I have a project to build an online store for the UK market, but I have no experience with Shopify yet. However, I’ve been a programmer for a long time, I use Cursor AI, and I want to build the frontend through it.
My first question is: should the business owner create the Shopify account themselves, and which plan should they choose — Basic (£25/month), Grow, Advanced, Plus — or can this step be skipped initially?
After they add me as a collaborator, what is the easiest way for me to extract the code and work on it inside Cursor?
Also, is there a specific Shopify language or framework I should use in Cursor so that the elements/components remain movable and editable through Shopify’s UI editor afterward?
And in general, I would really appreciate any advice or best practices for developing Shopify stores using AI tools like Cursor.
If you set up a partner account you can create a free dev store which can be transferred to your client when they’re ready to start selling.
The templating language you’d be using to render store data and allow for sections to be customisable in the editor is Liquid. Shopify storefronts also use regular HTML, CSS and JS - Liquid is essentially the API that connects to the store data.
Since you’re already using Cursor, I’d highly recommend using Shopify’s official AI Toolkit. It connects Cursor directly with Your Store, Shopify docs, Liquid validation, APIs, and Shopify CLI, which makes AI-generated code much more accurate and Shopify-aware.
It saves a lot of time compared to using Cursor without Shopify context, especially when working with Liquid, sections, metafields, and Shopify APIs. Cursor + Shopify AI Toolkit + Shopify CLI is probably the smoothest setup right now for Shopify development.