What can an AI agent do with
Change, cancel, and refund orders?
It can change your orders, cancel them, and refund them. A cancel can refund the customer, put items back in stock, and notify the customer. It can also read your orders.
How to spot it
On a Shopify connection or settings screen, this is write_orders.
With it, an agent can
- Cancel an order, with options to refund, restock, and notify the customer
- Refund all or part of an order without cancelling it
- Update order details like the customer's email, shipping address, and tags
- Mark an order as paid when you were paid outside Shopify
- Read orders from the last 60 days
It cannot, on its own
- It cannot undo a cancel; Shopify does not restore cancelled orders
- It cannot reach orders older than 60 days unless it also has read_all_orders
What a bad day looks like
If it misreads a message or is tricked, it could cancel and refund a batch of real orders, and those cancels cannot be undone.
Set it up safer
- Grant read_orders instead if it only needs to answer questions about orders
- Ask for an approval step before any cancel or refund
Narrower permissions on Shopify:
- Read recent orders
read_orders
Ask the company selling the agent
- Which order actions does it take without asking me first?
- Can I require my approval before it cancels or refunds?
- Is there a log of every order change it makes?
Source
Checked against Shopify documentation on 2026-09-28. All Shopify permissions →
Thinking about a specific agent?
Tell us what it connects to, what it is allowed to do and who approves its work. You get a plain-language label of what it can touch and what to ask the seller. It takes a couple of minutes, and your answers stay in your browser unless you choose to post a test job.
Or have a person go through the AI apps on up to 3 of your business services with you and get a written report, for $249.
This page explains what a permission allows. It does not describe, test or rate any product. Permission details are summarized in our own words from the provider's documentation, linked on the page; providers change their documentation, so check the source before you rely on a detail.