Apps
Custom Shopify apps
Apps embedded in the Shopify admin with Node.js, Express and the CLI, for what no App Store app does: configurators, internal dashboards, catalog logic, or the container for your Shopify Functions.
The first thing I will ask
If what you need fits in a metafield, a metaobject or an App Store app, you do not need a custom app. Your own app is code somebody has to maintain, update when the API version changes, and host somewhere. It earns its place when there is no alternative, not by default.
What I usually build
- Product configurators with rules no generic app models: compatibility, measurements, mutually exclusive combinations.
- Internal dashboards embedded in the admin, so the team manages their own data where they already work instead of in a separate spreadsheet.
- Automations that read and write over the Admin API: recalculating, reclassifying, cleaning up.
- The container for a Function, when the Function needs configuration and somebody has to be able to change it without touching code.
How I build them
Embedded in the admin with App Bridge, so the app lives inside Shopify instead of being a separate tab with a separate session. Authentication by session token, the API over GraphQL, and the API version pinned — never “latest”: an unpinned API version is an app that one day stops working without anybody having touched it.
And one thing I always say: a custom app needs an update plan. Shopify ships API versions every quarter and retires the old ones. If nobody is going to look at that app for two years, the project is better off not depending on it.