Liquid Weekly Podcast: Shopify Developers Talking Shopify Development

Episode 071 – Taylor Built a Full Shopify Brand with AI in One Afternoon

Karl and Taylor compare how Claude, Codex, and Cursor behave differently when building Shopify discount and checkout UI extensions, and dig into why testing against a real dev store is still such a pain point.

Taylor also walks through spinning up a complete fictitious coffee shop brand, theme, and metaobject data model with Claude Design and Claude Code for his recent DEV conference talk on metaobjects, and shares how a Shopify theme store change quietly broke his Shop Info app.

Plus: a major new identity verification requirement for Shopify Partners requesting collaborator access, updates to app pricing limits and review policy, and this week's picks.

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Sponsor

Shopify Partner Program / Shopify Supply Dev Mode collection – Shopify's apparel and gear line built for developers. Check it out at shopify.supply and get 15% off your first order with code LIQUID.

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Timestamps

00:00 – Cold open: Shopify dev store UX rant
00:25 – Intro & welcome back
04:55 – Client work: rebuilding a Shopify Script as a Function overnight
06:04 – AI subscriptions: Claude, Codex, and Cursor compared
07:06 – Why Claude and Codex architect extensions so differently
13:21 – The case for ephemeral, on-demand dev stores
19:49 – Sponsor: Shopify Partner Program / Supply Dev Mode collection
21:01 – How the Shopify Dev MCP has improved over the past year
24:53 – Using Claude Design for client mockups and brand guides
27:07 – Does AI ever really "one-shot" a build?
29:08 – Building a fictitious coffee shop brand for a DEV conference talk
42:59 – Shopify breaks Shop Info's theme store tracking
48:26 – Taylor's whirlwind two-week conference plan
51:45 – Dev Changelog roundup
59:12 – Picks of the Week
1:04:46 – Wrap-up

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Dev Changelog

⚠️ Identity verification requirement for Shopify Partners - https://shopify.dev/changelog/identity-verification-for-partners – New identity verification (potentially photo ID or business details) is being required for partners requesting Collaborator access to stores. Action required, especially for agencies and support teams handling collab requests.
App pricing updates - https://shopify.dev/changelog/app-pricing-more-plans-no-charge-plan-testing-and-negative-and-fractional-app-events – Public app plans increased from 4 to 8, private plans increased from 10 to 15 per app, plus new app billing events now supported via the API.
App Store review policy update - https://shopify.dev/changelog/updated-app-store-requirements-13-always-use-honest-and-transparent-review-practices – Shopify is targeting incentivized and fraudulent review practices, with penalties including review removal, delisting, or partner account suspension. Also introducing logic to better detect fake/untrusted reviews.
Shop Mini updates for June - https://shopify.dev/changelog/shop-minis-may-june-2026-update – Multiple updates worth checking out for anyone building Shop Minis.

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Picks of the Week

Karl: His parents' basement – A nostalgia-fueled pick after finding childhood relics (cassette tapes, old CDs, toys, and even his original birth certificate) still sitting in storage.
Taylor: Frankenmuth, Michigan - https://www.bronners.com – A small Bavarian-themed town home to Bronner's, a massive year-round Christmas store, and now an annual "Christmas in July" family tradition.

Trudy MacNabb joins Karl and Taylor for a full DotDev week preview and a Toronto survival guide. If you're heading to Shopify's DotDev in July, this is your map: what's actually happening across the week, how to get around the city, where to eat, and which partner events are worth your time, including Brightwork, the Thursday event Taylor and SWYM are throwing to fill the gap left by Tectonic. And if you can't make it this year, Karl, Taylor, and Trudy walk through it so you can follow along from home.

SponsorThe Support Heroes: https://www.thesupportheroes.com/

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Find Trudy MacNabb Online
Design Packs: https://design-packs.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trudy-macnabb-7b19104a/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/dear_trudence

Timestamps
(00:00) Cold open
(00:38) Intros and welcoming Trudy MacNabb
(02:15) Trudy's background and the Co-Shopify blog
(07:39) What to expect from DotDev week
(08:47) DotDev overview: two days, plus Shopify Summit the same week
(13:20) Tracking every event: SDA Toronto.dev and Pimsical
(15:19) Trudy's Toronto guide: food, coffee, and the map planner
(16:59) Getting around: biking, Bike Share Toronto, and e-bikes
(22:23) TTC, tap-to-pay, and the Transit app
(28:00) Airport to the city: Uber, the train, and the UP Express
(33:43) Money tips: cards, foreign transaction fees, and cash
(35:22) The partner events worth your time (Sunday to Wednesday)
(41:53) Thursday: the SDA x SWYM run and Brightwork
(42:25) Brightwork: filling the Tectonic gap at The East Room
(47:38) The frat party and other after-hours events
(52:00) Networking tips: don't sit alone, just say hi
(55:21) Wrap-up: pace yourself and check the changelog

