Apps overview
Before you start planning and developing your app, it’s important to understand what Shopify apps do and how they fit into Shopify.
What's a Shopify app?
Anchor link to section titled "What's a Shopify app?"A Shopify app extends the existing functionality of Shopify. Most Shopify apps are built by third-party developers, not by Shopify.
You can build an app to add features to Shopify stores and extend the Shopify admin experience, or to create unique buying experiences for customers. You can also pull Shopify store data into your app, platform, or integration.
To tailor experiences to their specific needs, users install Shopify apps to help build their business, integrate with external services, and add features to their Shopify admin.
How apps fit into Shopify
Anchor link to section titled "How apps fit into Shopify"Apps integrate with Shopify in the following ways:
- connecting with Shopify APIs to read and write store data, in response to either user input or webhook event notifications
- extending new features inside existing parts of the Shopify admin or Shopify Point of Sale (POS)
- enhancing the way that stores display information to customers
Start building your app
Anchor link to section titled "Start building your app"You can use Shopify CLI to quickly create a new app using one of our app templates.
- Learn about the different methods of authenticating and authorizing apps with Shopify’s platform.
- Use webhooks to stay in sync with Shopify or execute code after a specific event occurs in a shop.
- Learn how to use metafields to share additional information about Shopify resources with your app.
- Learn about the structure of an app built with Shopify CLI.