Drop the Plugins and N8N: Use AI Agents + Skill to Run Shopify

I am Lvsao. I share hands-on Shopify independent-site practice for global sellers, helping solo founders reduce anxiety. I also share AI ecommerce practice that actually improves business capability and efficiency. Across the internet, I have 60k+ followers, 8,000+ community members, and 300+ free practical tutorials.

Soft ad: my original Shopify Skills collection is updated from time to time. You can start from Shopify Skill Hub, or look back at the previous article, Using Skills to Import WeChat Articles to Any Website.

Step 1: Open API Permissions

Go to your Shopify admin and create a Custom App, so your store's API permissions are opened. Only then can AI access, read, and write to your store through the API.

Permission Suggestions

• Newcomers can open all API permissions
• Experienced users who care can open only what they need

Just check both API types without overthinking it. (But in practice, the core one we use is the Admin API.)

Get the Keys

You will receive three secret strings. Keep them carefully and do not leak them.

Required Environment Configuration

For most of the later work, you only need to store these two environment values:

• Store domain
• Admin API access token

Step 2: Download Any AI Coding Agent

Next, we need an "AI tool." This tool has AI built in. It does not just chat with you; it can also help you write code and finish the later work.

Tool Choices

1. Newcomer Recommendation: Graphical IDE

The overall experience is almost the same as downloading and using normal software. At the beginning, you almost do not need to touch any code.

For example, Trae China is currently free without limits.

2. Domestic Big-Tech Options

You can also try other domestic big-tech tools. They all have free trials anyway: Alibaba's Qoder, Tencent's Codebuddy, and so on.

3. Advanced Choices

For most global-selling operators, I believe network access should not be a problem. So I strongly recommend going straight to the top tier. My first recommendations are ChatGPT's Codex and Claude's Claude Code, two native large-model Coding Agents, both with desktop versions. Or you can use Cursor, Kiro, or the open-source Opencode. These desktop experiences are all okay.

This tutorial uses the Opencode desktop app as the demo. (It has some free models built in.)

Step 3: Install the Skill

Actually, before this there is another third step: installing the required dependencies. But to help newcomers start faster, I have already integrated dependency checking and installation into the Skill installation prompt. In other words, you can copy one prompt and go from dependency installation to skill installation in one shot.

Now we officially enter the step where AI Agents install the Skill. I provide three ways for newcomers, intermediate users, and experienced users. We will use my first skill as the example: WeChat to Shopify Blog.

Installation Methods

1. For my Skill Hub, I specifically optimized the prompt for newcomers. Use the ready prompt and AI will install the skill for you directly.
2. If you know how, installing from the terminal command line is also OK.
3. Experienced users can also directly download the skill files and place them in the relevant local location.

Step 4: Actually Use the Skill

When you describe related needs in natural language inside the AI chat window, AI will automatically call the Skill.

Example

"Please help me transfer this WeChat article to my Shopify independent site."

My skill includes newcomer-friendly onboarding. It can smoothly help you configure the environment, meaning you give AI the two environment keys from Step 1, or follow AI's instruction and copy-paste them yourself.

FAQ