Assigning variables in a centralized location

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

A developer is seeking advice on managing centralized variable definitions in a Liquid-based store.

Current situation:

  • Variables are defined in a snippet and made available to other Liquid files using include
  • This approach has worked well for years

The problem:

  • include has been deprecated in favor of render
  • render works differently: variables defined within a rendered/included snippet are not shared with the parent Liquid file
  • The variable snippet is somewhat complex and contains logic, making migration to JSON settings files impractical

Key question:
What is the best approach for maintaining centralized variable definitions given these constraints?

Summarized with AI on November 14. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

We have a snippet that’s used to define a few variables that are used throughout our store.

Currently, we use include to make those variables available to other liquid files. It’s worked great for years, but I’m now reading that include has been replaced with render… but render works completely differently for this purpose: variables defined within the included/rendered snipped are not shared with the parent liquid file.

What is our best option here? Our variable snippet is a bit complex, containing some logic, so moving things to the JSON settings file may not work.