Liquid Weekly Podcast: Shopify Developers Talking Shopify Development

Georgi Petrov, CEO and co-founder of Uxify, joins Karl and Taylor to talk about the half of web performance nobody optimizes for: the shopper's device. After building SMS Bump (acquired by Yotpo), ConsentMo, and NitroPack (acquired by WP Engine), Georgi is now tackling device-specific friction, the laggy buttons, layout shifts, and interaction delays that vary wildly from one phone to the next. We get into how Uxify profiles a visitor's capability without touching your code, the specialized agents that fix problems on the fly, the ClickHouse-powered data layer behind it all, and how to think about performance heading into BFCM. Plus the Dev Changelog and Picks of the Week.
Sponsor
The Support Heroes: https://www.thesupportheroes.com/
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Find Georgi Online
Uxify: https://uxify.com/integrations/shopify/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgipetrov/
Timestamps
(00:00) Open
(00:29) Intros
(02:11) Meet Georgi Petrov of Uxify
(02:54) Origin story: hardware hacking to his first software
(06:03) Finding Shopify: SMS Bump, ConsentMo, and NitroPack
(12:23) Making fast decisions and failing cheaply
(15:32) Why Uxify: performance is half website, half device
(20:11) How it works: profiling devices and adapting on the fly
(26:17) Sitting alongside your theme without touching your code
(28:26) Real user monitoring and specialized agents
(37:47) The tech stack: ClickHouse and heavy browser testing
(41:57) Shopify cart variations and a clever checkout fallback
(46:24) Prepping for BFCM and who Uxify is for
(51:14) Dev Changelog
(58:22) Picks of the Week
Dev Changelog
[action required] Variants now support multiple barcodes: https://shopify.dev/changelog/product-variant-barcode-is-being-replaced-by-barcodes
Create and delete dev stores in Shopify CLI: https://shopify.dev/changelog/create-and-delete-dev-stores-in-shopify-cli
[action required] Discounts Allocator Function API developer preview has ended: https://shopify.dev/changelog/discounts-allocator-function-api-developer-preview-has-ended
Delivery options in Shopify Functions input now expose their metafields: https://shopify.dev/changelog/delivery-options-in-shopify-functions-input-now-expose-their-metafields
Prepare your app for the Shopify admin's new look: https://shopify.dev/changelog/prepare-your-app-for-the-shopify-admins-new-look
[action required] Updates to Events payloads and subscription configuration: https://shopify.dev/changelog/updates-to-events-payloads-and-subscription-configuration
New Pricing audit trail for contextual product variant prices: https://shopify.dev/changelog/pricing-audit-trail-for-contextual-product-variant-prices
[breaking api change] [action required] Removed session.currentSession.staffMemberId from POS UI Extensions (2026-10): https://shopify.dev/changelog/removed-session-currentsession-staffmemberid-from-pos-ui-extensions-2026-10
Request a bundle size exception for existing UI extensions: https://shopify.dev/changelog/request-a-bundle-size-exception-for-existing-ui-extensions
Picks of the Week
Karl: Keto Oreo-style sandwich cookies (about 50 calories each), part of his ongoing tour through packaged keto snacks: https://www.choczero.com/products/keto-sandwich-cookies
Georgi: Calisthenics between AI prompts. Knocking out push-ups and squats while waiting on an agent, which he says burns the time well and sharpens his focus when he comes back.
Taylor: Ted Lasso, season 4 on Apple TV+. Still, in his words, one of the most wholesome shows around: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/

Prakhar Shrivastava of FoxSell joins Karl and Taylor to talk about Shop Quest, the Shopify community event he and his team run in Bengaluru, and to prep Taylor for his first trip to India.

Along the way Prakhar breaks down India's Shopify ecosystem, from the app companies pulling serious revenue to the agencies quietly white-labeling builds for Platinum partners in the US and Europe, and makes the case for why the Shopify partner community needs its own events at all.

