Shopify Load & Scale Skill

Shopify Load & Scale

Overview

Load test Shopify app integrations while respecting API rate limits. Plan capacity for high-traffic events like Black Friday / Cyber Monday (BFCM).

Prerequisites

k6 load testing tool installed (brew install k6)
Test store with API access (never load test production)
Understanding of Shopify rate limits per plan

Instructions

Step 1: Understand Capacity Constraints

Your app's throughput is bounded by Shopify's rate limits, not your infrastructure:

| Plan | GraphQL Points | Restore Rate | Max Sustained QPS | Burst Capacity | |------|---------------|-------------|-------------------|----------------| | Standard | 1,000 | 50/sec | ~10 queries/sec | 1,000 points burst | | Shopify Plus | 2,000 | 100/sec | ~20 queries/sec | 2,000 points burst |

A typical product query costs 10-50 points. At 50 points/query, Standard supports ~1 query/second sustained.

Step 2: k6 Load Test Script

// shopify-load-test.js
import http from "k6/http";
import { check, sleep } from "k6";
import { Rate, Counter, Trend } from "k6/metrics";

// Custom metrics
const shopifyErrors = new Rate("shopify_errors");
const throttledRequests = new Counter("shopify_throttled");
const queryCost = new Trend("shopify_query_cost");

export const options = {
  stages: [
    { duration: "1m", target: 2 },    // Warm up — 2 VUs
    { duration: "3m", target: 5 },    // Normal load
    { duration: "2m", target: 10 },   // Peak load
    { duration: "1m", target: 0 },    // Ramp down
  ],
  thresholds: {
    http_req_duration: ["p(95)<2000"],  // 95% under 2s
    shopify_errors: ["rate<0.05"],      // < 5% error rate
    shopify_throttled: ["count<10"],    // < 10 throttled requests
  },
};

const STORE = __ENV.SHOPIFY_STORE;
const TOKEN = __ENV.SHOPIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN;
const API_VERSION = "2024-10";

export default function () {
  const query = JSON.stringify({
    query: `{
      products(first: 10) {
        edges {
          node { id title status totalInventory }
        }
      }
    }`,
  });

  const res = http.post(
    `https://${STORE}/admin/api/${API_VERSION}/graphql.json`,
    query,
    {
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "X-Shopify-Access-Token": TOKEN,
      },
    }
  );

  const body = JSON.parse(res.body);

  // Track GraphQL-level throttling (returns 200 with THROTTLED error)
  const isThrottled = body.errors?.some(
    (e) => e.extensions?.code === "THROTTLED"
  );

  if (isThrottled) {
    throttledRequests.add(1);
    // Wait for restore rate to refill
    const available = body.extensions?.cost?.throttleStatus?.currentlyAvailable || 0;
    const restoreRate = body.extensions?.cost?.throttleStatus?.restoreRate || 50;
    const waitTime = Math.max(1, (100 - available) / restoreRate);
    sleep(waitTime);
    return;
  }

  // Track query cost
  if (body.extensions?.cost?.actualQueryCost) {
    queryCost.add(body.extensions.cost.actualQueryCost);
  }

  check(res, {
    "status is 200": (r) => r.status === 200,
    "no errors": () => !body.errors,
    "has products": () => body.data?.products?.edges?.length > 0,
  });

  shopifyErrors.add(res.status !== 200 || !!body.errors);

  // Pace requests to stay within rate limits
  // Standard: 50 points/sec restore, queries ~10 points each
  sleep(0.5); // ~2 queries/sec per VU
}

Step 3: Run Load Test

# Against a test store — NEVER production
k6 run \
  --env SHOPIFY_STORE=dev-store.myshopify.com \
  --env SHOPIFY_ACCESS_TOKEN=shpat_test_token \
  shopify-load-test.js

# Output results to InfluxDB for Grafana dashboards
k6 run --out influxdb=http://localhost:8086/k6 shopify-load-test.js

Step 4: BFCM / Flash Sale Preparation

// Pre-BFCM checklist for Shopify apps

// 1. Pre-fetch and cache product data before the sale starts
async function prewarmCache(productIds: string[]): Promise<void> {
  console.log(`Pre-warming cache for ${productIds.length} products`);
  for (const id of productIds) {
    await cachedQuery(`product:${id}`, () =>
      shopifyQuery(shop, PRODUCT_QUERY, { id })
    );
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 100)); // Pace for rate limits
  }
}

// 2. Use Storefront API for customer-facing queries (separate rate limits)
// Admin API rate limits are shared across all apps
// Storefront API has its own higher limits

// 3. Use bulk operations to sync inventory before the event
// Don't rely on real-time inventory queries during peak traffic

// 4. Queue webhook processing — don't process inline during peak
async function handleOrderWebhook(payload: any): Promise<void> {
  // Queue for later processing instead of immediate API calls
  await queue.add("process-order", payload, {
    attempts: 5,
    backoff: { type: "exponential", delay: 5000 },
  });
}

Step 5: Scaling Your App (Not Shopify's Limits)

Your infrastructure must handle the webhook volume:

# BFCM webhook volume estimates:
# 100 orders/hour → 100 orders/create webhooks/hour
# 1,000 orders/hour → 1,000 webhooks/hour (Plus stores during BFCM)
# Each webhook must respond 200 within 5 seconds

# Kubernetes HPA for webhook processing
apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: shopify-webhook-processor
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: shopify-webhook-processor
  minReplicas: 2
  maxReplicas: 20
  metrics:
    - type: Pods
      pods:
        metric:
          name: webhook_queue_depth
        target:
          type: AverageValue
          averageValue: "50"

Output

Load test script calibrated to Shopify rate limits
Performance baseline documented
BFCM preparation checklist completed
Infrastructure scaling configured for webhook volume

Error Handling

| Issue | Cause | Solution | |-------|-------|----------| | k6 shows high error rate | Hitting rate limits | Reduce VUs, increase sleep between requests | | All requests THROTTLED | Exceeding 50 points/sec | Space queries further apart | | Webhooks backing up | Slow processing | Respond 200 immediately, queue processing | | Cache stampede on sale start | All caches expire at once | Stagger cache TTLs, pre-warm |

Examples

Quick Capacity Estimate

# How many queries can you sustain?
# Standard plan: 50 points/sec restore
# Your query costs: check with debug header

curl -sf "https://$STORE/admin/api/2024-10/graphql.json" \
  -H "X-Shopify-Access-Token: $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Shopify-GraphQL-Cost-Debug: 1" \
  -d '{"query": "{ products(first: 10) { edges { node { id title } } } }"}' \
  | jq '"Query cost: \(.extensions.cost.actualQueryCost) points. Max sustained: \(50 / .extensions.cost.actualQueryCost) queries/sec"'

Resources

Next Steps

For reliability patterns, see shopify-reliability-patterns.

Agent Skills: Shopify Load & Scale

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