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How to choose which Shopify data your agent may read
Permission design is the least glamorous part of setting up an agent and the part that most determines whether it embarrasses you.
4 min read
What can the agent read?
Products, orders, inventory and customer records, in groups you grant per agent, plus human-support escalation and optional extended reasoning.
There are 101 Shopify operations available across those groups: 33 on orders, 18 on customers, 38 on products and 12 on inventory.
What should a support agent be allowed to read?
Products and inventory at minimum. Add orders if customers ask about deliveries. Add customers only if recognising returning buyers is worth the extra exposure.
A support agent that can read orders answers "where is my order?" without a person. That is usually the highest-value permission you can grant, and it is also the one that touches personal data — so grant it deliberately, not by default.
Why grant fewer permissions?
Because every permission is another way for the agent to state something wrong with confidence.
An agent that cannot read inventory cannot misquote a stock level. If you are not ready for that class of error, the honest move is to withhold the permission until you have watched the agent on the ones you did grant.
Can you change permissions later?
Yes, per agent, at any time. Changes take effect on the next run.
Start narrow, read the run timelines for a week, then expand where the agent is clearly being held back.
Common questions
Does the agent see customer personal data?
Only if you grant the customer group. Even then it accesses what it needs to answer, and the data stays scoped to your store.
Can I give different agents different permissions?
Yes. Permissions are per agent, which is the main reason to run more than one.
Related guides
- How to set up an AI agent that answers from your live inventory
- How to index your Shopify products so an AI can search them
All guides are listed in the help centre. If none of them answers it, email [email protected].
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