SPONSOR
Promo Party Pro is a free gift with purchase app Karl helped build with the team at Ethercycle. Out of the box it gives you campaigns built to increase AOV and conversion: set a spend threshold, show shoppers how close they are to earning a gift, and let the app handle the rest. Discount Functions under the hood, one app embed, no theme surgery, and campaigns auto-pause when the gift sells out.
Agency offer: one of your clients gets a full year free. Not a trial, a year.
Promo Party Pro
On the Shopify App Store

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FIND PRAKHAR ONLINE
LinkedIn
X
FoxSell
FoxSell Bundles Plus on the Shopify App Store
Book time with Prakhar
Shop Quest

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Cold open: apologizing in advance for name pronunciation
00:25 – Karl sends Taylor on a quest, Prakhar joins
06:51 – What FoxSell does and why complex bundles
08:17 – The origin of Shop Quest: a 30 person dinner that kept growing
10:24 – From 150 attendees to 400, and why people started flying in
19:24 – Visas, arrival, and getting picked up at the airport
21:15 – Don't eat from the street, don't drink the tap water
22:33 – There is no tipping culture in India
25:26 – Haggling in street markets, and how badly you'll get quoted
27:14 – India's Shopify ecosystem: merchants, apps, and agencies
29:13 – The white-label agency work nobody talks about
31:51 – Why the Shopify partner community is a lonely place to be
33:15 – Shop Quest format: fewer talks, more networking, more business content
37:13 – Talks recorded in 4K, plus an MCP server for the event
41:15 – Name tags, phonetic spellings, and why Adi shortened his name
46:43 – Taylor's travel prep: lounges, overnight flights, and vaccinations
48:27 – Print your visa confirmation before you fly
50:20 – Swym's office is across the street from the venue
53:06 – South Indian food, and why Prakhar and Adi speak English to each other
56:07 – Dev Changelog
1:00:46 – Picks of the Week

DEV CHANGELOG
GitHub commits now name the last theme editor.
Official PHP and Python packages for building apps
Four new Events topics
⚠️ As of October 1, theme commands against password protected storefronts need CLI 3.84 or later.
More resilient refreshes for expiring offline access tokens
The Polaris CDN is adopting semantic versioning

PICKS OF THE WEEK
Karl: A Diet Coke coaster, courtesy of his sister Heather. "I'd like a Diet Coke please." "Is Diet Pepsi okay?" "Is monopoly money okay?"
Karl: Umland's Crunchy Cheese – A Carlock, Illinois company that vacuum-dries cheese below its melting point to make it light, airy, and crunchy. Karl has not tried it yet but picked it anyway.
Prakhar: DJI Osmo Pocket 3 – What he uses to record every event he attends, including Shop Quest.
Taylor: Omarchy – DHH's opinionated Arch and Hyprland Linux distro. Taylor put it on a 2012 MacBook and brought the thing back to life, battery included, and it handles the Shopify CLI and agents fine.

BONUS
See all that Bengaluru has to offer at sda.guide.

In this episode of the Liquid Weekly Podcast, hosts Karl Meisterheim and Taylor Page are joined by Alexander Hupfer, founder of Fusion Metrics and a solo Shopify app developer.

The conversation digs deep into the current state of Shopify app analytics following Mantle's shutdown, why certain metrics are far more subjective than they appear, and how AI agents are changing the way developers query their own data.

Sponsor - The Support Heroes

STAY CONNECTED
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- Alexander's Origin Story
- Why Shopify Doesn't Build This
- The Mantle Shutdown
- Metrics That Aren't Black and White
- Installs as a Vanity Metric
- AI Agents + Analytics: Using MCP servers and agents like Claude Code and Codex to write SQL queries
- Build vs. Buy vs. Self-Host

ABOUT ALEXANDER HUPFER
Alexander is the founder of Fusionmetrics, an analytics platform built specifically for Shopify apps. Coming from a theoretical physics background, he moved into the analytics space in 2022 and pioneered install attribution by linking Google Analytics events with Partner API data.

FIND ALEXANDER ONLINE & RESOURCES
- Fusion Metrics: https://fusionmetrics.com/
- Alexander's Twitter/X: https://x.com/alexanderhupfer
- PartnerMetrics by Björn Forsberg (open source): https://github.com/forsbergplustwo/partner-metrics
- Matt De Sousa / Blair (ex-Mantle) conversation on attribution: https://orange-aphid-848.notion.site/Live-with-Blair-Beckwith-Shopify-Mantle-Growth-the-Future-of-Shopify-Apps-3c15075fb6d680a5bd14d8ec230430e4
- Alexander's talk from last year's Mantle event on churn modeling: https://youtu.be/9g7N7VdHfWU?si=48yb1k9xM6sb9VwX
- Darius's Dev Dashboard revamp screenshots: https://x.com/darius_gai/status/2087916085794283800?s=20
- Alexander on Ilias' Podcast talking analytics: https://youtu.be/eC8i9ex6xnQ?si=97o59ZK31c-SfCgf

