Shopify Winter ’26 Edition: building faster with the Dev MCP server with Eytan Seidman

Dec 11, 2025

Eytan Seidman, VP of Product at Shopify, dives into the exciting features of Winter '26, focusing on AI's role in enhancing developer experiences. He explains the power of the Dev MCP server for rapid app development and highlights tools like Cursor and Claude Desktop for streamlining processes. Eytan also discusses the innovative Sidekick, which integrates apps to improve merchant tools. Plus, the new analytics API opens fresh possibilities for tracking and improving store performance. It's a treasure trove of insights for developers and merchants alike!

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Platform-Wide Development From Your IDE

The DevMCP server lets developers access the entire Shopify platform from their IDE and generate working app code rapidly.
Eytan Seidman says it turns ideas into hot-reloaded experiences in tens of seconds.

ADVICE

Validate Generated Code Before Running

Run generated code through Shopify's MCP validation tool to catch hallucinations and build/run issues.
Use MCP clients like Cursor or Claude Desktop to surface validation results before deployment.

INSIGHT

Platform Primitives Are The Default Choice

The MCP server defaults to Shopify primitives like Metafields and MetaObjects when appropriate.
Developers must still evaluate whether platform primitives match their data privacy, performance, or business needs.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Eytan Seidman, VP of product at Shopify, joins the podcast to unpack Shopify's Winter '26 Edition and how AI is emerging into the market for developers and merchants.
They discuss the new Dev MCP server, showing how tools like Cursor and Claude Desktop can rapidly scaffold Shopify apps, wire up Shopify functions, and ship payment customization and checkout UI extension experiences that lean on Shopify primitives like meta fields and meta objects across online stores and point of sale.
Eytan also breaks down how Sidekick connects with apps, why the new analytics API and ShopifyQL open fresh analytics use cases, and more.

Links

Shopify Winter '26 Edition: https://www.shopify.com/editions/winter2026

We want to hear from you!

How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend?

Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu

Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod.

Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/

Follow us. Get free stickers.

What does LogRocket do?

LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today.

Chapters

01:00 — AI as the Focus of Winter ’26
02:00 — MCP Server as the Ideal Dev Workflow
03:00 — Best Clients for MCP (Cursor, Claude Desktop)
04:00 — Hallucinations & Code Validation in MCP
06:00 — Developer Judgment & Platform Primitives
07:00 — Storage Choices: Meta Fields vs External Storage
09:00 — Learning UI Patterns Through MCP
10:00 — Sidekick Overview & Merchant Automation
11:00 — Apps Inside Sidekick: Data & UI Integration
13:00 — Scopes, Data Access & Developer Responsibility
14:00 — AI-Ready Platform & Explosion of New Apps
16:00 — New Developer Demographics Entering Shopify
17:00 — Where Indie Devs Should Focus (POS, Analytics)
18:00 — New Analytics API & Opportunities
19:00 — Full Platform Coverage via MCP Tools
20:00 — Building Complete Apps in Minutes
21:00 — Large Stores, Token Limits & MCP Scaling
22:00 — Reducing Errors with UI & Function Testing
23:00 — Lessons from Building the MCP Server
25:00 — Lowering Barriers for Non-Experts
26:00 — High-Quality Rust Functions via MCP
27:00 — MCP Spec Adoption: Tools Over Resources
28:00 — Future: Speed, Quality & UI Precision
29:00 — Model Evolution, Evals & Reliability
31:00 — Core Shopify Primitives to Build On
33:00 — Docs, Community & Learning Resources