Links & Resources
SDA Toronto.dev, Taylor and Trudy's event and city guide with a map and agenda planner: https://sdatoronto.dev/
Pimsical events feed by Jordan Finneran: https://pimsical.app/events
Bike Share Toronto and the Transit app for getting around: https://bikesharetoronto.com/
UP Express (Union Pearson Express) from the airport into downtown: https://www.upexpress.com/en
Brightwork, Thursday at The East Room: https://brightwork.dev/
Luma event calendars from Joda: https://luma.com/shopify-partner-events

Episode 069 – The Hidden Complexity of Going GlobalKarl and Taylor sit down with Kwadwo (Kojo) Adu, co-founder of LocaleFlow — a bootstrapped Shopify translation app built to help merchants expand into new markets without losing brand voice, SEO, or metafield data. Kojo shares how living in Barcelona as a Dane gave him firsthand empathy for the localization problem, why browser translation falls flat for real stores, and how LocaleFlow's multi-LLM pipeline handles everything from tone-of-voice preservation to currency "nice pricing." The episode rounds out with a Shopify dev changelog covering cart line keys, gift card currency support, and partner dashboard improvements, plus picks featuring a slick diff viewer, an agentic IDE, and a MagSafe truck mount.---Subscribe to Liquid WeeklyDon't miss out on expert insights and tips—subscribe to Liquid Weekly for more content like this: https://liquidweekly.com/---Find Kwadwo Adu OnlineWebsite - https://adu.dkLocaleFlow App - https://localeflowapp.com---
Timestamps00:00 – Show intro; localization blind spots for US devs01:10 – Introducing Kojo Adu and LocaleFlow01:47 – Kojo's background: Copenhagen, Barcelona, e-commerce since 201003:22 – Taylor's Barcelona experience; why "everyone speaks English" isn't true05:20 – How Kojo got into Shopify development back in 201006:26 – Origin story: partner saw the problem daily, LocaleFlow was born09:38 – Market validation: start with someone who'll pay from day one13:05 – "Just use Google Translate" — why it breaks on real Shopify stores16:27 – How LocaleFlow handles the full translation stack19:16 – Multi-LLM pipeline, brand name blacklisting, tone-of-voice prompts22:42 – "Nice pricing" and currency conversion complexity across markets27:25 – Localizing metafields and metaobjects: the special sauce29:11 – Tech stack curiosity: PHP, Rails, and building with AI33:15 – First impressions of Fable, the new AI design tool35:27 – AI workflow philosophy: set guardrails, then let go37:24 – Agentic loops vs. human-in-the-loop in practice41:26 – Shopify Dev Changelog45:24 – Picks of the Week---Dev Changelog- Cart lines now identifiable by view key - https://shopify.dev/changelog/cart-line-mutations-accept-view-key – The Cart Lines Update and Remove mutations now accept a view key to identify cart lines instead of relying solely on Shopify's generated line ID, giving developers more stable, predictable cart operations.
- App quality checks moved to partner dashboard - https://shopify.dev/changelog/app-quality-checks-now-managed-in-partner-dashboard – App quality checks and action items are now managed directly under Distribution in the partner dashboard, replacing the previous email thread experience.
- Local currency support for gift cards in GraphQL Admin API - https://shopify.dev/changelog/gift-card-local-currency-support

- Gift cards can now be issued and managed in local market currencies via the GraphQL Admin API, a meaningful step for merchants running Shopify Markets internationally.
- Headless checkout SSO parameter change - https://shopify.dev/changelog/headless-checkout-sso-is-now-documented-with-ssosilent – The query parameter for headless checkout single sign-on has changed from `logged_in=true` to `sso=silent`; update any headless implementations that reference this parameter.---
Picks of the WeekKarl: CoDiff - https://github.com/nkzw-tech/codiff – A GitHub diff viewer Karl wants to try for reviewing the large, messy diffs that come out of agentic coding workflows.Kojo: Orca - https://www.onorca.dev/ – An agentic IDE that feels like a blend of Claude and Conductor; Kojo's current daily driver, with a particularly good mobile app.Taylor: Bullet Point Mounting Solutions - https://www.bulletpointmountingsolutions.com/ – A MagSafe vehicle phone mount Taylor installed in his truck; available on Shopify and highly recommended for anyone fumbling with their phone while driving.

