I’ve already generated a quick start store connected to mock.shop. However, the mock.shop store is not going to work for my use case, as it doesn’t support customer login.
I need to see and test the customer login while developing the storefront locally.
The Hydrogen channel only connects to live stores. This is not good - it makes no sense to do development on a live store in my case.
I’ve installed the Headless channel in my developer store and can see the public and private access tokens generated.
My problem is that I’m new to working with Hydrogen/Remix, etc. (my developer experience is with legacy Liquid templating) and I don’t know how to use the Headless channel tokens to link my storefront to the dev store.
I’m assuming there’s either a file I can edit or a terminal command I can use, but I can’t seem to find documentation on this process.
Can someone please help me?
Hi, I’m happy to try and help you with this. Do you have a paid for Shopify storefront?
Hi, Bret! Thanks for offering to help! I have a Pause and Build Plan, so yes. But I don’t want to use it for development. That won’t work. I want to use dummy products set up in my development store and connect using the Headless channel.
All I want is to be able to see my development on local host using the dummy products and customer set up in my development store. Once I’m done with development, I would reconnect the Hydrogen storefront to my live store, set up the real products, upgrade my plan and deploy to Oxygen.
Hi, unfortunately at this point in time a Hydrogen channel and a paid store is currently required for this development setup.
@JP_Prieto Thanks for the reply! Looking at the docs, I thought Hydrogen could be connected to the Headless channel, but on second glance, I see it’s Hydrogen React.
Your reply is correct, but it didn’t meet all the requirements to solve my problem. I’m documenting the solution I found and marking it correct in case it helps someone else.
My solution (technically a workaround) is to set a password on the live store before connecting to it. I’m still having issues logging in as a customer, but it might be because the code for the quickstart store isn’t set up to do this (perhaps because Legacy accounts is on).
It’s not ideal. I’d much rather have a full-fledged developer store to connect to while developing. That’s what they are for. I don’t understand why Shopify is deficient in this area.
But I will use this workaround for now. Hopefully it helps others who find the Mock Shop inadequate but can’t allow public access to the store they are developing and have access to a paid plan.
Thanks for sharing your workaround. One of the current blockers is abuse of development stores. We are constantly evaluating how to improve the developer experience and these inputs are super valuable.
@JP_Prieto You’re welcome! I didn’t realize my feedback could be helpful to you as well.
Hey @shopahaul 
I’m circling back to this older thread with an update.
As of August 3, 2026, Hydrogen storefronts can be deployed to Oxygen from development stores. Oxygen previously required a paid plan: Oxygen is now available on development stores - Shopify developer changelog
For Customer Account API testing, authentication callbacks still can’t use localhost. Local testing requires a public URL through a tunnelling service such as ngrok: Using the Customer Account API with Hydrogen
When a Hydrogen branch is deployed, its Oxygen preview URL is automatically added to the Customer Account API application setup: Hydrogen deploys automatically add preview URLs to Customer Account API application setup - Shopify developer changelog
Development stores don’t include public environments, so deployment URLs require a store login. If you run into an issue, share the exact error and any request ID included in the response, and we can take a look.
Hope this helps!