Shopify

Agents can search a Shopify store's products and policies and work with shopping carts, the same way a shopper's assistant would.

Warning: This is Shopify's shopper-facing surface, not Admin API access. It does not reach merchant orders, customers, inventory management, or anything in Shopify Admin — not even for the merchant's own store. If you need admin data, this connector is not the route.

There is no sign-in. These are public endpoints, so what an agent can see is what any visitor to the storefront could see.

Before you connect

  • The store's permanent your-store.myshopify.com domain. A custom domain is not the endpoint, even if that is the address customers use.
  • A public storefront. Shopify keeps trial storefronts private until a plan is selected, and a password-protected storefront returns an authorization error to everyone — Paperclip cannot use a merchant's Admin session to get past it.

To make a storefront public: select a Shopify plan, then in Shopify Admin open Online Store → Preferences and set storefront visibility to public, removing password protection.

Pick a server

Shopify offers two, and Paperclip exposes both:

Option Use it for
Shopify UCP commerce The recommended choice. Shopify's current catalog, cart, and checkout tools
Storefront policies and compatibility tools Shopify's compatibility server, when agents mainly need storefront policy and FAQ search

Note: On the UCP option, Paperclip supplies the agent profile Shopify requires automatically. It currently sends Shopify's documented hosted profile fixture while Paperclip's own production profile is being established.

Connect Shopify

  1. Confirm the storefront is public.
  2. Open Connectors and select Shopify.
  3. Read the access line above the main button. It says who the connection signs in as and which agents can use it. To pick a different identity, narrow the agents, or use another sign-in method, select Change.
  4. Check the server option, and select Change to pick a different one.
  5. Enter the Store domain as the bare permanent host — your-store.myshopify.com, with no https:// and no trailing path. Paperclip validates the format and rejects anything that is not a myshopify.com host.
  6. Finish setup.

Choose access

Because the endpoint is public, the connection grants no privileged reach: the boundary is the storefront itself. Connecting does not expose anything a shopper could not already find.

What does need attention is the write side. Cart and checkout operations are real actions against the store:

Warning: cancel-cart, cancel-checkout, and complete-checkout are classified destructive. Completing a checkout is a purchase. Leave these Off unless an agent genuinely needs them, and use Ask first at minimum.

Product and policy lookups are reads and are safe to leave Allowed. See Set action permissions.

One connection covers one store. Connect Shopify again for a second store.

Try it

Look up a product you can confirm on the storefront yourself:

Search the store for a product called "canvas tote" and tell me its price and whether it is in stock. Do not add anything to a cart.

Expect details matching the public product page. Keep the first check to a product or policy lookup — anything cart-related starts a real commerce flow.

Note: Illustrative task, not a recorded test result. Substitute a product from the store.

Troubleshooting and limitations

Problem Likely cause Fix
Setup fails with an authorization error The storefront is not publicly reachable — it is password-protected, or the store is not on a plan that serves a public storefront Confirm the storefront loads for a signed-out visitor. Making it public is a real commercial decision about your store, not a setup step to take lightly; if it should stay private, this connector is not usable for it
The store domain is rejected A custom domain or a full URL was entered Use the bare your-store.myshopify.com host
An agent cannot see orders or customers Expected — this is not Admin API access Nothing to fix here; this connector does not cover admin data
Products are missing from results They are unpublished, or not available to the storefront's sales channel Publish them in Shopify Admin
Policy search returns nothing Policies are not filled in on the store Add them in Shopify Admin
A checkout action unexpectedly completed Checkout tools are real commerce actions Set them to Off or Ask first

Limitations: one store per connection, public storefront only, no Admin API. Shopify's own rate limits apply.