How to Set Up a Shopify Staging Environment for Testing

Partner Discussions
1

I’m looking for the best way to set up a staging environment for my Shopify store. I want to be able to test changes in a controlled environment before pushing them to the live store.

Here are my current thoughts:

  • Theme Kit or Shopify CLI: I’m considering using either of these tools to download the theme and upload it to a new theme in Shopify.
  • Shopify Flow: I’m thinking of using Shopify Flow to automate the transfer of product data, collections, and other content from the live store to the staging store.

I’m open to other suggestions and best practices. Here are some specific questions:

  1. What’s the best way to handle theme customizations and app integrations in the staging environment?
  2. How can I ensure data consistency between the live and staging stores?
  3. Are there any third-party tools or services that can help streamline the process?

I’d appreciate any advice and recommendations from the community. Thanks in advance!

2

For the local dev workflow, I’d recommend using the theme commands in the Shopify CLI - as it has more features like theme check, live hot reloading, etc.

For using Flow to automate transferring store content from the production environment to the dev environment - I don’t think I’ve come across that configuration before. Is it important for both environments to be a like for like exact copy of each other (inc products, content, custom data, etc). If so, and if Flow can do this - then it could work.