Creating custom app using the new Dev Dashboard in Shopify

Starting January 1, 2026, Shopify has updated the way custom apps are created and managed, moving away from the legacy “custom app” model to a more secure and standardized approach through the Shopify Dev Dashboard. This change aligns with Shopify’s broader focus on improving app security, access control, and developer experience. We need to support custom app for partners that test on local instances and can not connect to our public app.

With the new flow, custom apps are now created directly within the Shopify Admin using the Dev Dashboard, providing better visibility into app permissions, API credentials, and lifecycle management. This document outlines the updated process, highlights key differences from the previous approach, and guides you step-by-step through creating and configuring a custom app using the new system.

****The custom apps that have already been created will continue to function as intended. 

Prerequisites:

• Admin Access to working Shopify store.
• Notepad to be able to get authorization code from browser URL.
• Postman to make API call to get access token.

Step 1: Create app on Shopify Dev dashboard:

To create app on shopify dev dashboard, the user must:

1. Log into the Shopify admin account.
2. Go to Settings → Apps and click on develop apps.
3. Click on Build apps using Dev Dashboard.             
4. The user is directed to dev dashboard.
5. Click on Create app.   

   

    

6. Name the app as intended and click Create.  
7. In the subsequent Create version page provide the following settings and click Release.
   • App URL: This is the URL that the users will get redirected to after the app is installed.  Since we do not need to embed the app in Shopify admin, user can use default URL: https://shopify.dev/apps/default-app-home.
   • Webhook API version: Choose the latest version from the list.
   • Scopes: These scopes define the data and features the app can access from Shopify. Please select all the scopes.  ***Please note: if there are new scopes that need to be added, user needs to create a new version of the app (Go to the created app → Versions and click Create Version button) and provide scopes there and continue from the sub-step 7 in Step 1. 
   • Redirect URLs: Add any redirect URL where the user will get redirected once app is installed. User can use: http://localhost. This is needed to get authorization code later.
   • POS: Enable the setting for POS by clicking in enbed app in Shopify POS. 

8. Select the distribution method under Distribution section.

9. Select Custom distribution.

10. Provide your store domain and click on Generate Link.

11. Copy the link generated in a new tab of the browser and install the app by clicking on Install. 

12. The app is installed on Shopify store.

The app settings with client Id and client secret can be seen below:

Step 2: Authentication flow to get Access token:

1. To get access token, we need to manually construct the URL that user needs to get the authentication code. The format of the URL is: https://{store myshopify domain}/admin/oauth/authorize?client_id={Client ID from app settings}&redirect_uri={Redirect URl added when app was created}. Example is below:

https://tpandita.myshopify.com/admin/oauth/authorize?client_id=3854da926742fcd5d73291263d59d4c9&redirect_uri=http://localhost    (What this means is that we are asking our store that we want to start the OAuth authorization process for app with client id and if successful we want to be redirected to the redirect uri that was white listed while creating the app).

2. Paste this code to the browser. You will be redirected to page below. We need to copy the URL of the tab to notepad to get the authentication code. 

3. Copy the uri to notepad. Example in my case the URl looks like this: http://localhost/?code=4ffdc72ee3d929ccf4b9690fdf493666&hmac=091d3bbd204ac1506010681f8e399e9bdc045f0905d7d23ca7e227edd4bd491a&host=YWRtaW4uc2hvcGlmeS5jb20vc3RvcmUvdHBhbmRpdGE&shop=tpandita.myshopify.com&timestamp=1775168199

4. In notepad rearrange the uri to see the authentication code as below. 

5. Copy the code since we need this code to create the postman request to get the access token.

Step 2.1: POSTMAN Request to get Access Token:

1. Create POST request with url https://tpandita.myshopify.com/admin/oauth/access_token and the following parameters added:

• client_id
• client_secret
• code  *******The client_id and client secret can be found from the app settings in the dev dashboard. The code is copied from previous section.

2. Send the request.

3. Postman shall return the Access token that must be saved.

*** If users need to recreate the access token, Step 2 must be redone again.

Step 3: Connecting ERP to Shopify Custom App:

1. Open the Acumatica ERP instance.
2. Enable the Shopify Connector.
3. Go to Shopify Store form.
4. Click +.
5. Enter Store Name and save the form.
6. Add the Store Admin URL, API Access Token and API Secret Key. 
7. Click on Test Connection. The store connection should be successful.