What Sidekick can and can't do in 2026

Sidekick is free on every Shopify plan and has grown quickly: Shopify reported daily active merchants up 3.6 times year on year in mid 2026. It is also uneven. Knowing where the edges are saves you from prompts that go nowhere.

What Sidekick does well

• Reads your store data. Sales, orders, products, customers, inventory, discounts and analytics, for any period, with charts and tables. Every “Analyzes” skill in this library relies on this.
• Creates things. Discount codes and automatic discounts, customer segments, collections, Shopify Email drafts, Flow workflows, company records for B2B, and, on Grow plans and above, custom apps.
• Compound tasks. Since the Summer ‘26 Edition, one prompt can create a collection, a discount and an email together. The /flash-sale skill uses this.
• Writes. Product descriptions, meta fields, blog posts, emails, policies, replies. Quality improves sharply when you set a brand voice first.
• Edits theme blocks on Horizon themes. Generates custom blocks with settings, and makes guided edits.
• Generates and edits images.
• Runs in the background and remembers context within a conversation.

What Sidekick will not do

• Edit theme code. No Liquid, no layout changes on older themes, no new page templates. Use the theme editor, a page builder or a developer.
• Read outside data. No Google Analytics, Meta Ads, Klaviyo or your helpdesk. Anything blended needs an export and a different tool, such as the Shopify connectors for ChatGPT or Claude.
• Send email through third-party tools. It drafts in Shopify Email only.
• Reply to customers for you. It drafts; you send from Inbox or your helpdesk.
• Take irreversible actions silently. Refunds, cancellations and bulk deletes need you. The skills here add an explicit confirmation step for everything that changes data.
• Know keyword volumes or browse competitor sites.

What to use instead

Task	Use
Liquid or layout changes on a non-Horizon theme	Theme editor, a developer, or a page-builder app
Blended reporting with ads and email data	Export CSVs and use the Shopify connector for ChatGPT or Claude
Sending campaigns from Klaviyo or Omnisend	Draft with Sidekick, paste into your tool
Keyword research	Google Search Console or a keyword tool, then /meta-tags

Every skill page on this site has a Limits section naming the specific edge for that task.