It's our most boring Edition ever. And that’s good for devs.

This Edition, we doubled down on making the existing tools you use every day better, so that you can focus on building. Here’s what’s improved:

1. An even smoother, more consistent checkout

Developers can now build and implement smoother checkout workflows.

• Carts load up to 50% faster: We've optimized our infrastructure for faster loading and reduced query latency on global storefronts.
• Faster loading for accelerated checkout buttons: Accelerated checkout buttons now support functions and bundles via Portable Wallets from the PDP or Cart pages, with buttons loading up to 58% faster.
• New chat apps built straight into Checkout: Build and embed your chat app into checkout and thank you pages using the Chat UI component, and query information about the checkout and store.
• Draft orders improved:
• Checkout extensions now load in draft order checkouts when using API version 2024-07 or later. Exclusive to Plus. 
• Functions are now supported in draft orders, so developers can extend their custom backend logic to draft orders. This means a more seamless and consistent experience across all merchant selling channels. 

2. Build storefronts faster

From Liquid DX improvements to metaobjects updates, building storefronts is more efficient than ever before.

Liquid DX improvements

• Supercharged VS Code Extension: Liquid’s Language Server now supports a comprehensive set of autocomplete features that will improve productivity. With this new experience, Liquid will autocomplete on every object, including metafields, and inform developers of common mistakes while fixing them automatically.
• Unified GraphQL API: Developers can now manage every part of the online store from a single call to the GraphQL Admin API including themes, menus, pages, articles, and blogs, streamlining the developer workflow. Developers can now upload, publish, and delete themes, as well as read, write, and delete theme files. 
• Rebuilt Shopify CLI: Developers now have access to a rebuilt CLI, which means:
• Instant development server startup, eliminating any previous waiting period for synchronization before opening a browser.
• No dependency on Ruby, streamlining development cycle with easier install process & setup.
• A stable development experience and streamlines the setup and upgrade process.

Hydrogen

• Sitemap functionality: Improved scalability in generating sitemaps, aiding SEO for stores with large product catalogs, which will help drive more search traffic to a merchant’s storefront. 
• Hydrogen OptimisticVariant hook: Hydrogen now provides optimistic variant support that makes switching between variants instantaneous.
• Hydrogen custom environment files: Easily work on multiple stores from a single codebase, using different .env files for each store.
• Hydrogen supports gift cards: Enable customers to apply gift cards directly to their carts on Hydrogen stores with a new feature on the cart handler and starter template.
• Localized consent on Hydrogen: Display consent requests in multiple languages, improving the user experience and compliance across different regions.
• Low inventory cart warnings: Inventory errors are now available in a new return field in the Storefront API, showing warnings to manage items in the cart or display information to the buyer.

Metaobjects

• Theme editor: Metaobjects are now available across the entire theme using the dynamic source picker in the theme editor, allowing developers to easily access metaobjects anywhere in a theme. This makes it much easier to customize merchant storefronts. 
• Theme settings: Now developers can create or customize a theme to build sections and blocks that require metaobjects of a specific type. For example, a section that easily pulls in product reviews.

3. Building on Shopify is even more delightful 

From Shopify Functions performance improvements to going all in on GraphQL, we’ve made enhancements that make building on Shopify better than ever.

Shopify Functions

• Larger batch support: We’ve enhanced Shopify Functions to support larger batches. 
• Increased Functions for discounts: We’ve also improved the performance of loading input data, increasing the number of Functions that power automatic discounts from 5 to 25. 
• Dynamic scaling: Shopify Functions execution limits now dynamically scale with carts that have over 200 lines, supporting larger carts. 
• Functions are now supported in draft orders: This ensures consistent experiences between store checkouts and draft order checkouts. Developers can now extend their custom backend logic to draft orders, providing a more seamless and consistent experience across all merchant selling channels.

“In my opinion, Functions are the best thing that has come out of Shopify during my time working on the platform. It was built by developers for developers and has unlocked Pandora's box when it comes to what is possible on the platform," says Kurtis Tozer, Principal Frontend Engineer at 10SQ.

GraphQL

• All in on GraphQL: GraphQL is now the primary API for interfacing with Shopify, supported by comprehensive documentation to ease the transition from REST API usage. 
• Enhanced dev documentation: We’ve improved the dev documentation for REST to GraphQL transition, and built new endpoint mappings within REST to more easily find equivalent operations in GraphQL. 

 .dev assistant

• New chat functionality: An LLM-powered assistant to help developers generate and navigate GraphQL operations on shopify.dev now supports chat and multi-turn conversations. It also supports more REST to GraphQL use cases.

4. Subscriptions source code available to the public

The Shopify Subscriptions Reference app–the source code from the Shopify Subscriptions app–is now publicly available. It will now function as a reference app or starting point to accelerate the development of a custom or public subscriptions app.

Check out the Winter ‘25 Edition to see more than 150+ updates to Shopify and everything we’ve improved for developers.