Feeds

A feed publishes a set of records from your store at a public URL, in a format another system can read. A supplier fetches https://shop.example.com/feeds/products.csv each night to see your current catalog and prices. A marketplace reads the same records as XML. A partner’s script reads them as JSON.

You decide what a feed contains and what it looks like. A Query record picks the records, from any object StoreConnect syncs to the storefront. A Feed record carries a Liquid template that renders them, in JSON, JSON Lines, XML, CSV, HTML, Markdown or plain text. A Store Feed record mounts the result at a path in one store. Nothing is deployed and no endpoint is written: a feed is three saved records.

A feed is public and unauthenticated. Anyone with the URL can read it.

Feeds are not the StoreConnect API, which is authenticated, reads and writes, and exposes endpoints StoreConnect defines. A feed is read-only output that you define yourself. Feeds are also separate from the Google Merchant feed and the Facebook catalog data feed, which StoreConnect generates automatically on fixed paths and you cannot change.

When to use a feed

A feed fits when another system needs your data on a repeating basis and on its own terms. You shape the output to the format that system already expects, and it either reads the URL or receives a push on a schedule, so neither side has to build anything to translate between you.

It also serves as a straightforward extract when someone just needs the data once. The URL opens in a browser or a spreadsheet, and the HTML, Markdown and plain-text formats are there for output a person reads rather than a program.

Because a feed is public, the question to settle first is not what you want to publish but what you would accept anyone reading. Catalog and content data suit a feed. Customer, order and payment data do not belong in one.

In this section

• Set up a feed — create the three records, choose the formats, and decide whether the feed renders on request or is built to a schedule and delivered
• Feed query language — the clauses that decide which records a feed contains

For the field-level definitions of the records involved, see Feed object reference, Query object reference and Store Feed object reference.