--- title: How AI drove Shopify back to clean code | daily.dev description: Shopify is developing a new storefront theme that replaces its JSON-heavy Horizon theme with clean, HTML-centric code using its Liquid templating language. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How AI drove Shopify back to clean code | daily.dev og:description: Shopify is developing a new storefront theme that replaces its JSON-heavy Horizon theme with clean, HTML-centric code using its Liquid templating language. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/S8cylL5re.png og:image:alt: How AI drove Shopify back to clean code og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How AI drove Shopify back to clean code **[DEVCLASS](https://daily.dev/sources/devclass)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Shopify is developing a new storefront theme that replaces its JSON-heavy Horizon theme with clean, HTML-centric code using its Liquid templating language. The redesign was driven by the needs of Shopify's AI assistant Sidekick, which now handles 25 million theme edits per year from 20% of merchants. The key insight is that AI agents benefit from the same code qualities humans do: readability, explicit contracts, and constructive feedback. The new theme has 93% fewer lines of code than Horizon and introduces composable block tags, typed parameters similar to React props, partial page updates, and standard event actions. Liquid also gains new syntax including Boolean expressions and future Tailwind CSS support. The broader takeaway is that optimizing for AI comprehension may push the industry back toward more human-readable code formats. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How to Use AI in Shopify](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-use-ai-in-shopify-yamhg5m5p) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Shopify is preparing for AI shopping agents to change everything, exec says](https://daily.dev/posts/shopify-is-preparing-for-ai-shopping-agents-to-change-everything-exec-says-bawnndcfr) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Every ecommerce hero needs a Sidekick](https://daily.dev/posts/every-ecommerce-hero-needs-a-sidekick-sxlq6vcgq) · Stack Overflow Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#html](https://daily.dev/tags/html), [#shopify](https://daily.dev/tags/shopify) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How AI drove Shopify back to clean code","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re"},"datePublished":"2026-07-26T13:28:47.298Z","dateModified":"2026-07-26T13:29:50.044Z","description":"Shopify is developing a new storefront theme that replaces its JSON-heavy Horizon theme with clean, HTML-centric code using its Liquid templating language. The...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f255c2274256732efa45c850e23c7882?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f255c2274256732efa45c850e23c7882?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"DEVCLASS","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DEVCLASS","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--quq5_zKP--/f_auto/v1732552064/logos/devclass","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/devclass"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-ai-drove-shopify-back-to-clean-code-s8cyll5re","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,html,shopify","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"DEVCLASS","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/devclass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How AI drove Shopify back to clean code"}]} ```