Executive summary
- What: an app extension is now eligible for Sidekick if it declares tools, intents, or both. Previously only tools counted, so intent-only extensions were invisible to Sidekick.
- Why: apps that registered an intent and nothing else were never suggested to merchants, which was a silent gap rather than a documented limitation.
- Who: app development teams. There is a deploy-blocking side effect, so this needs checking before your next release rather than at leisure.
What changed
Eligibility for Sidekick widened. The targeting block you already declare for app actions is now sufficient on its own, on both the admin.app.intent.link and admin.app.intent.render targets. No configuration format changed, and no new field was introduced. An extension that registered an intent without a tools file alongside it was previously skipped, and now it is not.
The consequence worth flagging is on deploy. Sidekick-eligible extensions have always required an extensions_summary under the sidekick section of shopify.app.toml. Intent-only extensions were not eligible, so they never triggered that requirement. Now that they are eligible, an app with an intent-only extension and no extensions_summary will fail validation on its next deploy with an error naming the missing field. Apps whose Sidekick extensions already declare tools are unaffected, because they already carried the summary. Apps with no Sidekick extensions at all are untouched.
There is no feature preview, permission or scope attached, and it is not tied to an API version, so pinning an older version does not opt you out. It applied to every store at once.
Why it matters
For merchants the practical effect is modest but real: apps that were built correctly and still never appeared in Sidekick should now start appearing. If your team invested in an intent-only extension and concluded the integration did not work, it probably did work and simply was not eligible.
The deploy failure is the part that costs time. It surfaces at deploy rather than at authoring, which means it tends to be discovered mid-release by whoever is shipping, not by whoever wrote the extension. For merchants running custom apps built for their own operations, the check is a few minutes of work and is worth doing before it interrupts a deployment window.
Role-specific impact
- Marketers: effectively none, beyond noting that an internal or partner app may begin surfacing in Sidekick where it previously did not.
- Developers: audit each shopify.extension.toml for an intents block on the two admin intent targets with no tools file alongside it, then confirm shopify.app.toml carries an extensions_summary.
- Store admins: expect Sidekick to suggest a slightly wider set of apps. Nothing to configure, but worth knowing if staff ask why a new suggestion appeared.
Use-case example
Real-world scenario
An agency maintaining a custom fulfilment app for a Plus merchant had shipped an intent-only render extension months earlier to let staff jump from Sidekick into a pick-list view. It never surfaced, and the team assumed the integration was not supported and stopped investing in it. The extension is now eligible with no code change. The same audit caught a missing extensions_summary that would have failed the next scheduled deploy, a release covering peak-season fulfilment changes. Adding one line of configuration took under ten minutes and avoided a blocked deployment during a freeze-sensitive week.
Implementation checklist
- Search each shopify.extension.toml for an intents targeting block on admin.app.intent.link or admin.app.intent.render.
- For every match, confirm whether a tools file exists alongside it. Intent-only extensions are the ones that changed.
- Confirm shopify.app.toml has an extensions_summary under the sidekick section, and add a clear one-line description if it is missing.
- Run a deploy against a development store to confirm validation passes before touching production.
- Ask Sidekick a question matching your registered intent and confirm the app is suggested.
- Note the newly eligible extensions in your release notes so support knows the behaviour changed.
FAQ
Q: Can we opt out or pin an older API version to delay this?
A: No. The change is not tied to an API version and has no feature preview or scope gate. It applies to every store already.
Q: Our Sidekick extensions all declare tools. Do we need to do anything?
A: No. Those extensions were already eligible and already required an extensions_summary, so nothing changes for them.
Resources
Build for Sidekick on shopify.dev
Need guidance? Talk to Makro.