# How Piste works: the AI agent for Shopify

> Piste is one AI agent per workspace. It reads your Shopify store live, answers questions, runs automations, and proposes changes a person approves.

Source: https://www.usepiste.com/docs/how-piste-works

Piste is an AI agent that works on your Shopify store. Each workspace has one agent, called Piste, which you talk to on the web, in Slack or over iMessage. It reads your store live, answers from your own numbers, runs automations on a schedule, and proposes changes for a person to decide.

## Where do I talk to Piste?

The same agent answers everywhere you reach it:

| Where | Who can use it | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| [Web app](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/web-app) | The workspace owner | Chats, Needs you, automations, jobs and settings |
| [Slack](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack) | Anyone who's a full member of your Slack workspace | Direct messages, mentions, automation channels and cards your team decides on |
| [iMessage](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/imessage) | The owner, from a verified number | Questions and results by text, with no buttons |
| [ChatGPT and Claude](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/chatgpt-and-claude) (early access) | The owner, signed in with their Piste account | Reading your ad measurement from your own assistant |

Everywhere shares one [memory](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/memory), but each conversation stands on its own. In Slack, a conversation is one thread: a new message at the top of a channel or DM starts a new one.

## What does Piste read?

Piste reads what you connect, when it needs it:

- **Your Shopify store**, live through Shopify's Admin API: orders, products, inventory and discounts. Nothing is imported. Sales reports over any period, and orders older than 60 days, need extra permission from Shopify. See [Shopify](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/shopify).
- **Ad accounts** (early access): each campaign's daily spend and results from [Google Ads and Meta](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/google-ads-and-meta).
- **[Connected apps](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/apps)** such as Gmail or Notion, and your own [MCP servers](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/mcp-servers), in the owner's conversations and automations only.
- **[Data tools](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/data-tools)**: paid search, keyword, SEO and web data, inside a monthly allowance.
- **What your team taught it**: the workspace's [memory](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/memory), [skills](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/skills) and [playbooks](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/playbooks).

Piste doesn't import your orders, and keeps no records of your customers. Its order lookups don't include a customer's name, email or address.

## What does Piste do on its own, and what needs a person?

Piste reads, answers and reports on its own. Anything that changes your store, an ad account or a connected app waits for a person.

| What Piste does | Who decides |
|---|---|
| Reads your store and connected accounts, and answers | Nobody: it just does it |
| Runs an automation on its schedule | Nobody: the owner set it up |
| Saves a fact to memory, or publishes a report page for your workspace | Nobody |
| Makes a paid data call of $0.50 or less that changes nothing, inside the allowance | Nobody |
| Makes a paid data call over $0.50, one with no price, or one that changes something | The owner, or the person who started the conversation |
| Changes a price or discount, or holds an order ([store edits](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/store-edits)) | A person, from a card |
| Changes an ad account ([ad changes](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/ad-changes)) (early access) | A person, from a card or in a conversation |
| Sends or changes something in a connected app | The owner, in their own conversation |
| Makes a report page public | The owner |
| Saves a skill Piste wrote, or creates a store trigger | The owner |

## How does a person decide on a change?

There are two ways, depending on where the change comes from. See [Approvals](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals) for the detail.

- **An approval, in a conversation.** Piste pauses and asks before it acts. The web chat shows `Approve` and `Deny`, and Slack shows `Cancel` and `Approve`. Only the owner, or the person who started the conversation, may approve. iMessage has no buttons, so Piste sends a link to approve on the web.
- **A proposal, from an automation.** An automation run doesn't wait on a change to your store or an ad account. It stores the change as a [proposal](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/proposals) and posts a card with buttons under its result in Slack. Any full member of your Slack workspace may decide most cards under an automation's post. Store edits, change follow-ups and ad changes are also in Needs you on the web.

Every store edit and ad change can be undone from its card. Every decision, and who took it, is in the [decision log](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/decision-log).

## What are automations?

An [automation](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations) is recurring work the owner sets up: instructions, and a schedule or a [store trigger](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/store-triggers) such as a big order. Piste has nine ready-made [templates](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/templates), from a morning sales briefing to a stock watch.

- Each run starts its own chat, and its result can also go to Slack or iMessage.
- A run that finds nothing worth saying stays quiet: it keeps its result in Piste and posts nothing.
- An automation made from a template on the Automations page, or in a chat, starts with a dry run: it reads everything and writes its report, but changes nothing and posts nothing.

## How does Piste remember things?

- **[Memory](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/memory)** is one shared document per workspace, about the business. Anyone's conversation can add to it, and the owner reads and corrects it on the Memory page, in the links at the foot of the web app's sidebar.
- **[Skills](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/skills)** are procedures for recurring tasks. The owner writes them on the Skills page, beside Memory, or approves one Piste wrote.
- **[Playbooks](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/playbooks)** bring a specialist's method and routines in one install, such as Store operations.

## What is a job?

A [job](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/jobs) is longer work Piste hands to the coder, which works in a fresh, temporary computer. Only the owner can start one. Each attempt at a job gets up to 60 minutes of working time, and one job runs at a time per workspace. When a site needs a sign-in, the coder hands you its browser and you sign in yourself. You follow each job on the Jobs page.

## What Piste never does

- **It never changes your store without a person deciding,** with one exception: when a price probe ends, Piste puts the price back to exactly what it replaced, and only if nobody has changed it since. A [standing approval](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/standing-approvals) (early access) the owner switches on lets Piste apply one kind of Google Ads change.
- **It never imports your orders or keeps your customers' records.** It reads Shopify live.
- **It never takes your workspace from what a message says.** Who you are comes from your sign-in, your Slack account or your verified number.
- **An automation never sends or changes anything in a connected app.** It can only propose a Gmail draft, which sends nothing, for the owner to create.
- **It never adds up amounts in different currencies, or converts them.** With [several stores](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/shopify/several-stores), it gives a total only when they share a currency.
- **It doesn't answer in a Slack channel shared with another organisation,** except an [agency room](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/agency-rooms) the owner opens.

## Related

- [Quickstart](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/quickstart): sign up and ask your first question.
- [Approvals](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals): who may decide what, and where.
- [Team and roles](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/team): the owner and light members.
- [Security and privacy](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/security): what Piste stores, and how.

## Questions

### Is Piste a chatbot, or does it act?

Both. Piste answers questions from your live store data, runs automations on a schedule, and proposes changes. A change to your store or an ad account waits for a person to approve it.

### Does Piste copy my store's data?

No. Piste reads your store through Shopify's Admin API when it needs to. It doesn't import your orders, and keeps no records of your customers.

### Is it the same Piste on the web, in Slack and over iMessage?

Yes. Each workspace has one agent, and it answers in all three places with one shared memory. Each conversation stands on its own, so a Slack thread doesn't continue a web chat.

### Can an automation change my store on its own?

No. An automation run never applies a change itself. It proposes the change as a card, and a person decides. The only exception is a price probe putting a price back to exactly what it replaced when the probe ends.

### What does Piste do without asking?

It reads your store and connected accounts, answers questions, runs automations, saves facts to memory and publishes report pages for your workspace. A paid data call of $0.50 or less that changes nothing, inside the monthly allowance, also runs without asking.