Debutify Reviews

A product reviews app for Shopify merchants, led from architecture through deployment.

Built at: Debutify
Role: Lead frontend engineer
Timeline: 2022 to 2024
Stack: React, TypeScript, Next.js, Shopify App Extensions, Storybook
Live: Shopify App Store

Social proof sells, which is why every Shopify store wants reviews on its product pages and why reviews apps are a crowded category. Winning there comes down to two things: a merchant can set it up in minutes, and the widget does not slow the storefront down. I led Reviews from architectural planning through deployment.

Debutify Reviews settings for publishing reviews automatically above a minimum star rating. — Auto-publish rules. Merchants set a threshold rather than moderating every review.

The problem

The app has two very different users. The merchant works in the Shopify admin and wants to import, moderate and restyle without touching code. The shopper sees only the widget, on a page where every added kilobyte costs conversion. Those pull in opposite directions: configurable enough for merchants gets heavy, light enough for shoppers leaves nothing to configure.

What I built

A merchant admin in React and TypeScript, and a storefront widget delivered as a Shopify app extension. Display settings reach the widget as configuration, so changing the layout needs no redeploy. Imports run as background jobs, because a store migrating from another app arrives with tens of thousands of reviews.

The Debutify Reviews widget customization screen beside a storefront review list. — Widget customization, and the storefront result beside it.

Both sides draw from the shared component library I maintained, so the admin matched Shopify’s own conventions without re-implementing them per screen.

Debutify Reviews moderation tools for handling a negative review before it publishes. — Moderation, including holding a negative review back for a reply.