mozimo.in/.scratch/shopify-headless-commerce/issues/01-seed-dev-store.md

Seed the dev store from the live catalogue

Type: task (HITL) Status: open

Part of the map. Empty the frontier from the top.

Question

The dev store staging-iw0gviik.myshopify.com is empty. How does it come to hold the live catalogue faithfully, so that Phase 1 Cart work is built against realistic data?

The manual CSV route was chosen for this. Verification has now shown exactly where it holds and where it cannot:

✅ Products, and product metafields with preparation

• Export: Products → Export → scope → Plain CSV or CSV for Excel/Numbers → Export products. One file. Note that an All products export is emailed, not downloaded.
• Import: Products → Import → add file → Overwrite products with matching handles → Import products.
• Product metafields do ride in the CSV as their own columns, named <Name> (product.metafields.<namespace>.<key>). custom.ingredients as multi-line text and custom.energy_kcal as a number are both documented-supported types.
• Precondition: the metafield definitions must already exist in the destination store (Settings → Custom data → Products). Shopify's docs only promise columns for defined metafields. What happens to an undefined metafield's value is undocumented — so create the definitions before importing, not after.
• Hazards: with Overwrite on, a blank metafield cell overwrites the destination value as blank. Images are URLs only and Shopify re-hosts them at import, so production's products and images must stay publicly reachable until the import finishes. There is no dry run, imports cannot be cancelled, there is no import history, and the file cap is 15 MB.

❌ Collection membership — impossible by CSV

The Collection column is never exported, and on import it is the only column you may add — and it admits one collection per product. Most of this catalogue belongs to three or four collections each: mozimo-carnival-celebration-m is in best-sellers, gift-collection, diwali and hampers-boxes at once. Sixteen collections and their multi-membership therefore need a second mechanism.

This part re-opens the seeding decision, because the chosen route cannot finish the job alone.

⚠️ Variant option shape — read the real export

Shopify's docs say a one-option product should carry Default Title in Option1 value, while the official sample CSV represents its single-option product as Option1 name = Title, Option1 value = Premium — which is exactly this catalogue's stored shape. The docs and their own sample disagree, and the documented hazards around changing option values (variants are deleted and recreated, so IDs change) make this worth confirming rather than assuming. Exporting from production settles it, and that export is needed anyway.

To resolve

1. Export the full catalogue from production and record what Option1 name / Option1 value actually contain.
2. Create the metafield definitions in the dev store before importing.
3. Run a small-batch import with Overwrite off to surface per-line errors cheaply, then the full set.
4. Decide the second mechanism for collection membership — admin bulk-editor passes, or a small Admin API script using the credentials the repo already mints. Record which was chosen and why.
5. Record what actually landed: product count, collection count and membership, metafield coverage, anything rebuilt by hand.

Facts later tickets depend on: which products exist in the dev store, whether their Variant GIDs differ from production's (they will), and whether the metafield values survived.

Answer