How I Vibe Coded My Shopify Site (Without Knowing Any Liquid)

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Disclosure: I access Shopify through a benefit from my prior employment with the company. All opinions are my own.

After sharing why I chose Shopify over building custom, several readers asked: "But didn't you still have to vibe code your Shopify site?"

Absolutely. The plot twist? I discovered something most creators don't know exists: platform-assisted vibe coding that gives you custom functionality without infrastructure headaches.

What I Actually Built

My site now centralizes my entire YouTube video library, 40 music singles, and articles (like the one you're reading now) through a unified content system that most people would need a developer to create. Here's what makes it unique:

• Structured content types - Videos and music have different data requirements but consistent presentation
• Zero manual formatting - Create once, displays perfectly everywhere
• Global layout control - Change a template, update every piece of content instantly
• Professional presentation - Everything looks polished and consistent

The kicker? No blog body content. Everything lives in metaobjects that populate through custom templates.

The "Aha" Moment That Changed Everything

I started with a primitive plan: HTML templates with placeholders like [VIDEO_TITLE] and [EMBED_URL] that I'd manually copy and replace for every post. The cognitive load was insane.

That's when I discovered Shopify metaobjects - essentially letting you build custom content types with structured data fields. Most tutorials show them for product specifications. I realized: What if I put ALL my content in metaobjects instead of blog posts?

Creating a metaobject definition

Custom metaobject entry input form

Adding all of my songs as metaobject entries in a "Song" metaobject

Custom metaobject section in blog post template

Metaobject implemented in a blog post

Blog index page displaying all Songs as blog posts that contain the metaobjects

This wasn't documented anywhere because it's an unconventional use case. But it solved my exact problem.

The Vibe Coding Reality

Here's where AI assistance became essential. I had zero Liquid templating experience but knew exactly what I wanted to achieve.

AI Tool Testing Results

After trying Shopify Sidekick, ChatGPT, and Claude via Perplexity (CvP), CvP won decisively. The combination of Claude's unmatched contextual understanding and accurate answers, plus Perplexity's long and rolling context window and exceptional web search capabilities consistently gave me answers I could trust and that worked vs the other options.

Shopify Sidekick - Impressive and convenient at first. The fact that it's in the same UI as Shopify is as convenient as it gets. It's trained on Shopify docs. It can link you to specific parts of the admin for what you want to do. The custom AI section creation from prompts was very cool... except they didn't function as I wanted them to, even after a lot of prompting. Often Sidekick would end up freezing after generating code for a while. 

ChatGPT - Often gave me the wrong solutions or led me down the wrong paths

Claude via Perplexity - Most accurate and reliable answers that helped me fully understand, troubleshoot, and implement metaobjects.

My Actual Process

1. Concept validation - Prove metaobjects could replace traditional blog content with an MVP showing basic functionality. This boiled down to "Can I show a unique metaobject in one blog, and a unique metaobject in another?"
2. Template development - Use AI to create custom Liquid templates for each content type
3. Cross-content testing - Ensure videos, music, and normal articles could coexist in the same blog structure
4. Content migration - Move all existing content into structured metaobjects

The Framework That Actually Works

If you want to implement something similar, here's what I learned:

Strategic Decisions

• Platform vs. custom infrastructure - How much do you want to build?
• Content architecture - Plan your data relationships before building
• AI tool selection - Context window size is key to best answers

Implementation Keys

• Start with proof of concept - Test unconventional approaches on single examples
• Design for iteration - Build templates that support multiple content types
• Think in structured data - Approach content as reusable, cross-referenceable information

Why This Approach Wins

Platform vibe coding gives you the best of both worlds:

• Custom functionality through AI-assisted development
• Proven infrastructure for security, payments, and scaling
• Professional results without developer overhead
• Rapid iteration when you want to modify layouts or add features

I now have enterprise-level content management that would have taken months to build from scratch, implemented in days using AI assistance within Shopify's framework.

The Bottom Line

Don't choose between custom functionality and platform reliability. The most successful approach combines both - leverage proven infrastructure while using AI to create exactly what differentiates your work.

Your time might be better spent creating content than debugging payment systems or patching security vulnerabilities.

Building my content empire from Bangkok using AI-assisted development and tested creative systems. Follow along for more practical insights on leveraging technology for creative freedom.

Ready to implement structured content for your Shopify site? I'm working on a detailed technical walkthrough of the exact metaobject setup and Liquid templates I use. Drop a DM if you want early access when it's ready.