Purpose
AI shopping agents read a product's structured data (the fields Shopify themes emit as schema.org/Product JSON-LD) to confirm price, availability, and identity. Missing barcodes (GTIN), SKUs, vendor, or product type leave the listing ambiguous — so the agent skips it or recommends a competitor whose data is complete. This skill finds products/variants with those gaps and backfills them: vendor and product type at the product level, barcode/SKU at the variant level. Fixes the agentiq.report findings product-schema-jsonld, gtin-sku-pdp, and variant-metadata.
Prerequisites
- Authenticated Shopify CLI session (
shopify auth login --store <domain>) - Required API scopes:
read_products,write_products
Parameters
All skills accept these universal parameters:
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| store | string | yes | — | Store domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com) |
| format | string | no | human | Output format: human (default) or json |
| dry_run | bool | no | false | Preview mutations without executing |
Skill-specific parameters:
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| collection_id | string | no | — | Limit to a collection GID (else whole catalog) |
| tag | string | no | — | Limit to a product tag |
| set_vendor | string | no | — | Vendor to apply where missing (else only reports) |
| set_product_type | string | no | — | Product type to apply where missing |
| barcodes_csv | string | no | — | Path to a CSV of sku,barcode to map GTINs onto matching variants |
| fields | string | no | all | Comma list of fields to backfill: vendor,product_type,barcode,sku |
Safety
⚠️ Step 3 (
productUpdate) and Step 4 (productVariantsBulkUpdate) write live product/variant data. Barcodes and SKUs are matched from yourbarcodes_csv; a wrong mapping mislabels a product's identity to every agent. Always rundry_run: truefirst and verify the change set CSV. This skill never overwrites a field that already has a value — it only fills blanks.
Workflow Steps
OPERATION:
products— query Inputs:first: 250, optionalquery: "tag:'<tag>'"or collection filter; fieldsvendor,productType,variants{ id sku barcode }; paginate untilhasNextPage: false. Expected output: Products/variants with missing target fields.COMPUTE (no API): build the change set — only blank fields, joined to
barcodes_csvby SKU for barcodes. Emit the preview CSV.OPERATION:
productUpdate— mutation Inputs: per product{ id, vendor?, productType? }(only where blank and a value is supplied). Expected output: Updated product; collectuserErrors.OPERATION:
productVariantsBulkUpdate— mutation Inputs: per productproductId+variants: [{ id, barcode?, inventoryItem: { sku? } }]for blank variant fields. Expected output: Updated variants; collectuserErrorsacross batches.
GraphQL Operations
# products:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
query BackfillProducts($first: Int!, $after: String, $query: String) {
products(first: $first, after: $after, query: $query) {
edges {
node {
id
title
vendor
productType
variants(first: 100) {
edges { node { id sku barcode } }
}
}
}
pageInfo { hasNextPage endCursor }
}
}
# productUpdate:mutation — validated against api_version 2025-01
mutation BackfillProductFields($input: ProductInput!) {
productUpdate(input: $input) {
product { id vendor productType }
userErrors { field message }
}
}
# productVariantsBulkUpdate:mutation — validated against api_version 2025-01
mutation BackfillVariantFields($productId: ID!, $variants: [ProductVariantsBulkInput!]!) {
productVariantsBulkUpdate(productId: $productId, variants: $variants) {
productVariants { id sku barcode }
userErrors { field message }
}
}
Session Tracking
Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.
On start, emit:
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ SKILL: <skill name> ║
║ Store: <store domain> ║
║ Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC> ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
After each step, emit:
[N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION> <OperationName>
→ Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
→ Result: <count or outcome>
If dry_run: true, prefix every mutation step with [DRY RUN] and do not execute it.
On completion, emit:
For format: human (default):
══════════════════════════════════════════════
OUTCOME SUMMARY
<Metric label>: <value>
Errors: 0
Output: <filename or "none">
══════════════════════════════════════════════
For format: json, emit:
{
"skill": "<skill-slug>",
"store": "<domain>",
"started_at": "<ISO8601>",
"completed_at": "<ISO8601>",
"dry_run": false,
"steps": [
{
"step": 1,
"operation": "<OperationName>",
"type": "query",
"params_summary": "<string>",
"result_summary": "<string>",
"skipped": false
}
],
"outcome": {
"metric_key": 0,
"errors": 0,
"output_file": null
}
}
Output Format
human: counts of products/variants updated per field + a CSV of every change (product, variant, field, old, new). json: { products_updated, variants_updated, by_field{...}, errors, output_file }.
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Recovery |
|---|---|---|
THROTTLED |
API rate limit | Wait 2s, retry up to 3 times |
userErrors non-empty |
Invalid barcode/SKU format or duplicate | Log message, skip that variant, continue |
| SKU not in CSV | No mapping supplied for that variant | Leave barcode blank, report it as still-missing |
Best Practices
- Run
shopify-admin-agentic-readiness-auditfirst to size the gap, thendry_run: truehere to review the exact change set. - Barcodes are GTIN/UPC/EAN — get them from your supplier, never invent them. A wrong GTIN is worse than a blank one.
- This skill only fills blanks; to correct existing-but-wrong values use
shopify-admin-bulk-price-adjustment-style targeted edits instead. - Pair with
shopify-admin-agentic-metafields-setup— barcodes power JSON-LD identity, metafields power agent filtering; you usually want both.