Agentic Product Taxonomy

Assign every product a Shopify Standard Product Taxonomy category so AI agents can map a shopper's intent to the right category and surface the store's products.

shopify-admin-agentic-product-taxonomy


Purpose

AI shopping agents resolve a query ("running shoes", "office chair", "sustainable sneakers") to a taxonomy node, then retrieve products in that node. Products with no Standard Product Taxonomy category are invisible to that mapping — they only surface on exact keyword luck. This skill finds uncategorized (or mis-categorized) products and assigns the correct Shopify standard taxonomy category, inferred from title/type/tags and confirmed against the live taxonomy tree. Fixes category-taxonomy-api and lifts catalog-intent-alignment.


Prerequisites

  • Authenticated Shopify CLI session (shopify auth login --store )
  • Required API scopes: read_products, write_products

  • Parameters

    All skills accept these universal parameters:


    ParameterTypeRequiredDefaultDescription
    storestringyesStore domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com)
    formatstringnohumanOutput format: human (default) or json
    dry_runboolnofalsePreview mutations without executing

    Skill-specific parameters:


    ParameterTypeRequiredDefaultDescription
    collection_idstringnoLimit to a collection GID
    tagstringnoLimit to a product tag
    only_missingboolnotrueIf true, only assign products with no category; if false, also review mismatches
    confidence_floorfloatno0.7Skip products whose best taxonomy match scores below this

    Safety


    > ⚠️ Step 4 (productUpdate) sets the category on live products, which affects storefront facets, marketplaces, and tax. A wrong category mis-files a product everywhere. Run dry_run: true, review the proposed product → category mapping, and only auto-assign matches above confidence_floor; queue the rest for human review.


    Workflow Steps


  • OPERATION: products — query
  • Inputs: first: 250, optional filter; fields title, productType, tags, category{ id fullName }; paginate.

    Expected output: Products with their current category (or null).


  • OPERATION: taxonomy — query
  • Inputs: search the standard taxonomy tree by candidate terms derived from each product's type/title.

    Expected output: Candidate taxonomy category nodes (id + fullName) to match against.


  • COMPUTE (no API): score each product against candidate nodes; pick the best ≥ confidence_floor. Emit the proposed mapping.

  • OPERATION: productUpdate — mutation
  • Inputs: { id, category: } per confident match.

    Expected output: Updated product category; collect userErrors.


    GraphQL Operations


    # products:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
    query TaxonomyProducts($first: Int!, $after: String, $query: String) {
      products(first: $first, after: $after, query: $query) {
        edges {
          node {
            id
            title
            productType
            tags
            category { id fullName }
          }
        }
        pageInfo { hasNextPage endCursor }
      }
    }
    

    # taxonomy:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
    query TaxonomySearch($search: String) {
      taxonomy {
        categories(first: 20, search: $search) {
          edges { node { id fullName isLeaf level } }
        }
      }
    }
    

    # productUpdate:mutation — validated against api_version 2025-01
    mutation TaxonomyAssign($input: ProductInput!) {
      productUpdate(input: $input) {
        product { id category { id fullName } }
        userErrors { field message }
      }
    }
    

    Session Tracking


    Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.


    On start, emit:

    ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
    ║  SKILL: <skill name>                         ║
    ║  Store: <store domain>                       ║
    ║  Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC>             ║
    ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
    

    After each step, emit:

    [N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION>  <OperationName>
              → Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
              → Result: <count or outcome>
    

    If dry_run: true, prefix every mutation step with [DRY RUN] and do not execute it.


    On completion, emit:


    For format: human (default):

    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    OUTCOME SUMMARY
      <Metric label>:   <value>
      Errors:           0
      Output:           <filename or "none">
    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    

    For format: json, emit:

    {
      "skill": "<skill-slug>",
      "store": "<domain>",
      "started_at": "<ISO8601>",
      "completed_at": "<ISO8601>",
      "dry_run": false,
      "steps": [
        {
          "step": 1,
          "operation": "<OperationName>",
          "type": "query",
          "params_summary": "<string>",
          "result_summary": "<string>",
          "skipped": false
        }
      ],
      "outcome": {
        "metric_key": 0,
        "errors": 0,
        "output_file": null
      }
    }
    

    Output Format

    human: count categorized + a CSV (product, old_category, new_category, confidence) and a "needs review" list below the floor. json: { categorized, needs_review, errors, output_file }.


    Error Handling

    ErrorCauseRecovery
    THROTTLEDAPI rate limitWait 2s, retry up to 3 times
    No taxonomy matchNiche/ambiguous productAdd to needs-review list, do not guess
    userErrors on updateInvalid category idLog, skip, continue

    Best Practices

  • Pick the most specific (leaf) node you're confident in — agents match deeper categories more precisely than top-level ones.
  • Keep only_missing: true for the first pass; re-categorizing existing assignments is higher-risk and best reviewed.
  • Aligning the category with your storefront collections compounds the benefit: agents and on-site filters then agree.
  • Re-run shopify-admin-agentic-readiness-audit to confirm the Matchable pillar improved.