[BUG] Sidekick app extension. CLI deploy does not detect changes in the extension

Extensions
1

I created an app_data extension as per this guide: Use extensions to surface app data

I deployed it using shopify app deploy.

It works well.

Then I updated some files in the extension. Notably:

  • extensions/[ext_name]/src/[some_file].js
  • extensions/[ext_name]/shopify.extension.toml (updated api_version)
  • extensions/[ext_name]/instructions.md

Then I want to deploy again:

$ shopify app deploy

[....]

?  Release a new version of [APP NAME]?

   ┃  Configuration:
   ┃  No changes

As you can see it thinks there are no changes.

Shopify CLI version: 4.8.3

It seems that the only way to get changes detected is to update the sidekick.extension_summary in the main shopify.app.toml.

PS: we still don 't have a category in the forum for sidekick extensions when we create a post.

2

That tracks with how deploy’s diffing works for config driven extensions, it’s comparing registered manifest fields rather than hashing everything under src/ or docs like instructions.md, so pure content changes there don’t register as a version bump unless something in the toml changes. Bumping extension_summary is a reasonable forcing function for now, worth filing as feedback since source changes should plausibly count too.

3

Thank you, but this is not fixing the thing. Also I noticed your activity on the forum, sending AI like post everywhere to self promote yourself. This is not a good thing to do.

BTW, marking complete because sidekick is useless for us anyway and I don’t see Shopify fixing this anytime soon.

4

Fair point. My earlier reply was a guess about how deploy diffs extensions, and I hadn’t verified it. Thanks for posting the sidekick.extension_summary workaround, that’s useful for anyone else hitting this.