Shopify Yourskill
One or two sentences: what this skill covers and the core principle. Cross- reference sibling skills by name when a task belongs to one of them, rather than repeating their content.
Guidelines for a good ecom skill
Delete this section in your real skill; it's guidance for authoring.
- Name:
shopify-<area>(orecom-<area>for platform-neutral skills), lowercase and hyphens only. The directory name MUST equal the frontmattername. - Description: starts with "Use when…", lists concrete triggers and keywords, ends with a "not for X, use Y" pointer. No workflow summary: an agent follows the description to decide whether to load the body.
- Original prose only. Do not paste from shopify.dev, the Matrixify docs, or any other source; write the lesson in your own words and link the canonical doc. Ship the institutional knowledge agency work teaches that the docs don't.
- Body 100–200 lines; heavy detail in
references/*.md. Noscripts/directory: this collection is markdown-only (see recipes doctrine below). - Every SKILL.md ends with a Provenance and maintenance section.
Store access
Every skill that touches the Admin API opens with this stanza (paste it, adjust the scopes line to this skill's minimum). Two lanes; pick one.
Lane A: custom-app token (scriptable). In Shopify admin: Settings → Apps and sales channels → Develop apps → create an app → grant the minimum scopes this skill needs, then install and copy the Admin API access token. Export it; never write it to a committed file:
export SHOPIFY_STORE="your-store.myshopify.com"
export SHOPIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN="<your Admin API access token>" # keep it in the env, not on disk
Call the GraphQL endpoint (this skill's minimum scopes: read_products,
write_products; edit per skill):
curl -s "https://$SHOPIFY_STORE/admin/api/2025-07/graphql.json" \
-H "X-Shopify-Access-Token: $SHOPIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"{ shop { name } }"}'
Lane B: Shopify CLI OAuth (no stored token). shopify store auth --store $SHOPIFY_STORE --scopes read_products,write_products then shopify store execute to run a validated operation. Good for token-less stores where the
owner logs in interactively.
Toolkit preflight. Lane B rides on the Shopify CLI: run shopify version
first and install it if missing. For the full Admin GraphQL schema and
per-object reference, pair your skill with Shopify's official AI toolkit
plugin. In Claude Code, check claude plugin list; if it isn't there:
claude plugin marketplace add Shopify/Shopify-AI-Toolkit
claude plugin install shopify-plugin@shopify-ai-toolkit
Recommended, not required: Lane A needs only curl and a token. The toolkit gives your agent the API; your skill gives it the playbook.
Recipes, not scripts
This collection ships recipes, not programs. The GraphQL/curl blocks here are copy-and-adapt starting points: your agent writes throwaway code per engagement against the current schema, runs it, and discards it. That keeps the skill honest across Shopify's schema changes and avoids shipping a binary that silently rots. Two rules make recipes safe:
- Preview before you mutate. Every mutation recipe is preceded by a read-only count/preview query. Run the count, sanity-check the number against what you expect, and only then mutate. A count far above expectation means stop and re-scope, not proceed.
- Safe-mode defaults, stated in prose. Fill missing only, never overwrite; MERGE not REPLACE; hide/archive before delete. State the destructive path exists and how to opt into it deliberately, never make it the default.
Non-destructive doctrine
- Read before you write. A read-only query is always cheap; an unscoped mutation is not reversible.
- Back up first where a bulk export is the backup (Matrixify export, or a
bulkOperationRunQuerydump) before a large write. - Verify against ground truth via the Admin API, not the storefront. The
storefront is CDN-cached and lies about freshness; read the object back
through
admin/api/.../graphql.jsonto confirm a write landed. - Never print or commit an Admin API access token. Read it from the env.
[Your sections]
Quick-reference tables, the specific traps agency work taught, worked examples with real numbers but anonymized brands. One excellent example beats five generic ones.
References
- references/topic.md: heavy detail loaded on demand.
Provenance and maintenance
Last verified: 2026-07-05. GraphQL pinned to Admin API 2025-07; Shopify deprecates versions on a rolling quarterly schedule, so verify against shopify.dev before trusting a version-specific claim. Read-only re-verification a stranger can run:
# confirm your token reaches the store and the API version resolves
curl -s "https://$SHOPIFY_STORE/admin/api/2025-07/graphql.json" \
-H "X-Shopify-Access-Token: $SHOPIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"{ shop { name currencyCode } }"}'
Canonical docs: Admin GraphQL. These skills capture operational lessons the docs don't; they are not a replacement for the reference.