Why can't I access ShopifyAPI rest constants with Ruby on Rails 7 and shopify_app gem 21.4?

Shopify Apps

Topic summary

Accessing ShopifyAPI REST resource constants (e.g., ShopifyAPI::Shop) fails in a Rails 7 app using shopify_app 21.4 and Ruby 3.2.0, returning NameError (uninitialized constant). Inspecting ShopifyAPI.constants shows only higher-level modules (Context, Rest, Auth, etc.), suggesting resources aren’t loaded.

Multiple users report the same behavior in the Rails console.

Proposed fix: initialize the Shopify API context before using REST resources. Call ShopifyAPI::Context.setup, ensuring API credentials are present. One example places this in config/initializers/shopify_app.rb inside an after_initialize block that runs Context.setup when ShopifyApp.configuration.api_key and secret are set. Without this setup, the console session may have ShopifyAPI partially loaded without resource classes.

Status: no explicit confirmation of resolution, but the discussion points to a missing initialization/configuration step as the likely cause. Unanswered: whether the initializer runs in the console environment and whether credentials are correctly configured there.

Summarized with AI on January 18. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hello, started creating a new app using rails 7, ruby 3.2.0 using the latest version of shopify_app(21.4) gem. For some reason, I cannot access ShopifyAPI rest constants. When I open rails console and try to call it, it says that there is no such constant.

ShopifyAPI::Shop
uninitialized constant ShopifyAPI::Shop (NameError)

Looks like it is partially loaded, but resources are missing:

ShopifyAPI.constants
[:Context,
 :Inflector,
 :Webhooks,
 :VERSION,
 :AdminVersions,
 :SUPPORTED_ADMIN_VERSIONS,
 :LATEST_SUPPORTED_ADMIN_VERSION,
 :Clients,
 :Auth,
 :Errors,
 :Rest,
 :Logger,
 :Theme,
 :Utils]

And the same with all resources. What may be the reason?

2

I am also facing the same problem, i cannot access store in my rails console. If any body has solution kindly share

3

You have to call ShopifyAPI::Context.setup first

In my project, I had the file ‘config/intializers/shopify_app.rb’ containing some boiler plate code which requires api key and secret to be configured. You may be missing these when you run the rails console

Rails.application.config.after_initialize do
if ShopifyApp.configuration.api_key.present? && ShopifyApp.configuration.secret.present?
ShopifyAPI::Context.setup(