Creating headless themes from scratch is easier to do with Hydrogen, but I am exploring the idea of offering sections a a monthly fee - like some Shopify apps are already doing - in headless. All the sections are centralized in Builder.io and building them would not necessarily require integrating the app through my codebase.
Adding the sections as snippet in the theme works , but when it comes to adding them to sections directly , it needs section schema.
What would be the possibilities here : I know there is a Shopify app that Syncs models as sections, but can it add section settings with editable fields ? If not what would be the best approach to allow headless sections to be implemented into regular theme with full control and customization options ?
Thank you a lor for reading me
Hello @Ecommfox
To clarify, while it’s technically possible to sync Builder.io content into Shopify themes, there are a few important limitations to be aware of:
-
Builder.io does not automatically generate Shopify section schemas, which are required for enabling editable settings in the theme editor.
-
While you can embed Builder sections as HTML or snippets, these won’t be fully customizable from the Shopify side unless you manually wrap them with Liquid and define the appropriate schema fields.
-
Existing apps that sync Builder models into Shopify typically don’t provide schema-based controls out of the box — so merchants won’t see editable options in the theme editor unless additional development work is done.
If your goal is to offer sections that work seamlessly in standard Shopify themes (with full control in the customizer), you’ll want to consider:
Hydrogen/headless setups give you more flexibility, but for Online Store 2.0 themes, there will always be a need to connect Builder content with Shopify’s schema structure.
Happy to help explore this further if you’re considering building an app or automation around it.
Best regards,