Blog — Shopify engineering notes

Blog

Writing on Shopify engineering, ecommerce and what we build.

Latest

Update

Shopify Scripts and script tags have different deprecation deadlines

Shopify Scripts stopped executing on 30 June 2026. Script tags are a separate retirement that runs until March 2027, and the two are constantly mistaken for each other.

August 26, 2026

Read

UpdateLiquid gets block and partial tags in developer previewTwo new tags let a template render a theme block directly and refresh a named server-rendered region without a full page load. Themes get a composition model.August 12, 2026
GuideWhat actually drives the cost of a Shopify appNo price range, because anyone quoting one without seeing your store is guessing. The seven variables that move the number, and how to get a quote you can compare.August 9, 2026
GuideSeven signs your store has outgrown installed appsNone of them is 'the app is missing a feature'. They are operational symptoms — a spreadsheet nobody will delete, a rule only one person knows, a subscription stack that grew past what it replaced.August 8, 2026
UpdateHydrogen is being rebuilt as a framework-agnostic commerce SDKThe developer preview moves the commerce logic out of React Router into a framework-agnostic core, and ships Vue bindings. Headless Shopify just changed shape.August 7, 2026
GuidePublic, custom and private Shopify apps: only two of these existThe three-way comparison is everywhere and one of the three was removed in 2022. What each name means now, and how to choose between the two that are left.August 7, 2026
GuideWhat a Shopify custom app actually isNot a smaller public app, and no longer the thing called a private app. What custom distribution gives you, what it costs you, and the two limits people find out about late.August 6, 2026
From the workBuilding a Cart Transform that gets quantities rightA fee that is right at quantity one and wrong at quantity eleven is the signature bug of this work. Here is the order of operations that avoids it.August 5, 2026
GuideShopify checkout extensibility, after the deadlinesThe migration is over and the customizations that did not move were removed. What replaced checkout.liquid, what each extension point can do, and how to find what you lost.August 5, 2026
From the workMoving a Node.js ecommerce API off Heroku without rewriting itThe application code does not change. What changes is the deployment model: a buildpack and a dyno become a Dockerfile, an image and a revision.July 22, 2026
GuideCRO on Shopify without guessingDeciding the metric, the sample size and the stopping rule before you start is what separates a result from a story assembled after the numbers came in.July 15, 2026
UpdateShopify is moving checkout validation off the clientJanuary made blocking opt-in. July deprecated the API that did the blocking. Read together they are one decision, and the reason is express wallets.July 10, 2026