Introducing a new Node library for accessing the Shopify Admin API

[Liam]

Hi App Developer Community,

The new Shopify Admin API library for Node is here! This library makes interacting with the Admin API easy and works with any backend framework (Koa, Express, etc). 

This new library includes all the key features we believe developers are looking for when building a Shopify app, including:

•   JWT Based Authentication
•   REST / GraphQL Clients
•   GraphQL Proxy 
•   Cursor Based Pagination
•   Webhooks subscription helpers and HMAC validation 

The existing `koa-shopify-auth` package has also been updated to use this new library [migration guide here], as well as our Node & React tutorial and the Shopify App CLI. For some more examples of its usage, please visit the Getting started guide in the GitHub repository.

The future of Shopify Admin API libraries

Shopify is actively updating all our Admin API libraries in 2021 and this new Node library is the first to be released. Our goal is to create a suite of open-source libraries consistent in functionality across a variety of languages and Shopify’s app best practices. We also have future plans to build enhanced experiences on shopify.dev based on these libraries (tutorials with code samples and requests in API references in your language preference).

We want your input to make the libraries as useful as possible, to enable the developer community to get their apps on the Shopify App Store as soon as possible.

Have some feedback? Reply to this post and let us know!

[dylanpierce]

Finally we have official NextJs + Koa session token authentication support!

This is great and something I & the Node community has been asking for for quite some time.

https://github.com/Shopify/shopify-app-bridge/issues/13

However, I just want to point out that since NextJs version 10, they no longer recommend using a separate secondary server (like Koa.js) to handle backend API requests. Instead they have included API routing support directly in the framework: https://nextjs.org/docs/api-routes/introduction

In addition you cannot deploy a NextJS application to Vercel with the official Shopify NextJS + Koa implementation. https://nextjs.org/docs/advanced-features/custom-server

In addition after rolling out my own 100% NextJS implementation of OAuth & Session Token validation on my projects, I'm seeing a huge reduction in page refresh time. The development cycle is so much quicker.

I know NextJS and Javascript practices move much more quickly than mature frameworks like Ruby on Rails, I just ask that we try to be more in lockstep with the latest version & practices of the software stack in the documentation.

That's my only ask! Thanks again for sharing this with the community, most other NextJS apps are following the official docs and this will help most get their foot in the door.

 

[amosmos]

Hey @dylanpierce share your custom framework or at least record a video tutorial about how you made it and sell it, I want to buy

Amos

[dylanpierce]

Thanks @amosmos it's just the authentication portion, no full fledged framework yet.

It's available to download as an npm/yarn package: https://github.com/ctrlaltdylan/shopify-nextjs-toolbox

```

npm i --save shopify-nextjs-toolbox

yarn add shopify-nextjs-toolbox

```

And here's an example app repository using the package for authentication with OAuth & the new session tokens without cookies: https://github.com/ctrlaltdylan/shopify-session-tokens-nextjs

All open source and free.

[mattryles]

Thanks @dylanpierce , much appreciated by a new Shopify dev trying to use the correct auth flow. 

[dylanpierce]

@mattryles glad it's helping you!

[amosmos]

Thanks @dylanpierce you're awesome!

For some reason in my original post the smilies I put didn't show, just know I meant it with tons of respect!

Thanks,

Amos