Apps and integrations
Covers app responsibilities, extension surfaces, distribution, authentication, environments, billing, and review delivery; theme internals belong to the storefront topic, and tracking experiments to data and automation.
State who uses the app, where it runs, what data it reads and writes, and what the platform already does, before choosing an implementation. Once development starts, keep app identity, environments, the installation lifecycle, and billing boundaries distinct, and treat any setup step you have not run in a real environment as unverified.
Where to start
Articles in this topic
Native Settings, Apps, or Custom Development: Locate the Extension First
Locate a Shopify extension requirement in the storefront, checkout, customer accounts, or admin before deciding between native configuration, installing an app, and custom development, and know what each one has to be verified against.
Three Kinds of Shopify App: Public, Custom, and the Retired Admin-Created App
Compares the two distribution methods Shopify still lets you create — public and custom — against the retired admin-created custom app, covering who creates each one, install scope, authentication, billing, and the configuration consequences of a distribution method you can never change.
Separating Development, Staging, and Production for a Shopify App
An environment matrix for a Shopify App from local development through integration testing to release, covering how organizations, apps, dev stores, config files, backend resources, secrets, and release permissions should be separated.
Shopify OAuth Callbacks: URLs, Parameters, and Validation Order
Separates a Shopify App's application_url, redirect_urls, and the redirect_uri in an authorization request, then covers callback parameters, state, HMAC verification, fixed query parameters, and routing callbacks for more than one app.
Two Shopify Apps on One Backend: Separate the Identity, Not the Business Logic
How public, custom, or per-environment Shopify Apps can share one business service while keeping credentials, authorization, sessions, webhooks, billing, and deletion events separate, so installations and tokens for the same store never overwrite each other.
Usage Billing for a Shopify App: Define the Unit Before You Wire the Charge
Starting from a sync-style Shopify App, how to define a billable unit merchants can understand, separate previews and skips from real writes, and use an internal ledger, idempotent reporting, cycle quotas, and up-front quotes to avoid double or surprise charges.
Shopify App Review: Let the Reviewer Get In, Understand It, and Finish the Test
Submission preparation organized around what a Shopify reviewer actually does — installation, authentication, test accounts, demo data, screenshots and video, compliance webhooks, and a reviewer entry point that recovers better than an automatic cross-domain redirect.