Customer Account API
Definition
The Customer Account API is a standalone GraphQL API purpose-built for customers to self-manage their own data. It comes with its own authentication system for the new customer accounts, and provides full CRUD access to data scoped to the authenticated customer — profile information, order history, saved addresses, and more. From a Customer Account UI Extension, it can be called directly via fetch() against shopify://customer-account/api/.../graphql.json, with authentication handled automatically; it's used the same way in headless setups such as Hydrogen.
Background
Customer data used to be handled through a combination of the Storefront API and parts of the Admin API, neither of which was really designed with customer self-service in mind. As part of a broader push to tighten protection around customer data, Shopify introduced the Customer Account API specifically for this purpose — and today, the new customer accounts, Customer Account UI Extensions, and headless setups like Hydrogen are all organized around this API as their shared foundation.
Flagship's Involvement
On new-customer-account migration projects, Flagship designs and builds custom UI extensions (such as Mypage Blocks) on top of the Customer Account API. We implement requirements essential to Japanese e-commerce — furigana input, per-address kana data — on top of this API, in combination with Shopify's standard metafields.