Shopify Api

Shopify's Admin API is the industry-standard interface for programmatic ecommerce operations. REST and GraphQL parity gives agents flexibility: REST for simple CRUD (list products, create orders, update inventory), GraphQL for complex queries and bulk operations. Primary agent use cases: product catalog sync, order fulfillment automation, customer segmentation, inventory management, discount creation, and real-time event processing via webhooks. The API surface is vast (100+ resources) and well-documented. Rate limiting requires careful handling (REST: leaky bucket; GraphQL: cost-based throttling). Confidence is docs-derived.

Two API surfaces: REST (admin.shopify.com/api/{version}/...) and GraphQL. REST resources: Product, ProductVariant, Order, Customer, Inventory, Discount, Fulfillment, Webhook, Metafield, 90+ more. GET /products.json lists products (paginated via page_info cursor). POST /orders.json creates an order. GraphQL: Mutations for all write operations; queries for complex reads. Bulk operations API for large dataset exports. REST versioned quarterly. Response: JSON. Pagination via Link header (REST) or cursor (GraphQL).

Two auth paths: (1) Custom apps: Admin API Access Token in X-Shopify-Access-Token header. (2) OAuth2 for public Shopify apps: authorization code flow; access token scopes granular. HTTPS enforced. Webhook payloads signed with HMAC-SHA256. Token rotation: OAuth tokens long-lived. Session tokens for embedded apps use Shopify App Bridge.

REST: 429 Too Many Requests with Retry-After header (leaky bucket: 40 calls/app/store, refills at 2/sec). GraphQL: throttled by query cost; X-Shopify-Shop-Api-Call-Limit header. Bulk operations: async polling. Webhook delivery: Shopify retries for 48 hours. API versioning with quarterly sunset schedule. Shopify uptime at shopifystatus.com.

shopify.dev is best-in-class API documentation — REST reference, GraphQL explorer, code examples in multiple languages, migration guides. Official SDKs: shopify-node, shopify-ruby, shopify-python, shopify-php. Shopify CLI. Free development stores. Shopify Community forums.