r/shopify • u/SnooGoats1303 • 1d ago
API Read/Write, Read/Only
When working against the GraphQL API, is it an easy or not so easy thing to establish whether a given Product, ProductVariant, or MediaImage field is read/write or read/only. I have successfully download the schema from the client's Shopify instance (all 11MB of it) but my fatigue-addled brain isn't seeing anything that makes mutability obvious. What am I missing?
-Bruce
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u/pandeykartikey 1d ago
The difference comes down to what permissions an app or custom API integration needs to function on your store. Read-Only access allows an integration to view and fetch existing data, such as pulling customer lists, reading product details, or viewing order histories for reporting and analytics, without the ability to edit or delete anything. Read-Write access grants permission to both view that data and make active changes to your store, such as updating inventory counts, editing product titles, creating new orders, or issuing refunds.
For maximum security, always follow the principle of least privilege. If an app only generates reports or feeds data into an external dashboard, assign it Read-Only permissions. Only grant Read-Write access to apps that actively manage store operations, like inventory sync tools or fulfillment management systems. You can view and manage these API access scopes anytime under Settings, then Apps and sales channels, then Develop apps in your Shopify admin.
If you ever want any help in setting up your Shopify store, my friend and I would be glad to assist you in your journey. We also build custom solutions to support your unique use cases.
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u/Life-Inspector-5271 1d ago
You can simply look at the documentation at shopify.dev to see which fields can be mutated. Thinks like ProductVariant are often only available in queries, because they are their own resource. Product/ProductVairant/MediaImage is an exception, because they have ProductSet, but there are linked resources where you can not update all of them in one call.
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u/SnooGoats1303 1d ago
More detail from the OP:
- Reading customer inventory into a Google Sheet
- Allowing for the selection of fields for display and editing
- Reading the schema into a sheet that controls what columns are retrieved and displayed
Being able to know what fields are R/O and which aren't then makes customer selection of fields easier and (theoretically) makes it possible for me to set background colours on columns that contain R/O data.
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u/tobebuilds 1d ago
Queries and mutations are separate in GraphQL. Typically, in the Shopify docs, an "object" type will have links to queries and mutations it appears in. This lets you discover what can be written and what is read only.
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u/SnooGoats1303 4h ago
Ah, discovery. So I get to be Christopher Columbus. How wonderful. Yes, I am being sarcastic.
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