Magento API Cart Issue + 8 UX Fixes – Developer Required

We are looking for a Magento 2 backend developer who can fix one remaining API issue and resolve eight small UX issues on a Magento 2.4.3-p3 store.

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WHAT HAS BEEN DONE
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• Full checkout API flow (cart → shipping → payment → order) has already worked twice.
• Stripe 3.5.x modules removed, replaced with Webkul mpstripe (working).
• Two successful Payment Intent orders prove the checkout pipeline is stable.
• Postman still works for cart creation; cURL does not.
• The ONLY backend issue left:
→ Creating a fresh logged-in customer cart via API using cURL returns a customer object instead of a quote ID.
• Logs confirm: NOT a module issue, NOT a configuration issue, NOT a data issue.
• This is purely a REST request-format or context mismatch.

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WHAT THE DEVELOPER MUST DO (API)
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1. Make cURL match Postman EXACTLY
- Same headers
- Same body format (empty JSON handling)
- Same cookies + PHPSESSID
- Same store/website scope

2. Identify why Magento returns a customer object instead of a cart.
- Investigate request interpretation
- Fix context/scope/session mismatch

3. Restore consistent API flow:
- Create cart
- Add items
- Estimate shipping
- Set shipping-information
- Place order (already working)

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WHAT THE DEVELOPER MUST DO (UX ISSUES)
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There are **eight small UX issues** on the frontend that must be fixed. These include:
• Minor layout inconsistencies
• Button/CTA alignment issues
• Two styling fix requests
• One text/label correction
• One mobile display issue
• One form validation glitch
• One simple checkout-step UI adjustment

(Exact list will be provided - each is small and quick.)

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REQUIREMENTS
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• Strong Magento 2.4 backend/API experience
• Strong understanding of REST statefulness, QuoteRepository, and sessions
• Ability to debug requests, headers, cookies, Varnish/Nginx behaviour
• Ability to fix frontend UX issues (HTML/CSS/JS/Magento layout)
• Work efficiently and avoid unnecessary module disabling

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SUMMARY
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Backend is healthy. Stripe works. Checkout works.
We only need:
✔ Fix the API cart-creation context issue
✔ Fix eight small UX issues
✔ Deliver a stable, reproducible checkout API flow and a clean user experience.