nolimit-discounts/docs/README.md

# Nolimit Discounts

Version 1.7.0 · a WooCommerce plugin · slug `woocommerce-email-discount-manager`

Gives a customer a discount, and decides which shipping methods they may
choose, based on the email address they check out with.

## What it does

A shop puts in email patterns and says what each one is worth. At checkout the
plugin looks at the customer's email, finds the most specific pattern that
matches, and applies it.

Three kinds of assignment, one per email pattern:

| type | effect |
| --- | --- |
| **Group** | the customer gets a discount group's percent, on the product categories attached to that group |
| **Coupon** | an existing WooCommerce coupon is applied automatically |
| **Custom** | a flat percent off the whole cart |

Patterns can be a full address (`john@example.com`), a domain
(`@company.com` — everyone there), or a fragment (`john` — any address
containing it). When more than one matches, the most specific wins: exact
address, then domain, then fragment.

## Shipping

A discount group can be given shipping rules, which is the half worth reading
twice because it decides what a stranger sees.

A method a group is set to **only** is *reserved* for that group. Customers
who match no group do not see it. Before 1.6.0 a method set up for approved
company addresses stayed on the checkout for everybody, so free delivery meant
for one customer could be chosen by anyone who found it — the bug that release
fixed. **Show** is the weaker rule and reserves nothing: it offers the method
to the group and leaves everyone else alone. 1.6.0 made show do both, which
took ordinary methods away from strangers whenever they were listed beside a
free one; the next release split them and turned every old show rule into only.

The plugin never leaves a customer with no shipping method at all. If applying
the rules would empty the list, every method comes back.

## What it is not

Facts that take a while to establish by reading the source, so they are written
down here:

- **Not a coupon engine.** The Coupon assignment type applies a coupon
  WooCommerce already has. This plugin does not create, price or validate one.
- **No public REST surface.** There is a REST API, and every route requires
  `manage_woocommerce`. Nothing is readable by an anonymous visitor.
- **No telemetry.** Nothing is sent anywhere. The only outbound request is the
  update check against the release feed, and it asks for a version number.
- **No block editor or shortcode.** The customer-facing side is the cart and
  checkout calculation and nothing else.
- **Data survives uninstall.** There is no `uninstall.php` and no uninstall
  hook, so deleting the plugin leaves its five tables and its options in the
  database. That is deliberate — deleting a plugin by accident should not
  destroy a shop's discount configuration — but it means a clean removal is a
  manual job. See ARCHITECTURE.md.

## Where the rest is

| document | what is in it |
| --- | --- |
| [SETUP.md](SETUP.md) | installing it, and how to tell it is actually working |
| [ARCHITECTURE.md](ARCHITECTURE.md) | files, boot order, where data lives, what activation does |
| [CONTRACT.md](CONTRACT.md) | every hook this plugin offers and every one it answers |
| [RELEASE.md](RELEASE.md) | how a release is cut, and what is checked before it is called done |

Requires WordPress 5.8+, WooCommerce 6.0+, PHP 7.4+. Tested against WordPress
7.1.2 and WooCommerce 11.1.2 on PHP 7.4, 8.3 and 8.4.