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Shopify does not need a plugin or a fake app for this. The SmartAlex widget is a single script tag. You paste it once into your theme (or into a custom Liquid snippet), and Alex appears on every storefront page: your product pages, cart, collections, and checkout-adjacent flows. Shoppers can ask “where is my order”, “how do I return this”, or “does this come in a larger size” and get an answer by voice or chat instead of leaving to email you.
This is the honest integration path today. There is no SmartAlex Shopify app in the App Store. The real, live surface is the widget script (below), the MCP server for operating your account from an AI client, and Custom HTTP Tools for letting Alex look up live order data mid-conversation. A public REST API and native app are in private beta.

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What you will need

  • A SmartAlex workspace with at least one published agent. If you do not have one yet, start at the quickstart.
  • Your tenant ID. Open the widget code panel inside SmartAlex, or ask an MCP client to run smartalex_get_widget_install_code. It is a UUID that you drop into the snippet in place of YOUR_TENANT_ID.
  • Edit access to your Shopify theme (Online Store > Themes).

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The snippet

This is the exact tag SmartAlex generates. The only value you change is YOUR_TENANT_ID. There is no variant, colour, or agent attribute in the snippet: the widget reads its published config from the server at load time, so restyling in Widget Studio never means re-pasting.

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Method 1: paste into theme.liquid

This is the most reliable option and puts the widget on every page of the storefront.
1

Open your theme code

In Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes. On the theme you want to edit, click the … (three dots) button and choose Edit code.
2

Open theme.liquid

In the left file tree, under Layout, open theme.liquid. This is the master wrapper that renders on every storefront page.
3

Paste the snippet before the closing body tag

Scroll to the bottom of the file and find </body>. Paste the SmartAlex snippet on its own line directly above it, with your real tenant ID in place of YOUR_TENANT_ID.
4

Save and preview

Click Save, then open your live store (or the theme preview) in a new tab. The widget loads on the bottom of the page. If you do not see it, hard-refresh once to clear the cached theme.
Editing the live theme applies immediately. If you would rather test first, duplicate the theme, add the snippet to the copy, preview it, and only then publish. Because the snippet is byte-identical across every widget variant, nothing about it changes when you go live.

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Method 2: a reusable Liquid snippet

If you prefer to keep third-party scripts out of theme.liquid, put the tag in its own snippet and render it. This keeps the code in one named file that is easy to find and remove later.
1

Create the snippet file

In Edit code, under Snippets, click Add a new snippet and name it smartalex-widget. Shopify creates snippets/smartalex-widget.liquid.
2

Paste the tag into the snippet

3

Render it from theme.liquid

Back in theme.liquid, add this line just before </body>:
4

Save and preview

Save both files and reload your store. On an Online Store 2.0 theme you can alternatively drop a Custom Liquid section from the theme editor and paste the same tag, though theme.liquid is the surest way to load it site-wide.

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Choosing a variant for retail

You pick the widget style in Widget Studio, not in the snippet. For a store, the two most useful are the default Pill (voice-first with chat, compact and unobtrusive) and Ask Alex (a premium voice and text messenger). Chat-only variants suit stores that would rather keep everything text.
One variant is known by three names, which trips people up: the database calls it ask_alex_v2, Widget Studio labels it Widget v2, and the storefront experience is Ask Alex. It is the same widget. The voice-only variants (Voice pill and Ask Alex) only appear in the picker once your agent runs on the SmartAlex voice engine. See widget variants for the full breakdown.

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Answering order status and returns

The value in retail is Alex handling the repetitive “where is my order” and “how do I return this” questions before they reach your inbox. General answers (store hours, shipping policy, sizing) work out of the box from your agent’s knowledge. To answer a specific order, Alex needs to look it up live. That live lookup is a Custom HTTP Tool: during the conversation, Alex calls an HTTPS endpoint you host, passes the order number or email, and reads back the status your endpoint returns. Your endpoint is where you talk to the Shopify Admin API on your own side. Custom HTTP Tools are part of the Power Tools add-on ($29/mo).
Do not expose customer order data to an unauthenticated endpoint. Your Custom HTTP Tool endpoint should require a secret, scope lookups to a single order, and never return more than the shopper asked for. Alex only sees what your endpoint chooses to return.

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Pricing

The widget itself is included with your plan. Order-lookup tooling needs the Power Tools add-on at $29/mo, which also unlocks the Developer Portal and MCP API keys. The Professional plan is $99/mo with 250 included minutes, then usage is roughly $0.05/min blended. Add-ons are bundled on Enterprise. Full numbers are on pricing and add-ons.

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Verify it is working

  1. Open your live store in an incognito window and confirm the widget appears on a product page and the home page.
  2. Send one text message (“what are your shipping times”) and confirm Alex replies.
  3. If you chose a voice variant, tap to start a call and confirm audio connects.
  4. Check the conversation shows up in your SmartAlex analytics.

Widget install guide

The full reference for the script tag, React usage, and every variant.

Retail use case

How stores use Alex for order status, returns, and product questions.

Agent tools

Set up the Custom HTTP Tool that looks up live order data mid-call.

All build-with guides

Embed the widget in Webflow, Framer, WordPress, Wix, and more.