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Our Shopify development process

Custom code on a live store needs a careful process. Customers keep shopping while we work, so nothing gets changed on the published theme until you've seen it and approved it.

From first look to launch

  1. We look at the code

    With collaborator access to your store, we read the theme and check the apps before estimating. Most surprises in Shopify projects come from code nobody looked at first.

  2. You get a written scope

    What we'll build, how it will work, what it won't do, and the estimate. If there's a cheaper way to get most of the result, such as an existing app, we include it.

  3. We build on a copy

    All work happens on a duplicate of your theme. You get a preview link to test on desktop and phone, and we fix what you find before anything goes live.

  4. Launch and hand-off

    We publish at a quiet time, check orders and key pages afterwards, and send notes on what changed and where it lives in the theme.

What we need from you

Not much, but it helps to have it ready:

  • Collaborator access. Shopify lets you give a developer access without sharing your login, and you choose which areas we can see. You can remove it any time.
  • One person who decides. Projects move faster when feedback comes from one place.
  • Real examples. A product that uses every option, an order that caused trouble, a page that's slow. Testing against real data finds problems that sample data hides.

How we keep your store safe

The published theme is never edited directly. Changes are tracked, so if something needs to be rolled back we know exactly what to undo, and Shopify keeps the previous theme in your library as a fallback.

We also keep custom work separate from the original theme files wherever possible. That matters later: when your theme gets an update, custom sections and snippets are easy to find and carry over instead of being mixed into hundreds of lines of someone else's code.

Who you talk to

Abra is a small studio, so you talk to the person writing the code, not an account manager passing messages along. That's Ronen Hirsch, a designer and developer with over 20 years behind him.

After launch

Code keeps needing attention.

Shopify changes its APIs on a schedule, apps update, and themes get new versions. We can stay on for follow-up work as needed, or hand everything over with notes to your own team or another developer.

More about Abra

Start with step one.

Tell us what you need built. If it turns out custom code isn't the answer, we'll say so.

Talk about your build