I finally submitted InvenTrac to the Shopify App Store this week.
But there’s one problem.
Shopify’s requirements say a browser extension should be an optional part of an app.
InvenTrac is a Chrome extension. That’s kind of the whole point.
I took the requirement seriously enough to map out a minimal embedded Shopify dashboard just to satisfy it.
Then I looked at similar inventory apps already in the Shopify App Store. Some appear to work without much of an embedded UI at all.
So instead of building something nobody has asked for yet, I decided to submit InvenTrac as-is and see what Shopify actually says.
If they reject it specifically because I need an embedded dashboard, I’ll build one.
If they approve it, I saved myself from building a feature purely for compliance.
There’s also a funny chicken-and-egg problem.
Shopify wants its reviewer to install InvenTrac from the Chrome Web Store.
But InvenTrac is also still waiting for Chrome Web Store approval. 😅
So I ended up making a reviewer-only version that Shopify can sideload while Chrome does its own review.
Two app stores. Two review queues. One extension.
Now I wait.
This is one of those parts of building software nobody really talks about. Sometimes the question isn’t “Can I build this?”
It’s “Do I spend a few days building something just because a paragraph in an App Store policy says I might need it?”
This time, I decided to wait for the reviewer to answer that question for me.