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Cold open: The mask-selling business
00:30 - Introduction & the bat/rabies saga
02:20 - Alexander's origin story: COVID masks to Shopify apps
06:42 - Moving into analytics & the physics background
11:03 - Current state of Shopify app metrics & the Mantle shutdown
13:49 - Why Shopify doesn't provide revenue analytics (the ROI question)
16:43 - The Dev Dashboard revamp & transaction vs. MRR
21:57 - Reconstructing MRR from the Partner API event stream
25:11 - Installs as a vanity metric & search ranking
27:28 - Churn and LTV: the most complicated metrics
34:11 - App acquisition & assessing performance objectively
36:40 - The three Rs: Acquisition, Retention, Revenue
37:06 - Attribution & app store conversion rates
38:28 - Using AI agents & MCP to query analytics
43:01 - GA4 attribution on the App Store vs. storefront
45:31 - App Store optimization & keyword-stuffed titles
48:17 - Build vs. Buy vs. Self-Host
53:17 - Picks of the Week
56:35 - Dev Changelog

DEV CHANGELOG
- Oxygen is now available on development stores: https://shopify.dev/changelog/oxygen-is-now-available-on-development-stores
- WebMCP support for Liquid and Hydrogen storefronts: https://shopify.dev/changelog/webmcp-liquid-hydrogen
- Standard storefront events and actions now support cart attributes: https://shopify.dev/changelog/events-and-actions-cart-attributes-support
- Hydrogen developer preview update, August 18, 2026: https://shopify.dev/changelog/hydrogen-developer-preview-update-august-18-2026
- App intents on admin.app.intent.link now open as a full-page navigation: https://shopify.dev/changelog/app-intents-on-admin-app-intent-link-now-open-as-a-full-page-navigation

PICKS OF THE WEEK
- Karl: "Star City" on Apple TV — a sister show to "For All Mankind" exploring an alternate history where Russia reached the moon first
- Alexander: "The Capitalist Manifesto" by Johan Norberg
- Taylor: "Project Hail Mary" (the movie) — looking forward to reading the book next

Episode 073 – I Hid Swag and I'd Do It Again! - Recapping our DotDev Adventure

Karl and Taylor reunite for a full-week recap of Shopify Dev in Toronto — from a canceled Air Canada flight and a border crossing full of event signage, to Taylor's metaobjects talk, the live podcast recording at Dev Studio, and the Shopify-shutting-down-an-entire-street Block Party.
They also debrief BrightWork, the first-ever event Taylor hosted after Tectonic was canceled, and close with a run of street-style interviews from the Dev floor covering POS development, agent search and LLM indexing, customer accounts, Sidekick extensions, and — of course — the snacks.

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Sponsor

Promo Party Pro — a free gift with purchase app Karl helped build with the team at EtherCycle. Out of the box it gives you campaigns built to increase AOV and conversion: set a spend threshold, show shoppers how close they are to earning a gift, and let Promo Party Pro handle the rest. Discount Functions under the hood, one app embed (no theme surgery), and campaigns auto-pause when the gift sells out.

Agency offer: get one of your clients a full year free. Promo Party Pro - https://promoparty.app/agency

Find it in the Shopify App Store today.

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Subscribe to Liquid Weekly

Don't miss out on expert insights and tips—subscribe to Liquid Weekly for more content like this: https://liquidweekly.com/

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Timestamps

- 00:00 – Cold open: two dudes, a minivan, a border
- 00:31 – Welcome back, Taylor returns from episode 72
- 01:31 – Taylor's full Dev swag outfit on display
- 05:28 – The retro Pizza Hut detour
- 08:09 – Taylor's drive up and the Trudy's-apartment-as-storage-unit problem
- 11:02 – Karl's canceled Air Canada flight and the two-ticket trap
- 14:19 – Meeting Toby on the plane and taking the train to Union Station
- 16:28 – Sponsor: Promo Party Pro
- 17:10 – Airbnb vs. hotel, and Toronto neighborhoods for next year
- 20:07 – Monday events: agency brunch, Good API tree planting, live podcast, pickleball
- 24:43 – Being grateful for the community and welcoming first-timers
- 26:03 – Day one: rain, badge lines, and a pushed-back keynote
- 27:22 – The Dev snack review series explained
- 30:32 – Build Award dinner, the Shopi mascot, and a Rubik's Cube
- 32:08 – Taylor meets Adam Wathan (and immediately regrets it)
- 34:42 – Day two: Taylor's metaobjects talk and the Dev Studio live recording
- 36:33 – The Block Party: Shopify shuts down a Toronto street
- 41:21 – BrightWork debrief: what worked, what to fix next time
- 44:00 – Frat party, yacht party, and the flotilla rules
- 46:44 – Street interviews from the Dev floor begin

