Issue 247 - LW 247 - Liquid's New Direction, PHP and Python Go GA, and Writing Product Data for LLMs
The Future of Liquid: Liquid for Humans Is Liquid for Agents
I'm Rossella, a front-end developer at Flagship, and this is the second installment of our Shopify DotDev 2026 report series. Vol. 1 covered the event as a whole and the highlights from Toronto. From here on, we take one theme at a time, starting with something Vol. 1 only touched on briefly: Shopify's change of direction for Liquid, its theme templating language.
By Rosella Ferrandino
Shopify developer tips
Tip for Agentic Commerce - replace the @Shopify Catalog product descriptions with a product metafield optimized for an LLM. This week on The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, Shopify's told us buyers now shop with long prompts like "hoodie for walking around SF on a windy summer day." The agent answering builds a comparison table. It can only compare facts you actually wrote down.
By Kurt Elster
Shopify shipped official PHP and Python app packages
Shopify released GA first-party packages for PHP (8.2+) and Python (3.8+) app development on August 26. Per-surface verification functions (app home, app proxy, webhooks, admin UI, checkout, customer accounts, POS, Flow actions), token exchange, and built-in retry handling. The old shopify-api-php and shopify_python_api libraries are deprecated but existing apps keep working.
By Bas Lefeber
Cart cross sells and free shipping bars don't need Shopify Plus
Both work on standard plans using Shopify's Product Recommendations API. Enterprise rep was pitching Plus for features that don't require it.
By growwithcro
Shopify + Stripe: now you can add Shopify in Stripe Projects
Harley Finkelstein announced that Shopify can now be added in Stripe Projects, extending a decade-long partnership. This makes Shopify available as a service within Stripe's ecosystem, a meaningful integration for developers building on both platforms.
By harleyf
Polaris CDN adopting semantic versioning
Polaris CDN releases now follow proper semver: major releases may break APIs, minor releases add features, patches are backward-compatible. Most apps will keep receiving compatible improvements automatically. Developers can choose when to adopt breaking changes. Existing apps do not need immediate action.
By Shopify
1Password passkey autofill broken on Shopify login
Taylor Page spotted that 1Password's 'Sign in with Passkey' autofill prompt is currently broken on Shopify's login page. The workaround: ignore the 1Password browser pop-up and manually click the login button on the Shopify page first, then let 1Password complete the passkey flow. Short-term pain worth knowing if you use 1Password for Shopify dev accounts.
By Taylor Page
Expiring offline access tokens: more resilient refreshes
Shopify changed how expiring offline access token refreshes work. Previously, after using a refresh token, you had 60 minutes to retry it. Now, the old refresh token stays valid until you start using its replacement. This gives apps a recovery path after a lost response or storage failure. The recovery window is 30 days from first use and does not extend beyond the normal 90-day lifetime. No config change or opt-in needed.
By Shopify
Analyze GA4 with AI Using MCP Server — Ecommerce CRO Tutorial
A practical tutorial on connecting Google Analytics 4 to an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server so AI tools can query GA4 data directly for conversion rate optimization. Uses Shopify store data as the example use case.
By Saad Saif
