Go fast, be stable: Providing developers with the best tools to build powerful apps

For developers, speed and stability are the two most important factors when building an app but, more often than not, one is sacrificed for the other. That’s why we’re introducing a suite of tools and features to Shopify that ensures our developers can focus on building powerful, stable, and fast apps — without spending extra time coding. With our most popular libraries now compatible with GraphQL, the Shopify App CLI (command-line interface) tool and Shopify App Bridge, developers can build powerful and stable apps more easily and quickly, while ensuring that they evolve with Shopify at a pace that works for them and their users.

Libraries in GraphQL

At Shopify Unite 2018, we announced the release of our Admin API in GraphQL, empowering developers to not only build faster but also to process data and requests at a quicker pace. To share these benefits more broadly with our developer community, we’re excited to announce that our most popular open source libraries for app development are now GraphQL compatible. By making these open source libraries compatible, we’re providing developers with an improved, more efficient technical platform. We’re lowering the learning curve and ensuring that our developers have the best tools to create the best apps for merchants.

Shopify App CLI

When building an app from scratch, developers spend a lot of time setting up basic functions. Now, with the new Shopify App CLI, everything a developer needs to build an app on Shopify is within a single command-line interface.

Shopify App CLI wraps all of a developer’s preliminary app building steps into one tool. With a couple of commands, developers can scaffold their apps in seconds. On top of this, developers can easily generate sample data — like products, orders, and customers — on test stores, without switching tools. With Shopify App CLI, we’re ensuring developers spend less time setting up their apps and more time focusing on building features that make them valuable.

Shopify App Bridge

To create a more consistent app experience and make it easier for developers to build, Shopify is announcing Shopify App Bridge. This new, consolidated tool enables developers to embed their apps directly into all merchant-facing surfaces of Shopify including desktop, Shopify Mobile, and Shopify POS — creating a seamless user experience for merchants. By building with Shopify App Bridge, developers can use the same library across all of their embedded apps, making it easier to build and test apps that are in line with Shopify as we grow.

Shopify App Bridge provides new capabilities, including: features detection which connects apps into hardware capabilities, such as cameras, barcode scanners, and USB devices; and enhanced functionalities, such as improved error reporting to flag incorrect coding. These improvements will help developers cut down on development time and ensure their apps render consistently across all surfaces.

To learn more about the new suite of developer tools announced at Shopify Unite, visit this link.