Eytan Seidman, VP of Product at Shopify, returns to the Liquid Weekly Podcast for a special Spring '26 Editions walkthrough with Karl and Taylor.
It is a full tour of what is dropping for developers: static app home extensions, the App Events API, AI Kit, Sidekick app extensions going GA, the ongoing Dev Dashboard overhaul, a rebuilt logging experience, UCP and agentic commerce, next-gen events replacing webhooks, and the shift from Managed Pricing to Shopify App Pricing. Basically a whole episode of changelog.
A must-listen for app developers, agencies, and anyone building on the Shopify platform.
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Find Eytan Online
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eytanseidman/
X: https://x.com/eytanseidman
See the Spring '26 Editions: https://www.shopify.com/editions/spring2026
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro snippets
(01:03) Intros and welcoming back Eytan Seidman
(02:17) Static app home extensions: building apps fully on Shopify
(08:08) App Events API: observability and monitoring in Dev Dash
(13:03) AI Kit: store auth, store execute, and how it differs from MCP
(17:54) Sidekick app extensions GA: data and app action extensions
(25:21) Dev Dashboard overhaul: store and team management
(31:34) Logging overhaul: API requests, filtering, and unified logs
(35:40) Catalog improvements and the UCP CLI
(38:16) Building carts across merchants with UCP
(40:35) Agent to agent purchasing and accountability
(44:04) Next-gen events: rebuilding webhooks
(52:08) Shopify App Pricing: usage-based pricing and meters
(58:27) Closing: what Eytan is most excited for devs to try
(1:00:50) Picks of the Week
Picks of the Week
Taylor: A MagSafe power bank. After his recording died in the fourth inning of his daughter's softball game, he picked one up so he can hot-swap batteries mid-game and record full-length games start to finish. https://amzn.to/4vXCZAj
Karl: Atkins chocolate truffles, found in the reduced aisle at Kroger. A cheap, high-protein, low-carb sweet that hits the spot if you are doing keto. https://www.kroger.com/p/atkins-endulge-dark-chocolate-truffles/0063748000511
Eytan: Two aviation books. Flying Blind by Dominic Gates, a Seattle Times reporter, on the 737 MAX and the fall of Boeing, tracing the program from the 1960s through the late 2010s: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55994102-flying-blind. And The Sporty Game, an older read on the early Boeing vs Airbus competition: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/312480.The_Sporty_Game

Shopify performance specialist Izaac Barratt of Baseline Commerce joins Karl and Taylor for a deep dive into site speed optimization.
The conversation covers the full spectrum from LCP and INP fundamentals to the real-world friction of app bloat, AI coding habits, and what actually moves the needle for conversion rates. A must-listen for any theme developer, app developer, or agency working with high-traffic Shopify stores.

Sponsor
The Support Heroes - https://www.thesupportheroes.com/?utm_source=liquid_weekly&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sponsorships

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Find Izaac Barratt Online
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/izaac-barratt — where he posts performance tips, resources, and his ongoing series on the nine performance fix buckets
Baseline Commerce:
baseline-commerce.com — Izaac's site speed optimization consultancy

Timestamps
01:23 – Intros; welcoming guest Izaac Barrett
02:48 – Izaac's origin story: animation, Newgrounds, and e-commerce
05:36 – What drew Izaac to performance optimization
06:00 – First site speed project: 12 seconds to 2 seconds, conversion doubled
10:00 – LCP fundamentals: above-the-fold prioritization and perception
18:00 – Preloading, lazy loading, and how to get them wrong
20:43 – Liquid's preload tag, sections_index, and reducing JavaScript dependency
26:38 – Telling AI to prioritize HTML/Liquid and CSS over JavaScript
31:01 – Async vs. defer vs. render-blocking scripts explained
35:28 – Apps and performance: identifying problem apps, merchant conversations
39:15 – Advice for app developers on loading strategy and user interaction cycles
41:42 – INP (Interaction to Next Paint) explained: what it is and why it's hard to fix
43:30 – Shopify/research report: 34ms of INP = 3.5% drop in CVR
46:06 – How to debug INP: Chrome DevTools performance tab and CrUX data
53:20 – Izaac's LinkedIn series: nine buckets of performance fixes
56:17 – Dev Changelog
1:02:44 – Picks of the Week

Dev Changelog
- Next-Generation Events — Developer Preview: https://shopify.dev/changelog
- ⚠️ Expiring Offline Access Tokens Required for All Public Apps — January 1, 2027: https://shopify.dev/changelog
- Shop Minis — March/April 2026 Update: https://shopify.dev/changelog
- Customer Account UI — Feature Preview: https://shopify.dev/changelog
- App Home as a UI Extension: https://shopify.dev/changelog- llms.txt / agents.md in Shopify Themes: https://shopify.dev/changelog

Picks of the Week
Karl:
The Dark Journey: The Tragedy of the Donner Party
by Allan Eckert – A true history of the ill-fated 1846 wagon party, written by one of Karl's favorite frontier authors; dark but compelling, especially for history enthusiasts. https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Journey-Allan-W-Eckert/dp/1931672539

Izaac:
Page Speed Impact Estimator fastersite.ai – A tool for estimating the performance gains of removing specific scripts and assets before actually doing the work; great for benchmarking and scoping conversations with clients.

Taylor:
The Will of the Many
by James Islington – A sci-fi novel recommended by Taylor's brother (a bookseller); follows a teenager hiding his royal lineage in a Roman Empire-style society that literally harvests people's will to gain power. Book two also out. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58416951-the-will-of-the-many