Repository items are Dynamic Beans that implement the RepositoryItem interface. Because they are registered as Dynamic Beans, RepositoryItems do not need to define setX and getX methods for each property. The properties of RepositoryItems are defined at application startup when the XML file that defines the repository template is parsed.

Each repository item has a unique repository ID. The Oracle ATG Web Commerce IdGenerator generates unique repository IDs and should be used instead of sequences generated directly by the database system. See the Core Dynamo Services chapter of the ATG Platform Programming Guide.

A repository organizes repository items into types that have the same set of properties. Each item type is defined by an item descriptor.