$cat /journal --page 3
Notes from the studio.
Practical writing on storefronts, systems, and the products we ship for merchants.
Showing 25–36 of 133 articles · page 3 of 12
Oct 23, 2026 · Muhammad Rehan
Shopify's carts/update Webhook Now Skips No-Op Cart Writes
- Integrations & APIs
Shopify's October 2026 change makes carts/update fire only on real cart changes — here's what breaks for consumers that counted deliveries as request volume.
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Oct 23, 2026 · Muhammad Umar
Google's Sale-Duration Properties: Where They Actually Belong
- SEO & Performance
- Conversion & Growth
validFrom and validThrough belong on different nodes depending on where your sale price actually lives — here's Google's exact placement rule.
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Oct 23, 2026 · Ahmed
OpenAI's New 12-Hour Prompt Cache, and When It Pays Off
- Automation & AI
OpenAI's Responses API now offers a 12-hour cache lifetime at 2.5x the write cost. Here's the rate math that decides whether it's worth it.
Read articleOct 21, 2026 · Ahmed
Shopify Inventory Transfers Can Now Skip Origin or Destination
- Operations & Fulfillment
- Integrations & APIs
Shopify loosened its inventory transfer APIs in 2026-01. Here's exactly what became optional, what stayed draft-only, and how referenceName fits in.
Read articleOct 21, 2026 · Muhammad Rehan
Shopify's Ship-and-Pickup-in-One-Order: What Apps Must Fix
- Enterprise & Shopify Plus
- Operations & Fulfillment
Shopify's Plus/Enterprise checkout can now split one order into shipped and pickup fulfillments. Here's what breaks and the deadlines to plan around.
Read articleOct 21, 2026 · Muhammad Umar
Stripe's New 'Pay with Balance' Fee Collection, Explained
- Payments & Marketplaces
Stripe's preview payment method lets Connect platforms pull SaaS fees straight from a connected account's own balance. Here's what it requires.
Read articleOct 20, 2026 · Ahmed
OpenAI Computer Use: Approving a Site Isn't Enough
- Automation & AI
- Apps & Product Engineering
OpenAI's computer-use tool makes your app approve every website origin an agent visits — but that approval doesn't cover what the agent does once it's there.
Read articleOct 20, 2026 · Muhammad Rehan
Shopify Plus Expansion Stores: The Same-Brand Rule
- Enterprise & Shopify Plus
- Integrations & APIs
Shopify Plus allows up to ten stores per contract, but expansion stores must pass a strict same-brand test — here's where that line actually falls.
Read articleOct 20, 2026 · Muhammad Umar
Shopify's 2026 Technical SEO Guide: Audit in Order
- SEO & Performance
- Conversion & Growth
Shopify's enterprise SEO guide sequences the whole discipline into four audit questions — here's what each one covers and why the order changes the outcome.
Read articleOct 19, 2026 · Muhammad Rehan
Shopify's orderCancel Gets a Confirmable jobResult
- Integrations & APIs
Shopify's orderCancel mutation now returns a typed jobResult, finally giving integrations a reliable way to confirm an async cancellation's outcome.
Read articleOct 19, 2026 · Muhammad Umar
Shopify Nested Cart Lines: Five Limits to Know
- Conversion & Growth
- Apps & Product Engineering
Nested cart lines let Shopify merchants sell warranty add-ons from accelerated checkout, but five hard platform limits can break the upsell silently.
Read articleOct 19, 2026 · Ahmed
Native Decisions Delegation Arrives in GPT-Live
- Automation & AI
OpenAI's GPT-Live can now call the Decisions API directly mid-call. Here's what native delegation handles, and what your application still has to do.
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