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  Shopify Flow: manage automations through AI Toolkit - Shopify developer
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description: >-
  Shopify’s developer changelog documents all changes to Shopify’s platform.
  Find the latest news and learn about new platform opportunities.
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---

October 28, 2026

# Shopify Flow: manage automations through AI Toolkit

DateOctober 28, 2026

FlagsNew

SurfacesAPI

You can now use an external agent to manage your Shopify Flow workflows through AI Toolkit. This release is for managing your own store's workflows via AI toolkit; third-party apps are prevented from using the underlying APIs directly.

## What you can do:

Through AI Toolkit, you can ask your agent to manage automations in your shop:

* Create, update, and delete workflows.
* Activate and deactivate workflows.
* Get a single or list of workflows.
* Parse a `.flow` file into JSON that can be used with the API.
* Get automation tasks and environment paths in order to build the workflow.

## How to get started

You can use AI toolkit or the CLI to manage your automations. Using the new APIs directly require the `write_automations` scope, which is a [Shopify approval scope](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/usage/access-scopes#shopify-approval-scopes) and must be approved by Shopify.

### AI toolkit

If you haven't previously used [AI toolkit](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/ai-toolkit) you should first get it working with your agent of choice.

If you previously used AI toolkit, the skill may be already available to you. If not you can ask your agent to update the `shopify` skill:

```
Install or update the shopify skill from Shopify AI toolkit so that I can manage Flow automations
```

### CLI

You can use the [shopify store execute](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/shopify-cli/store/store-execute) command to call the [API](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-graphql/unstable/mutations/automationWorkflowCreate) directly.

### API

To use the [automation APIs](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-graphql/unstable/mutations/automationWorkflowCreate) directly, you must request the `write_automations` in a Shopify app. This scope must be [approved by Shopify](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/usage/access-scopes#shopify-approval-scopes).

## Related docs

* [Shopify Flow help center reference](https://help.shopify.com/manual/shopify-flow)
* [Shopify Flow developer reference](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/flow)
* [Shopify Flow automation APIs](https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-graphql/unstable/mutations/automationWorkflowCreate)