"Enable Storefront API" no more available for Custom Apps?

Dev Platform
,
1

Hi folks,

My team regularly builds custom apps for merchants, and we usually follow the exact same process: We use the Partner/Dev Dashboard to create the app, define the access scopes, and distribute it. It gets installed either by us (using a collaborator account) or directly by the merchant via the install link.

Previously, after installation, we would go to the Dev Dashboard, open Settings, and click the Manage button for the Storefront API.

image
image1610×260 12.6 KB

That would open a new page:

image
image2008×1596 255 KB

On this page, we used to be able to see and enable the storefront using this specific section/button (screenshot from our internal docs):

image
image1442×552 59.9 KB

However, this section is no longer visible. My questions for the community are:

  1. Does anyone know why this section was removed or if it has been moved somewhere else?

  2. How should we proceed now to enable the Storefront API so that it actually creates a Sales Channel? (Our ultimate goal is to get a Sales Channel tied directly to our Custom App).

Thanks a million for your help, Ced

2

You can try using the Shopify official Headless app. It can create storefront access tokens through it.

Otherwise, you’ll need to add the proper scopes to your custom app to create storefront access tokens and use the Admin API to create one.

3

Otherwise, you’ll need to add the proper scopes to your custom app to create storefront access tokens and use the Admin API to create one.

would you be able to elaborate a bit more / provide guidance ?
Indeed, the App has already all storefront API related scopes.

Also, why this Storefront API section would have been removed suddenly?

4

Hi @JOOR_Integrations,

The change you’re seeing, with the Storefront API tokens no longer available via the Store’s Admin for custom apps, is expected behaviour.

Moving forward all apps are created in the Dev Dashboard, including both Partner Custom and Public apps, and Merchant Custom apps.

For custom apps, you no longer get both the Admin or Storefront access tokens directly from the dashboard/admin, you will need to use one of the existing authorization methods instead.

For custom apps to get an Admin API token, we recommend using the Client Credential Grant workflow as it is the simplest to use. You will need to take the Client ID and the Client Secret that are listed in the Dev Dashboard, and pass them as a URL parameter in an HTTP Request to POST https://{shop}.myshopify.com/admin/oauth/access_token, and Shopify will reply with the access token that you can use for the Admin API requests.

Here is some documentation that explains this further:

And here is a Shopify.dev Community Forum thread with a bit more info as well:

As for the Storefront API token, what @Dylan mentioned is correct. As long as your custom app has an Admin API token, and any of the unauthenticated... access scopes, you can use the storefrontAccessTokenCreate mutation on the Admin API to retrieve Storefront API tokens.

And more information about Public and Private Storefront API Access Tokens here as well:

5

Just to add on, I made a simple tool to perform that credential grant flow:

https://authcrate.shop

This will perform that grant for you, so you can easily get an access token.