Shopify App Template - Ruby

This is a template for building a Shopify app using Ruby on Rails and React. It contains the basics for building a Shopify app.

Rather than cloning this repo, you can use your preferred package manager and the Shopify CLI with these steps.

Benefits

Shopify apps are built on a variety of Shopify tools to create a great merchant experience. The create an app tutorial in our developer documentation will guide you through creating a Shopify app using this template.

The Ruby app template comes with the following out-of-the-box functionality:

• OAuth: Installing the app and granting permissions
• GraphQL Admin API: Querying or mutating Shopify admin data
• REST Admin API: Resource classes to interact with the API
• Shopify-specific tooling:
  • AppBridge
  • Polaris
  • Webhooks

Tech Stack

These third party tools are complemented by Shopify specific tools to ease app development:

Tool	Usage
Shopify App	Rails engine to help build Shopify app using Rails conventions. Helps to install your application on shops, and provides tools for: OAuth Session Storage Webhook Processing etc.
ShopifyAPI Gem	A lightweight gem to provide tools for: Obtaining an active session. (ShopifyApp uses this behind the scenes to handle OAuth) Clients to make request to Shopify GraphQL and Rest APIs. See how it's used here Error handling Application Logger Webhook Management
App Bridge, App Bridge React	Frontend library that: Add authentication to API requests in the frontend Renders components outside of the App’s iFrame in Shopify's Admin page
Custom React hooks	Custom React hooks that uses App Bridge to make authenticated requests to the Admin API.
Polaris React	A powerful design system and react component library that helps developers build high quality, consistent experiences for Shopify merchants.
File-based routing	Tool makes creating new pages easier.
@shopify/i18next-shopify	A plugin for i18next that allows translation files to follow the same JSON schema used by Shopify app extensions and themes.

This template combines a number of third party open source tools:

• Rails builds the backend.
• Vite builds the React frontend.
• React Router is used for routing. We wrap this with file-based routing.
• React Query queries the Admin API.
• i18next and related libraries are used to internationalize the frontend.
  • react-i18next is used for React-specific i18n functionality.
  • i18next-resources-to-backend is used to dynamically load app translations.
  • @formatjs/intl-localematcher is used to match the user locale with supported app locales.
  • @formatjs/intl-locale is used as a polyfill for Intl.Locale if necessary.
  • @formatjs/intl-pluralrules is used as a polyfill for Intl.PluralRules if necessary.

Note

If you'd prefer not to use React, you can replace it with a Stimulus frontend.

Getting started

Requirements

1. You must create a Shopify partner account if you don’t have one.
2. You must create a store for testing if you don't have one, either a development store or a Shopify Plus sandbox store.
3. You must have Ruby installed.
4. You must have Bundler installed.
5. You must have Node.js installed.

Installing the template

This template runs on Shopify CLI 3.0. You can start a new project with this template by running this command:

shopify app init --template=https://github.com/Shopify/shopify-app-template-ruby

Setting up your Rails app

Once the Shopify CLI clones the repo, you will be able to run commands on your app. However, the CLI will not manage your Ruby dependencies automatically, so you will need to go through some steps to be able to run your app. To make the process easier, the template provides a script to run the necessary steps:

1. Start off by switching to the web folder:

   cd web

2. Install the ruby dependencies:

   bundle install

3. Run the Rails template script. It will guide you through setting up your database and set up the necessary keys for encrypted credentials.

   bin/rails app:template LOCATION=./template.rb

And your Rails app is ready to run! You can now switch back to your app's root folder to continue:

cd ..

Local Development

The Shopify CLI connects to an app in your Partners dashboard. It provides environment variables, runs commands in parallel, and updates application URLs for easier development.

You can develop locally by running the following command from the root of your app:

shopify app dev

Open the URL generated in your console. Once you grant permission to the app, you can start development.

Deployment

Application Storage

This template uses Rails' ActiveRecord framework to store Shopify session data. It provides migrations to create the necessary tables in your database, and it stores and loads session data from them.

The database that works best for you depends on the data your app needs and how it is queried. You can run your database of choice on a server yourself or host it with a SaaS company. Once you decide which database to use, you can configure your app to connect to it, and this template will start using that database for session storage.

Build

The frontend is a single page React app. It requires the SHOPIFY_API_KEY environment variable, which you can get by running shopify app info --web-env. The CLI will set up the necessary environment variables for the build if you run its build command from your app's root:

In your app's root folder:

shopify app build --client-id=REPLACE_ME

The app build command will build both the frontend and backend when running as above. If you're manually building (for instance when deploying the web folder to production), you'll need to build both of them:

cd web/frontend
SHOPIFY_API_KEY=REPLACE_ME shopify app build
cd ..
rake build:all

Making your first API call

You can use the ShopifyAPI gem to start make authenticated Shopify API calls.

• Make a GraphQL Admin API call
• Make a GraphQL Storefront API call
• Make a Rest Admin API call

Examples from this app template:

• Making Admin GraphQL API request to create products:
  • ProductCreator#create (web/app/services/product_creator.rb)
• Making Admin Rest API request to count products:
  • ProductsController#count (web/app/controllers/products_controller.rb)

Hosting

When you're ready to set up your app in production, you can follow our deployment documentation to host your app on a cloud provider like Heroku or Fly.io.

When you reach the step for setting up environment variables, you also need to set the following variables:

Variable	Secret?	Required	Value	Description
RAILS_MASTER_KEY	Yes	Yes	string	Use value from web/config/master.key or create a new one.
RAILS_ENV		Yes	"production"
RAILS_SERVE_STATIC_FILES		Yes	1	Tells rails to serve the React app from the public folder.
RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT			1	Tells rails to print out logs.

Known issues

Hot module replacement and Firefox

When running the app with the CLI in development mode on Firefox, you might see your app constantly reloading when you access it. That happened in previous versions of the CLI, because of the way HMR websocket requests work.

We fixed this issue with v3.4.0 of the CLI, so after updating it, you can make the following changes to your app's web/frontend/vite.config.js file:

1. Change the definition hmrConfig object to be:

   const host = process.env.HOST
     ? process.env.HOST.replace(/https?:\/\//, "")
     : "localhost";
   
   let hmrConfig;
   if (host === "localhost") {
     hmrConfig = {
       protocol: "ws",
       host: "localhost",
       port: 64999,
       clientPort: 64999,
     };
   } else {
     hmrConfig = {
       protocol: "wss",
       host: host,
       port: process.env.FRONTEND_PORT,
       clientPort: 443,
     };
   }

2. Change the server.host setting in the configs to "localhost":

   server: {
     host: "localhost",
     ...

I'm seeing "App couldn't be loaded" error due to browser cookies

• Ensure you're using the latest shopify_app gem that uses Session Tokens instead of cookies.
  • See "My app is still using cookies to authenticate"
• Ensure shopify.app.toml is present and contains up to date information for the app's redirect URLS. To reset/update this config, run

shopify app dev --reset

Developer resources

• Introduction to Shopify apps
• App authentication
• Shopify CLI
• Shopify API Library documentation
• Shopify App Gem
• Getting started with internationalizing your app
  • i18next
    • Configuration options
  • react-i18next
    • useTranslation hook
    • Trans component usage with components array
  • i18n-ally VS Code extension