What is Shopify Sidekick?
Shopify Sidekick is the AI assistant built into the Shopify admin. You type a question or request in plain language and Sidekick interprets it, then calls the right tool to answer or act. In 2026 Sidekick opened to all Shopify apps, so installed apps can register their own tools.
Alva Digital Downloads is one of those apps. Once Alva is installed, its tools register with Sidekick automatically, and Sidekick can reach into your digital-downloads data and trigger scoped actions on your behalf.
What can Alva Digital Downloads do through Sidekick?
Alva Digital Downloads exposes 20 tools to Sidekick, grouped into three things you can do. First, ask questions about your store data. Second, take actions on orders. Third, create a digital product. Sidekick picks the matching tool from your request, scoped to your shop.
Ask about your store data
Eleven read-only data tools let Sidekick search and summarise your downloads. You can check storage usage, find files, see best-selling files, look up a customer, search recent orders, surface at-risk orders, review the fraud queue, list pending personalized orders, check license-key stock, pull a sales summary, and find unmapped products.
Take actions on orders
Action tools let Sidekick resend a download or license-key email, approve or reject a fraud-flagged order, mark a personalized order complete, and revoke, restore, extend, or raise download access. Many data results are clickable straight into the matching action for that order.
Create a digital product
Sidekick can open Alva's create-product page, optionally pre-filled with a title, price, or file hint. You pick the digital file, click Create, and Alva builds a Shopify product as a draft and wires it to deliver those files after purchase. The three deeper articles cover each area in detail.
How to open Sidekick and ask about Alva
Shopify Sidekick opens from the Shopify admin — look for the Sidekick button in the admin's top bar and select it. A chat panel opens where you type your request. There is nothing to configure inside Alva first; the tools are already registered.
Ask in plain language, for example "Which products aren't set up to deliver files yet?" or "A customer didn't get their download — resend it for order #1042." Sidekick picks the matching Alva tool, scopes it to your shop, and shows the result.
Sidekick never invents data. Every Alva tool resolves your shop from the signed-in session and queries only that shop, so a result is always your real store's data — never a guess and never another merchant's.
Is it safe? How Sidekick confirms before acting
Alva Digital Downloads uses a stage-then-confirm safety model. When Sidekick performs a customer-facing or destructive action — resend an email, approve or reject an order, revoke or restore access, mark complete, create a product — it navigates you to a confirmation page in the Alva admin and stages the change. Nothing commits until you click Confirm.
There is one exception. The test-email tool sends a sample of your download template to your own shop-owner address and runs immediately, because it never contacts a customer. Email actions also respect your email setting: if email is disabled, the page refuses and explains how to re-enable it.
- Shop-scoped — every tool resolves your shop server-side; there is no cross-store access.
- Stage then Confirm — customer-facing and destructive actions wait for your explicit click.
- Drafts for new products — Sidekick-created products are drafts, so you review and publish them.
- No bypass — Sidekick can only do what Alva exposes; it cannot skip a fraud check.
Frequently asked questions
No special setup is required. Sidekick lives in the Shopify admin, and Alva Digital Downloads registers its tools automatically once the app is installed. Open Sidekick and ask about your downloads, orders, or files.
No. Every customer-facing or destructive action is staged on a confirmation page and only runs when you click Confirm. The one exception is a test email, which is sent only to your own shop-owner address.
You ask Sidekick in natural language inside the Shopify admin, and Alva Digital Downloads returns shop-scoped results. Sidekick interprets your request and picks the matching Alva tool for you.
Sidekick only does what Alva Digital Downloads exposes: the data look-ups, order actions, and digital-product creation described here. It cannot bypass fraud checks or act on another store's data.
See also
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Last updated 2026-06-18