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Resources

- Promo Party Pro – Free gift with purchase app built on Discount Functions; this episode's sponsor. https://promoparty.app
- Ether Cycle - https://ethercycle.com – Karl's partners on Promo Party Pro.
- The Support Heroes - https://thesupportheroes.com – 24/7/365 specialized customer support for Shopify apps; Angie's team, and co-hosts of the live podcast panel with Martin.
- Good API - https://www.thegoodapi.com/shopify/ – Sustainability app for planting trees, removing ocean plastic, and donating to over a million US charities; Amy's team.
- Raise Wave – Fundraiser app Good API built together with Felix & Norton - https://apps.shopify.com/raisewave
- POS Cafe – Shopify point of sale app built by Adam Wooding out of South East Queensland, Australia - https://apps.shopify.com/poscafe
- Three Acres – Brendan Quigley's agency. https://threeacres.ca/
- Helium / Helium Customer Fields - https://heliumdev.com – Customer accounts and B2B registration/approval apps; Brett and Josiah's team.
- Locksmith - https://uselocksmith.com – Longtime Helium app partner.
- Kirill Platonov's Rails on Shopify template - https://kirillplatonov.com – Bootstrap template for building Shopify apps on Ruby on Rails.
- Tailwind CSS - https://tailwindcss.com – Adam Wathan was at Dev; Shopify is looking at incorporating Tailwind into Liquid.

Recorded live at Shopify's DotDev, this special is two sessions in one. First, Ben Sehl walks Karl and Taylor through the future of Liquid: why the language is being reshaped for the agentic era, the new Partials tag that replaces the section rendering API, arrays and Booleans finally landing, agents.md and design.md guidance, and the Tailwind partnership.

Then we sit down with three Shopify Build Award winners, Sammy of Discount Kit, Harel of EasyTeam, and Emili of Zapiet, to talk about what it actually takes to win, betting early on POS, building for Sidekick, and what's next.

Sponsors
Easy Apps (Sage of FI): https://easyapps.io/
Shopify Supply Dev Mode Collection: https://shopify.supply/ (15% off your first order with code LIQUID)

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 the Guests Online
Ben Sehl (Shopify): https://x.com/benjaminsehl, https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminsehl/
Sammy, Discount Kit: https://x.com/SammyIsseyegh, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammyisseyegh/
Harel, EasyTeam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harel-ishay/
Emili, Zapiet: https://x.com/EmiliHorncastle, https://www.linkedin.com/in/emili-m-horncastle-2b8482231/

Timestamps
(00:00) Cold open
(02:05) Live at DotDev: intro
(02:52) Ben Sehl and the future of Liquid
(05:22) Back to the Future: why the direction shift
(10:53) Why now: building for the agentic era
(14:38) Craft vs productivity, and keeping DX at the core
(16:42) Guidance and feedback: agents.md, design.md, and theme check
(23:22) Partials: replacing the section rendering API
(32:47) The Tailwind partnership
(35:07) Arrays, Booleans, and the three-parser saga
(41:13) Meet the Build Award winners: Discount Kit, EasyTeam, Zapiet
(43:49) Their paths to winning and what sets each app apart
(50:15) Zapiet's new physical store in a historic UK market town
(53:25) Harel on betting early on Shopify POS
(55:00) Sammy on building a Sidekick extension for Discount Kit
(56:36) Emili on community, the epic party, and women in tech
(1:00:21) What's next: UCP, POS, Shop Split, and Zapiet Eats
(1:04:50) Wrap-up

Resources
DotDev: https://dotdev.shopify.com/
Ben's article on Liquid: https://x.com/benjaminsehl/status/2079633466581258469?s=20