Using App Proxies and Impact "Built For Shopify"

App Bridge
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Hi everyone :waving_hand:

We’re building a Shopify app (fully aligned with security and performance best practices), and we have a question regarding the use of Shopify App Proxies—specifically for storefront-related features.

We’re currently using an app proxy as a secure way to query the current refresh state from our database, which is used to conditionally display a dynamic banner on the storefront.
To achieve this, we expose a secured endpoint from our backend, and the proxy acts as a layer of protection for that route—ensuring the request comes through the Shopify storefront and includes the store’s identity.

:red_question_mark: Our main question is:

Does using App Proxies in a public app negatively impact eligibility for the “Shopify App” or “Built for Shopify” badge?

We understand there might be other ways to fetch this data from the theme extension, but so far the proxy method has been the most secure and straightforward for our use case. We’d love to know if this approach is acceptable in the eyes of Shopify’s app review team.

Any guidance from the Shopify Apps team or developers who’ve gone through this process would be highly appreciated :folded_hands:

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Hey @Julian_Bischoff :wave: - thanks for reaching out and for the details on your project. Based on your description there, I don’t see a clear reason why using an App Proxy this way would negatively impact your eligibility for the Built for Shopify program.

That said, I’m going to touch base with the team to see if I can get a definitive answer for you, but if you’re just using the App Proxy to fetch your own app’s data, my feeling is that should be fine.

I’ll loop back with you here when I have some more info - speak with you soon!

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Hey @Julian_Bischoff - was able to speak with the team here and I can confirm that using an app proxy itself doesn’t immediately disqualify your app from Built for Shopify, but we can’t definitively say that it would be approved until the app is built and we’re tracking app performance metrics.

There’s a bit more information in our developer documentation here, but since your app would primarily be running on the frontend of a shop (from my understanding), the main concern would be this per the docs:

Your app must not reduce the storefront Lighthouse performance score by more than ten points.

The Built for Shopify team would have the final say for approval, but hopefully this provides you with some guardrails to consider - hope this helps!

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@Alan_G You are the best! Thank you so much for all this data!

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