PS Bot Cart Blocker

Version: 1.3.2
Author: FreePrestashopModules.com
Compatibility: PrestaShop 8.2.x (recommended up to 8.2.99)

🔍 Overview

PS Bot Cart Blocker protects your PrestaShop store from automated bots that create fake shopping carts, skew analytics, and consume server resources.

Unlike traditional CAPTCHA or page-level protection, this module focuses specifically on cart-level abuse, using a lightweight, score-based system to detect and challenge suspicious behavior — without disrupting real customers.

🚀 Key Features

🛒 Targeted Cart Protection

• Intercepts add-to-cart and cart mutation requests
• Blocks bots that hit cart endpoints directly
• Prevents junk carts from being created

🧠 Smart Score-Based Detection

Each request is evaluated using a configurable scoring system:

• No JavaScript execution
• No PrestaShop session cookie
• No same-site request context
• Headless / automation user agents

👉 Only requests that exceed your configured threshold are challenged

⚡ Lightweight & Fast

• No heavy front-end tracking
• Minimal JavaScript (simple proof cookie only)
• No impact on normal add-to-cart speed

👤 User-Friendly Experience

• Real customers are not interrupted
• Works with:
  • product page add-to-cart
  • category/list view add-to-cart
  • combination selectors
• First-time visitors (including direct and search traffic) work normally

☁️ Cloudflare Turnstile Integration

• Uses modern, frictionless verification
• No traditional CAPTCHA friction
• Seamless challenge flow

📊 Detailed Event Logging

Track all cart-related activity:

• Challenged requests
• Passed verifications
• Allowed requests
• Detection reasons and scores

📥 Log Export (CSV)

• Export logs for analysis
• Identify repeat offenders
• Support server-level blocking decisions

🧪 Flexible Testing Modes

• Off – production mode
• Force Challenge – test flow safely
• Force Challenge (Ignore Cookie) – advanced debugging

⚙️ Configuration

🔢 Challenge Score Threshold

• Controls how aggressive the protection is
• Default: 70 (recommended)
• Lower = stricter
• Higher = more lenient

🛡️ How It Works

1. A cart request is intercepted server-side
2. The request is evaluated using multiple signals
3. A score is calculated
4. If the score exceeds your threshold:
   • Cloudflare Turnstile challenge is triggered
5. If the challenge is passed:
   • request continues normally

💡 Why This Module Is Different

Most bot protection focuses on:

• login pages
• contact forms
• site-wide CAPTCHA

PS Bot Cart Blocker focuses on:
👉 cart abuse — where bots actually cause damage

🧾 Recommended Setup

• Set Challenge Score Threshold to 70

• Add cart endpoints to robots.txt:

  Disallow: /*controller=cart
  Disallow: /*add=1
  Disallow: /cart
• Monitor logs for patterns and optimize over time

🔄 Changelog

🆕 v1.3.2

• Fixed Challenge Score Threshold field not saving/displaying correctly in admin
• Improved configuration binding for consistent UI behavior

🆕 v1.3.1

• Initial fix attempt for threshold configuration field
• Improved handling of numeric configuration values

🚀 v1.3.0 (Major Update)

• Introduced score-based detection system
• Removed heavy front-office interaction marker logic
• Added lightweight JavaScript proof cookie
• Added configurable challenge score threshold
• Improved detection accuracy while reducing false positives
• Significantly improved add-to-cart performance
• Better support for:
  • list view add-to-cart
  • combination selectors
  • AJAX cart flows

⚙️ v1.2.x

• Added server-side cart enforcement
• Blocked direct cart endpoint abuse
• Introduced challenge + replay flow
• Improved compatibility with Classic theme

🧪 v1.1.x

• Added Cloudflare Turnstile integration
• Initial challenge flow implementation
• Basic bot detection signals

✅ Summary

PS Bot Cart Blocker gives you:

• Cleaner analytics
• Fewer junk carts
• Better server performance
• No disruption to real shoppers