merchant is intentionally isolated and shared override logic adds more complexity than value.

Implementation References

Reference the platform-level surfaces

Settings API

Read effective settings and manage policy rules across merchant, organization, location, and device scopes.

Merchants API

Review merchant-to-organization linkage and how organization membership appears on the public tenant model.

Devices API

Use device-level metadata and scope when inherited policy needs to resolve at the edge of the platform.

Explore inherited settings, org defaults, and merchant rollout

These pages connect policy inheritance to organization-scoped controls, auth boundaries, and how new merchants join the platform.

Organization-Scoped Settings API

Start here when the main question is shared defaults at the organization layer rather than the full inheritance chain.

Merchant Onboarding API with KYB

Useful when new merchants should launch into an existing inherited policy model instead of being configured from scratch.

Scoped API Keys for Payment Platforms

A good adjacent page when inherited configuration and merchant-bound auth boundaries need to be designed together.

Next Step

Wire the platform boundary first

Define auth, merchant scope, and install flow first, then let the narrower payment and checkout pages sit underneath it.