Product images are present and properly referenced

Products without images convert at dramatically lower rates — multiple e-commerce studies place the drop at 30–60% versus imaged listings. Beyond conversion, storing images as local filesystem paths (e.g., /Users/dev/photos/) means images resolve on the developer's machine and return 404s in every other environment: staging, production, and CI. ISO 25010:2011 functional-correctness requires the system to behave correctly across environments, not just locally. A schema that only supports a single image string also locks out gallery experiences and prevents future migration to multi-image CDN storage without a schema change.

Store images as an array of full CDN or absolute URLs in prisma/schema.prisma, and validate at least one URL is present on product creation in src/app/api/products/route.ts.

model Product {
  id     String   @id @default(cuid())
  images String[]
}

if (!images || images.length === 0) {
  return Response.json({ error: 'At least one product image is required' }, { status: 400 })
}

On ingest, reject any URL that matches a local path pattern (/Users/, /home/, C:\) — these will break in every deployed environment.

• ID: ecommerce-catalog.product-data.image-presence

• Severity: high

• What to look for: Count all products in seed data, fixture files, and sample responses. For each product, check whether at least 1 image URL is stored. Enumerate the image storage format used: absolute URLs, relative paths, S3/CDN references, or local filesystem paths. Count the total number of products with 0 images versus at least 1 image.

• Pass criteria: At least 90% of products have at least 1 image URL in the database or seed data, and the schema supports storing multiple images per product (array field or relation table). Report: "X of Y products have at least 1 image. Storage format: [format detected]."

• Fail criteria: More than 10% of products lack image references, or images are stored as local filesystem paths (e.g., /Users/dev/photos/) without CDN normalization, or the schema only supports a single image string (not an array or relation).

• Skip (N/A) when: The project is API-only with no visual product display, or the project is a wholesale/B2B platform where images are explicitly not part of the data model.

• Cross-reference: For image performance optimization, the Performance Core audit covers lazy loading, responsive images, and CDN configuration.

• Cross-reference: For image accessibility, the Accessibility Fundamentals audit covers alt text and image description patterns.

• Cross-reference: For image URL security, the Security Headers audit covers mixed content and CSP image-src policies.

• Detail on fail: "4 of 10 products have no image URLs in prisma/seed.ts" or "Images stored as local filesystem paths (e.g., '/Users/dev/photos/shirt.jpg') in src/data/products.ts instead of CDN URLs"

• Remediation: Store product images as full URLs or CDN paths in prisma/schema.prisma:

  model Product {
    id String @id @default(cuid())
    images String[]
  }
  

  When creating or updating products in src/app/api/products/route.ts, ensure at least one image URL is provided and validate that it's a valid URL:

  if (!images || images.length === 0) {
    throw new Error('At least one product image is required')
  }