Shopify marked its REST Admin API as legacy on October 1, 2024, and made GraphQL its primary direction for app development.4 Its announcement set April 1, 2025 as the requirement for new public apps submitted to the Shopify App Store to use GraphQL.
That does not mean every existing connection stops working on April 1. Existing apps and the separately announced product API migration have their own considerations. One deadline cannot safely stand in for the whole picture.
For a merchant, the immediate decision is whether to schedule a migration, obtain a vendor’s plan or investigate an integration nobody has formally adopted. That last category tends to be surprisingly busy.
If a vendor owns the app, ask for evidence
An installed app may be maintained by its provider. Rewriting that provider’s integration is not your team’s job, but understanding the operational exposure is.
Ask which Shopify APIs the app uses, which changes affect it, what the provider is doing and whether your store needs to take action. A reply saying “we support Shopify” is pleasantly broad. So is “we support transportation,” and I would still check whether my airport transfer involves a horse.
Follow the work, not just the app list
The integration inventory should include scheduled imports, warehouse connections, private scripts and reporting tools as well as visible apps. Record an owner and the business operation each one supports.
A read-only report and a fulfillment update do not carry the same consequence if they fail. Prioritize according to the work that becomes blocked, the applicable deadline and the difficulty of recovery.
See our Shopify services, from careful refreshes to full builds.
If you own the integration, migrate a business operation
A GraphQL migration is more than replacing a URL. Queries request specified fields; mutations change data. The returned structures and error handling need deliberate mapping to the existing application.
In a fictional store, start with a bounded operation such as reading the information needed for an internal order view. Define its expected behavior, implement the replacement and compare results before switching the live path.
Let old and new coexist carefully
Gradual replacement resembles Martin Fowler’s Strangler Fig approach: move behavior in manageable pieces while the surrounding system continues operating.3 That can reduce the size of each change, though it introduces temporary routing and comparison work.
Parallel reads can help reveal differences. Parallel writes need much more caution. Sending the same fulfillment action through two implementations is not a comparison; it may be two instructions to do real work.
Give each migrated operation one authoritative write path and a clear rollback boundary. Returning to the old reader is different from undoing a shipment already submitted.
Related read: API rate limits: the queue needs a plan, not more enthusiasm.
Test the outcome behind the response
GraphQL can return HTTP 200 while the response contains errors. Mutations can expose userErrors that the application needs to request and handle. A successful network request is therefore not proof that the intended business change succeeded.
Also account for query cost and throttling rather than carrying across a REST request-count assumption. The practical test is how the integration behaves under realistic data volume, including incomplete and rejected operations.
Before a cutover, check:
- The expected records and relationships are present, including awkward historical data.
- Missing permissions produce an actionable failure.
- Retries do not duplicate business actions.
- Delayed events and interrupted jobs can be recovered.
- Staff can verify the final order or fulfillment state.
If nobody owns it, solve that first
Zulu Shack recommends assigning an accountable owner before treating this as an isolated development ticket. Someone needs to track API versions, vendor announcements, deployment and operational verification after the migration.
That owner does not have to write every query. They do need to know who will notice if the nightly stock update quietly stops updating stock.
The October announcement gives a direction of travel, not a reason to rebuild the entire store. Establish the inventory, confirm the dates that actually apply and migrate one useful piece at a time. The integration should keep doing its job while the plumbing changes.