which namespace for metafields created by an app

Technical Q&A
1

Quite new to app development.

I want to add metafields to some products, the metafield is managed by my app using the admin graphql api, and I want to be able to use the metafield in the store’s theme.

I’m wondering which namespace I should use and how to make it so only my app can modify the metafield’s value ?

thanks

2

https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/custom-data/ownership#reserved-prefixes

One format for themes, for non-reserved-prefixes, is simply theme for the namespace {resource}.theme.key.

So to namespace it {resource}.{appname-or-businessname}-theme.key

Though generally theme is a metafield definition that theme developers use for merchants to create and setup specific theme behaviors.

Beyond that namespace metafields(MFs) with the app name, or company name, or acronym/initialism.

and don’t use ambiguous stuff like “custom” because everything is custom that’s the point of a metafield.

And for goodness sakes document not just the string, but the why* in public support docs.

  • example yasa-banner.label.value is inscrutable meaninglessness if you don’t define that yasa means yet-another-shopify-app because that was the companies previous previous previous name.

There used to be an informal registrar in a partners subforum to avoid naming-conflicts but forums got changed so that’s lost to internet rot.

I don’t know if something like that exists in the partner slack channels but may be worth digging around for.

3

So, there is always possibility of naming conflict, but it shouldn’t happen if we do it smartly. Thanks for the quick answer!

EDIT: I just noticed the link at the beginning of the answer! The “$app” thing is very helpful!