Catalog & data
Shopify metafield
Definition
A custom structured field on a Shopify product, collection, or variant — the mechanism most mid-market merchants use to add attributes without a separate PIM.
Defined in The Agentic Commerce Glossary.
How else it gets framed
The same term carries different emphasis depending on the surface it’s used on. Both readings are correct.
A structured custom field attached to a product (or variant) that stores a typed value — dimension, material, compatibility, certification — separately from the prose description. Metafields are the native home for AI-readable product attributes on Shopify.
Building a Shopify Product Page AI Agents Can Read →Where Shopify metafield comes up
The guides that put this term to work, rather than just defining it.
Related terms
- PIM
- Product information management system — dedicated software for managing product data at scale, as distinct from using a platform's native fields for the same purpose.
- Structured attribute
- A named, machine-readable field with a discrete value — material: leather, sleeve_length: short — as opposed to the same fact buried in a marketing sentence.
- Product taxonomy
- The hierarchical category structure a catalog is organized under, which agents use to scope what "kind" of product they're reasoning about before checking specific attributes.
- Category attribute template
- A fixed, reusable list of the attribute fields every SKU in a given category must carry — e.g. every hiking boot gets material, closure, waterproof rating, sole type, weight — built once per category and then applied to every SKU in it.
- Compatibility data
- Structured "works with" or "fits" relationships between products, which agents rely on heavily because shoppers frequently ask compatibility questions by exact model or part.
- Constraint query
- A shopping request framed by conditions the answer must satisfy — a device it must fit, a system it must work with, a situation it must handle — rather than by a product category alone.
Want to know where you actually stand?
Submit your store and get a /100 agentic-commerce readiness score across catalog, schema, product pages and checkout — plus three fixes you can ship yourself.