Licence a GS1 prefix and create your first item

Step one: record the prefix

The screen is GS1 catalogue → Company prefixes, titled GS1 Company Prefix licences. It states its own reason at the top: "A Digital Link asserts that the identifier inside it was licensed to you by GS1. Until the prefix is recorded here, an item cannot claim the shared host and cannot be printed."

1. Open the screen and press Add prefix. An empty workspace shows "No company prefix yet" with the same button in the middle of the page. A dialog opens titled Add a company prefix.
2. Type the Company prefix. The hint states the shape: "4–12 digits, as licensed by your GS1 Member Organisation". Enter it exactly as your Member Organisation licensed it · not your GTIN, and not the prefix with a product number already on the end.
3. Fill Licensee if the licence is held under a different company name. It is optional, and it is what the table shows later instead of "Not recorded". Worth filling in for anyone auditing this after you.
4. Read the attestation, then tick it. It reads: "I confirm this workspace holds this GS1 Company Prefix under licence. Publishing identifiers we are not licensed to use may lead to suspension." Your declaration is stored with the licence, along with the user, the IP address and the timestamp behind it. It is the evidence in a dispute, so read it rather than clicking past it.
5. Press Add prefix. The prefix appears in the table with its status, the licensee, and the GS1 Member Organisation the prefix range belongs to. A toast confirms "Company prefix added".

One attestation covers every identifier under the prefix. You do not repeat it per product, and you will not see it again unless you license a second prefix.

Attested, and what that word is doing

The status column shows one of two things, and the difference is worth understanding before you rely on it.

• Attested · the usual case. The licence rests on your declaration, stored with the identity and timestamp behind it. The page says so plainly rather than implying more than it has: "No GS1 registry is configured, so prefixes are recorded on your attestation. That attestation is stored with the licence."
• Verified · where a GS1 registry connection is configured, the prefix is checked against the registry on entry and the status says so instead.
• Neither is a certification, and we do not offer one. There is no GS1 certification for a resolver to hold · conformance is self-declared against the published standard plus GS1's public test suite. What we conform to, and what we do not, is written out in full rather than summarised as a badge.

Two rejections surprise people. Restricted ranges are refused outright · store-internal prefixes, coupon and refund ranges and Bookland ISBNs identify nothing outside one retailer, and are the most common self-serve mistake. And prefixes are checked for overlap rather than for equality, so a shorter prefix that would swallow another workspace's key space is refused with a conflict, not accepted alongside it.

Step two: create the first item

Now the catalogue. GS1 catalogue is the list of your identifiers · "Every GS1 key, resolved to the standard." An empty one reads "Register an identifier to start issuing GS1-compliant codes."

1. Press New item. A dialog opens with six fields, the first two of which decide everything else.
2. Choose the Key type. The list is every GS1 primary key, named in full · GTIN · Global Trade Item Number for a product, and GTIN is the default. Others include SSCC for a logistics unit and GLN for a physical location. The key table on the GS1 handbook page says which qualifiers each one takes.
3. Type the key itself. The field is labelled with the key you picked, and its hint is the important part: "AI 01 · the full number including its check digit, verified as you type". The check digit is validated live · a green "Valid identifier" line, or the Member Organisation the prefix belongs to, appears under the field as you type. A wrong check digit is the one error nobody can see by eye, and finding it after the labels are printed is the expensive way to learn it.
4. Give it an Item name. This is the name you will recognise in the catalogue and on the item's own page.
5. Set the Destination URL. The hint says what it is for: "Where a plain scan goes. More link types (DPP, recall, manuals…) can be added after creating." One destination now is enough · the linkset is where the rest goes, and editing it is free forever.
6. Add Brand and SKU if you have them. Both are optional and both are master data, so they travel with the item rather than with any one link.
7. Check the price line, then press Create. The dialog states the charge before you commit to it, and says whether this one is the free first item. You land on the item's own page, on the Master data tab, with Link types and Carrier beside it.

