Shopify publishing

The Shopify adapter creates unpublished blog articles in your store through the Shopify Admin REST API. It works with any Shopify plan that allows custom apps (all current paid plans).

How does Shopify publishing work?

CiteFlow authenticates with a custom app's Admin API access token and calls POST /admin/api/2024-10/blogs/{blog_id}/articles.json. Articles are created with published: false so they stay out of your storefront until you publish them from Shopify admin.

What do you need before setting it up?

• A Shopify store on a current paid plan.
• Permission to create custom apps in your store.
• At least one blog in Online Store → Blog posts → Manage blogs.

How do you set up Shopify publishing?

1. Create the custom app

1. In Shopify admin go to Settings → Apps and sales channels.
2. Click Develop apps. If this is your first custom app, accept the developer terms.
3. Click Create an app and name it (for example CiteFlow).
4. Open the app and click Configure Admin API scopes.
5. Enable the write_content scope. This is the only scope CiteFlow needs. Save.
6. Click Install app at the top right, then confirm.

2. Copy the Admin API access token

After installation Shopify shows the Admin API access token once. It starts with shpat_. Copy it now; you cannot retrieve it later (you can only regenerate, which invalidates the previous token).

3. Find your blog ID

1. In Shopify admin go to Online Store → Blog posts.
2. Click Manage blogs (top right).
3. Click into the blog you want CiteFlow to publish to.
4. The URL contains the numeric blog ID, for example /admin/blogs/123456789012. The 12-digit number is your blog_id.

4. Add the endpoint in CiteFlow

1. Dashboard → Settings → Publishing destinations → Add endpoint.
2. Pick Shopify.
3. Fill in:
   • Store domain: your .myshopify.com domain, for example example-store.myshopify.com. Do not use a custom storefront domain.
   • Admin API access token: the shpat_... value from step 2.
   • Blog ID: the numeric ID from step 3.
4. Save.

5. Test the connection

Click Test connection. CiteFlow calls GET /admin/api/2024-10/shop.json to verify the token, then GET /admin/api/2024-10/blogs/{blog_id}.json to confirm the blog exists on this store. Both must succeed.

How do fields map to Shopify?

CiteFlow appends the article's JSON-LD schema as a <script type="application/ld+json"> block inside body_html because Shopify does not expose a dedicated structured-data field.

What are the tier limitations?

Endpoints (any mix of webhook and platform adapters) count against the overall publishing endpoint cap:

How do you troubleshoot Shopify publishing?

401 [API] Invalid API key or access token. The token is wrong or the app was uninstalled. Re-install the custom app, copy the new shpat_... token, and update the endpoint.

403 forbidden when publishing. The custom app does not have write_content. Open the app, click Configure Admin API scopes, add write_content, save, then Install app again.

404 Not Found for the blog ID. The blog ID does not exist on this store, or it was deleted. Look it up again from Online Store → Blog posts → Manage blogs.

Article appears in admin but not on the storefront. This is expected. CiteFlow creates articles with published: false. Open the article in Shopify admin, review it, and toggle Visibility → Visible when ready.

Images are missing. Shopify ingests the hero image asynchronously from the URL CiteFlow provides. If the URL becomes unreachable before Shopify fetches it, the image fails silently. Check the admin's article view a few minutes after publish.

Need help?

Copy the Shopify error shown in your CiteFlow dashboard and contact support if the test passes but real publishes fail.