Bring the AI assistant you already use, such as Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, and let it work on your store. It can look up orders, edit products, build campaigns and more, depending on the access you approve. Every action is a real change to your live store. Everything is set up in Your agents in your dashboard (Agents in the sidebar, then Connect your own agent). The page has these sections: Connect your agent, Connected agents, Approvals, Activity, API keys, Webhooks, Skills and API reference.
Your agent vs. the built-in Assistant. The Assistant in your dashboard (open it from the header, press ⌘I / Ctrl+I, or click Agents in the sidebar for its full page and saved conversations) answers questions about PlatformDTC and your store. It is read-only: it can’t create, edit, send or publish anything. To have an AI do the work, connect your own agent as described here.

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How it works

Your store has one MCP server address that every agent uses:
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard way AI assistants connect to outside tools. When you add this address to your agent:
  1. The agent opens a PlatformDTC sign-in page in your browser.
  2. You sign in, choose the store, and review the permissions the agent is asking for.
  3. You click Approve. The agent can now use exactly the tools those permissions allow, on that one store.
You don’t paste a password or key into the agent. The agent never sees your PlatformDTC password.

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Connect your agent

Open Agents → Connect your agent, copy the server URL, and follow the steps for your agent. The same steps are in the dashboard, under Set up.
1

Add a custom connector

In Claude on the web or the desktop app, open Customize → Connectors, click +, then Add custom connector.
2

Paste the server URL

Name it PlatformDTC and paste the server URL. Leave Advanced settings empty, then click Add.
3

Connect

Click Connect, sign in to PlatformDTC, pick the store, and approve.
Custom connectors work on Claude Free (one connector), Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds it first under Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom → Web; everyone else then clicks Connect. Claude help
The Set up tabs also cover the PlatformDTC CLI (dtc login, then dtc theme dev) for working on themes on your computer, and ClawMuse, a free personal AI that runs on your own Mac or Windows computer. For theme work with an agent, see Quickstart: Claude Code.

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Tell your agent what to do

Once it’s connected, send your agent this message:
That page is a skill: short instructions that teach the agent how PlatformDTC works. It covers connecting, adding products and collections, building and publishing your storefront theme, and adding your own domain. It also tells the agent to ask you before it adds anything, and to leave anything that spends money or reaches customers for you to approve. It’s the same message as the Build your store with your own agent card on your dashboard home. For theme work only, the theme skill goes deeper. Both are also under Agents → Skills.

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Approve the connection

The approval page shows:
  • Who is asking. The agent’s name, marked Verified by PlatformDTC or Unverified app. An unverified app’s name is only what the app says about itself.
  • Where access is sent. For an agent on your own computer this reads The agent running on this computer. If it names a website you don’t recognise, or you didn’t start the connection yourself, click Deny.
  • Store. The one store the agent will work on. If you have several, choose one.
  • What it will be able to do. Each permission, grouped by area. Untick anything you don’t want to grant.
Then click Approve or Deny. Only the store owner can connect agents. Staff see Only the store owner can connect agents and should ask the owner to connect it. If the page says the request has expired or was already answered, go back to your agent and connect again to get a fresh link.

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Permissions and approvals

Depending on what you approve, an agent can work with your Store, Catalog & products, Orders & fulfillment, Customers, Marketing, Discounts & offers, Online Store, Supplier network, Advertising, Analytics, Checkout and Finance. The agent only sees the tools your approved permissions allow. If you didn’t grant a permission, the agent can’t call the tools that need it. Actions that spend money, contact customers or change your live store wait for you. On the approval page these permissions are tagged Can spend money or contact customers. They include publishing your store and attaching custom domains, raising ad budgets, sending campaigns and turning on flows, and sending cart-recovery emails and recovery discounts. When an agent takes one of these actions, it is parked instead of run, and the agent is told it is waiting for your approval. Publishing a theme follows your store’s theme publish policy. Review parked actions in Agents → Approvals. Under Waiting for you, each request shows what the agent wants to do and when it asked:
  • Click Approve to run it, or Deny to cancel it. Nothing happens until you approve.
  • For a theme, Preview opens it first, and Approve & publish makes it live.
When requests are waiting, the Approvals section shows how many. Below the waiting list, All jobs lists every longer-running job your agents started, with its status.

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See what agents did

Agents → Activity records every call an agent made: which key or connection, the tool, the access it used, the result and how long it took.

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Disconnect an agent

Open Agents → Connected agents. Each agent you approved is listed with its store, its access and when it was last active. Click Disconnect and confirm. The agent loses access to your store right away, even if it isn’t running at the moment, so it can’t quietly reconnect. To use it again, connect it and approve it again.

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API keys for agents without OAuth

Some agents and scripts can’t open a sign-in page. For those, create an API key and send it to the same server URL as a header:
1

Create the key

Open Agents → API keys and click Create key.
2

Grant only what it needs

Give it a Name and tick its Scopes. Permissions marked spend move money or reach customers. Optionally limit it to certain Store IDs, set an Expires at date and a Rate limit / min.
3

Keep approvals on

Leave Require approval for spend actions on so this key’s spend actions also wait in Approvals.
4

Copy the key

Click Create key and copy the key. It is shown only once. Store it in a secret manager, because you can’t retrieve it later.
On the key’s row:
  • Rotate issues a new secret and invalidates the old one immediately. Any agent using the old key stops working until you update it.
  • Revoke permanently disables the key. Any agent using it loses access immediately, and this can’t be undone.
Give each agent or script its own key, so you can revoke one without affecting the others.

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Troubleshooting

The agent says a tool isn’t available, or it lacks permission. You didn’t grant the permission that tool needs. Disconnect the agent in Connected agents, then connect it again and approve the missing permission. The agent says an action is waiting for approval. That’s expected for spend and customer-contact actions. Approve it in Agents → Approvals. The approval page says “This request has expired” or “This request was already answered”. Sign-in links are single-use and short-lived. Start the connection again from your agent. “Your account has no stores yet.” Create a store first, then connect again.