Creating the item also writes its first linkset entry for you · the unqualified default that a plain scan follows · so the identifier resolves the moment it exists.

What to do next

• Build the linkset. On the Link types tab, add a typed destination per link type and per qualifier scope. Or take "Give this item a product page" and pick one of the GS1 templates · the page and every linkset entry that reaches it are written for you, and the resolver renders it in process, so a scan stays on your own domain and the batch and serial on the scanned code are still readable. Applying a template replaces the entries below it, and it asks first.
• Print the carrier. The Carrier tab gives you Download SVG and a Placement spec sheet. Choose the host it resolves against before you download · the hint is blunt about why: "The host encoded into the code. A print run pointing at the wrong host cannot be recalled." Digital Links resolve on https://tap01.link, which is not the short-link host, and your own domain is the production path.
• Hand the SVG to the press at 100%. "Print at 100%. Scaling, cropping or resampling the symbol changes its X-dimension and it stops scanning at a till." The spec sheet carries the millimetre size to check against.
• Serialise only if units matter. Per-unit codes are a separate step and a separate charge, and most catalogues never need them. How serials work covers the trade.

If you already created items first

This is the common way round to get it wrong, because nothing physically stops you: the item creates, it is charged, and it resolves on a domain you own. What it cannot do is claim the shared host or print a carrier. The catalogue flags it with a No licence badge, and the licences screen counts them: "They still resolve on your own domain, but cannot claim the shared host or be printed until the prefix they sit under is added here."

• The fix is to add the prefix now. Every active item under it retries its shared-host claim the moment the licence lands, with no re-create and no second charge. The toast tells you how many were claimed.
• Items another workspace already claimed stay theirs. The shared host is first come, first served among licensed workspaces, so a long gap between creating and licensing is the one part of this that is not fully recoverable.
• Drafts claim nothing, and are still charged. Keeping an item a draft until it is real is the right habit · a draft resolves nowhere and locks nobody out of an identifier · but the charge lands at creation either way, so a draft spends the free first item too.
• Removing a prefix later is not a recall. Items under it keep resolving on your own domain; what stops is new shared-host claims and new print runs.

Questions

Do I need a GS1 Company Prefix to use GS1 Digital Link?

Yes. A Digital Link asserts that GS1 licensed the identifier inside it to whoever published it, so taproute checks the key against the prefixes your workspace has registered before it will print a carrier or issue serials. A prefix is licensed from your national GS1 Member Organisation, which takes days to weeks. We do not issue them.

Can taproute give me a GS1 prefix?

No. Only a GS1 Member Organisation licenses a Company Prefix. What taproute does is record the one you licensed, check every identifier you publish against it, and keep the attestation you signed when you recorded it.

What happens if I create an item before registering the prefix?

The item is created and charged, and it resolves on your own domain, but it cannot claim the shared host and its carrier will not print. Registering the prefix afterwards fixes it: every active item under that prefix retries its claim the moment the licence is added, with no re-create and no second charge.

What does "Attested" mean next to my prefix?

It means the licence is recorded on your declaration, stored with the user, IP address and timestamp behind it. Where a GS1 registry connection is configured the prefix is checked against the registry instead and reads "Verified". The status is shown honestly next to the prefix either way, and it is never presented as a certification, because none exists.

Why was my prefix rejected?

Three common reasons. It is not 4 to 12 digits. It is a restricted range such as a store-internal 02x or 2xx prefix, a coupon range or a Bookland ISBN, none of which identify anything outside one retailer. Or it overlaps a prefix another workspace already holds, which is checked as overlap rather than as an exact match so that nobody can license away the key space inside someone else’s prefix.

Can I register a prefix through the API or an AI agent?

No. Adding a licence is a legal declaration and is deliberately dashboard-only. An API key resolves to a workspace but carries no person, and an attestation with nobody behind it is not evidence of anything.