# Gated for Shopify Storefronts & Merchant Chatbots

Protect your Shopify storefront AI assistant from prompt injection, discount/coupon hallucination exploits, and off-topic credit draining while preserving zero-friction shopper UX.

## 1. Architecture Pattern
Shopify theme extensions and storefront chat widgets run in the shopper's browser. **Never** put your `M6L_GATE_KEY` or OpenAI/Anthropic keys in Liquid templates or frontend JS.
Instead, route storefront chat messages through your backend endpoint (or Shopify App Proxy `/apps/ai-chat`) where Gated runs in `<1ms` before the LLM call:

```ts
// Inside your Shopify App backend route (Remix / Node / Cloudflare Worker)
const shopperId =
  req.headers.get("x-shopify-customer-id") ||
  req.headers.get("cf-connecting-ip") ||
  req.headers.get("x-forwarded-for")?.split(",")[0]?.trim() ||
  "anon_shopper";

const gateRes = await fetch("https://getgated.ai/v1/check", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.M6L_GATE_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    user: shopperId,
    input: shopperMessage,
    messages: conversationHistory.length,
    context_chars: JSON.stringify(conversationHistory).length,
    feature: "shopify_storefront_chat",
    anonymous: !req.headers.get("x-shopify-customer-id"),
  }),
  signal: AbortSignal.timeout(400), // Fail-open after 400ms
}).catch(() => null);

if (gateRes && gateRes.ok) {
  const verdict = await gateRes.json();
  if (!verdict.allow) {
    return Response.json({
      reply: verdict.message || "I can only assist with questions about our products, orders, and store policies.",
      blocked_by_gate: true,
    });
  }
}
```

## 2. Recommended Shopify Merchant Policy Settings
- **Allowed Topics**: `products, sizing, shipping, returns, order status, gift cards, store policies`
- **Max Input Chars**: `1,500` (prevents copy-paste document dumps)
- **Anonymous Shopper Limit**: `15 messages / hour` per IP
- **Block Off-Topic**: `true` (blocks coding, homework, and general essay writing at your store's expense)