Shopware 6.5 Category API schema change breaks nested category import for third-party adapter

Category import after upgrading to Shopware 6.5

A custom importer that synchronizes categories from an external PIM into Shopware was built against the pre-6.5 Category API, where each category response contained a nested children array. After the planned upgrade to Shopware 6.5, the API is documented to return a flattened tree structure instead, so the existing recursive parsing logic no longer has child objects to iterate over.

The importer also reads the categoryPosition field to preserve ordering, which the migration tooling flags as deprecated in favor of a separate sorting endpoint. It is unclear whether position data must be re-submitted through that endpoint after import or whether it can still be written inline during category creation.

Open questions

• What is the correct way to reconstruct parent-child relationships from the flattened tree response when child IDs must be mapped manually?
• Can category ordering still be set during the import write calls, or must the new sorting endpoint be called in a separate pass after all categories exist?
• Is a cache warm-up via bin/console cache:warmup strictly required after each import run to keep the storefront category tree consistent?

Assume Shopware 6.5.x with the default store API; verification would compare storefront category counts against the database after migration.