How to build a custom JSON API in Shopify with Liquid | ShapeKit
This is a little trick I’ve been using for a few years with Shopify when I want to build really interesting AJAX experiences in a theme.
Many people will tell you that accessing URL parameters is impossible, including top people at Shopify:
https://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/ecommerce-design/t/passing-query-parameters-17259
https://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/ecommerce-design/t/url-parameters-in-liquid-171887
However, it is possible! I’ve been using a technique to capture header information that is the same as Jason over @ FreakDesign but since his code is a bit cleaner with comments, I’ve opted to use his version for this tutorial. PS, if you’ve never seen his GitHub repo, check it out, there is a treasure trove of information.
Pros
- Create exactly the JavaScript objects you need for great AJAX experiences.
- This allows you to build a recommendations engine for example that gets loaded AFTER initial pageload to keep your site fast.
- No need for 3rd party server to interact with Shopify APIs
Cons
- It is invalid JSON (RFC 4627)
- You can’t set the content type to application/json.
- You can’t set encoding to UTF-8, UTF-16 or UTF-32.
- It is a “hack” that Shopify can remove at anytime.
- However this has been available for years already.
Step #1 : Create a new page template in your theme
Go into the HTML/CSS Editor and click add a new template.
Paste in this code.
Step #2 : Create a new page and assign it the new template
In Shopify, go to Online Store > Pages, create a new page, and assign it the template you created in step 1. The page handle becomes part of the URL you use to call the API.
Step #3 : Hit that API!
Your URL will be something similar to this. Now you can replace the “test_tag” value with your tag and get all products and variants for that tag.
/pages/test-api?tag=test_tag&cache=false
Why would I ever need this?
You can do something similar to what Amazon does when loading recommending product and build other unique AJAX experiences.