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Sidekick can now invoke app intents without tools

Sidekick now surfaces app extensions that declare only intents, with no tools file. Previously an extension had to declare tools to be eligible for Sidekick, so an admin.app.intent.link or admin.app.intent.render extension that registered only an intent was skipped and Sidekick never suggested the app. This applies to all apps on all stores, with no API version to target and nothing to opt into. If your app has an intent-only extension and no extensions_summary in its shopify.app.toml, then your next shopify app deploy fails validation until you add one.

What changed

An extension is Sidekick-eligible when it declares tools, intents, or both. Before this change, only tools counted. Nothing about the configuration format changed: the [[extensions.targeting.intents]] block you already declare for app actions is now enough on its own, on both the admin.app.intent.link and admin.app.intent.render targets.

Who's affected

You're affected if your app has at least one extension that declares intents without tools. Those extensions become visible to Sidekick immediately, and if your shopify.app.toml has no extensions_summary, your next deploy fails with a validation error naming the missing field.

You're not affected if every Sidekick extension in your app already declares tools. Those extensions were already eligible and already required an extensions_summary, so nothing changes for them. Apps with no Sidekick extensions are unaffected.

There's no feature preview, permission, or scope condition attached to this. It applies to every store at once, and it isn't tied to an API version, so pinning an older version doesn't opt you out.

What to do

Most apps need no change. If you have an intent-only extension, do this before your next deploy:

  1. Check each shopify.extension.toml for a [[extensions.targeting.intents]] block on admin.app.intent.link or admin.app.intent.render with no tools file alongside it.
  2. If you find one, confirm your shopify.app.toml has an extensions_summary under [sidekick]. Add one if it's missing.
  3. Run shopify app deploy against a development store.
  4. Ask Sidekick something that matches your registered intent and confirm your app is suggested.
    [sidekick]
extensions_summary = "Search and analyze product reviews, create review request campaigns, and manage review display settings"

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