json tools every ecommerce developer should know

why json matters in ecommerce dev

Every major ecommerce API — Shopify Storefront, Admin, Etsy Open API, Gumroad API — returns JSON. Working with malformed JSON or debugging nested structures by eyeballing raw strings costs hours. The right tools eliminate this.

formatting and validation

A JSON formatter with syntax highlighting and error detection is the first tool to have in your browser. When an API call fails, pasting the response into a formatter immediately shows malformed JSON, missing quotes, and trailing commas.

shopify product json structure

{
  "product": {
    "id": 123456789,
    "title": "My Product",
    "variants": [
      { "id": 987, "price": "19.00", "inventory_quantity": 50 }
    ]
  }
}

jq for command-line json

jq is the standard command-line tool for processing JSON. Extract Shopify product IDs from a bulk export: cat products.json | jq '.products[].id'. Filter variants below a stock threshold: jq '.variants[] | select(.inventory_quantity < 5)'.

browser devtools json viewer

Both Chrome and Firefox have built-in JSON viewers that automatically format API responses in the network tab. Enable "Response" → select a JSON request → the browser renders it as a collapsible tree. No extension needed for basic inspection.