As a Shopify theme developer, you are more than just a coder—you are an architect. The way you structure your theme’s files, sections, and snippets has a profound and lasting impact on its maintainability, scalability, and the ease with which merchants can actually use it.
A well-architected theme is a pleasure to work on. It’s modular, DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself), and intuitive. A poorly architected theme, on the other hand, is a house of cards—a tangled mess of duplicated code and monolithic sections that becomes a nightmare to maintain.
The key to great theme architecture lies in a simple but powerful philosophy: build components, not pages.
Let’s explore the principles of a modular architecture and how to decide when and where to use sections, snippets, and the new theme blocks.
The Core Principle: Component-Based Thinking
Instead of looking at a design and thinking “this is the homepage,” you should look at it and see a collection of reusable components: “this is a hero banner,” “this is a product grid,” “this is a testimonial slider.”
Each of these components should be built as an independent, self-contained unit. This modular approach is the foundation of a clean, logical file structure and offers several key benefits:
- Improved Maintainability: When a component needs to be updated, you only have to change it in one place.
- Reduced Redundancy: You avoid copying and pasting the same Liquid and HTML across multiple files.
- Faster Development: You can assemble new page templates quickly by combining your existing, pre-built components.
- Better AI-Assistance: As noted in the context of agentic development, AI tools work best with smaller, well-defined files. A modular architecture provides the clear context that these tools need to provide accurate and helpful suggestions.
The Building Blocks of a Modular Theme
Shopify gives us three primary tools for building a modular theme. Understanding the distinct role of each is critical.
1. Sections: The Merchant-Facing Containers
A section is the highest-level component that a merchant can directly add, remove, and reorder on a page.
The Role of a Section:
- To act as a container for a distinct piece of content (e.g., “Image with Text,” “Featured Collection”).
- To define the
{% schema %}that merchants will interact with in the theme editor. - To contain the business logic for that component, such as fetching collection data or looping through blocks.
Architectural Rule: A section should represent a complete, standalone “idea” on a page. If you find yourself copying large chunks of HTML from one section to another, that shared code is a candidate for a snippet or a theme block.
2. Snippets: The Reusable Code Fragments
A snippet is a simple, reusable piece of Liquid code. It does not have its own schema and cannot be directly added by a merchant.
The Role of a Snippet:
- To encapsulate a piece of code that is used in multiple sections (e.g., a
product-card.liquidsnippet used in the featured collection section, the search results page, and the cart). - To break down a complex section into smaller, more manageable parts.
Architectural Rule: If you are writing the same for loop or the same 50 lines of HTML in more than one place, it belongs in a snippet.
3. Theme Blocks: The Best of Both Worlds
Theme Blocks are a newer feature that combines the reusability of a snippet with the configurability of a section. They are self-contained components with their own schema that can be used within other sections.
The Role of a Theme Block:
- To create highly reusable, merchant-configurable components (e.g., a
button.liquidblock with settings for text, URL, and style). - To build complex sections out of smaller, independent, and configurable parts.
Architectural Rule: If you need a component that is both reusable across sections AND needs its own set of configurable settings in the UI, it should be a Theme Block.
Putting It All Together: An Example
Imagine you’re building a “Featured Products” slider section. A modular architecture would look like this:
featured-products-slider.liquid(Section):- Contains the schema for the section (e.g., settings for the heading, autoplay, etc.).
- Contains the main
forloop that iterates through the products of a selected collection. - Inside the loop, it renders the
product-cardsnippet for each product.
product-card.liquid(Snippet):- Contains the HTML and Liquid for a single product card.
- This same snippet is also used by
collection-grid.liquidandsearch-results.liquid.
button.liquid(Theme Block):- The “Shop All” link at the bottom of the section is rendered using a
buttontheme block, allowing the merchant to easily change its text, link, and style.
- The “Shop All” link at the bottom of the section is rendered using a
Final Thoughts: Build for the Future
A clean, modular architecture is an investment in the future of your theme. It takes a bit more thought and planning upfront, but it pays massive dividends in the long run.
By embracing component-based thinking and understanding the distinct roles of sections, snippets, and theme blocks, you can build themes that are not only powerful and flexible for merchants but also a joy for you and your team to maintain and extend.
❓ What is your number one rule for maintaining a clean and organized theme structure?