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When you install Layers from the Shopify App Store, your store goes through a guided onboarding process before you can access the full dashboard. Most of the setup is automatic — you do not need to upload data or write configuration ahead of time.

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What happens after installation

  1. App installs and syncs: Layers connects to your Shopify store and begins syncing your product catalog.
  2. Search-quality bootstrap: In parallel, Layers seeds the search stack with your historical search data, drafts a brand description and autocomplete prompt, and runs catalog analysis after the bulk sync.
  3. Baseline evaluation: Once the catalog is indexed and seeded search data is ready, Layers runs a baseline evaluation against your top historical queries to give you a starting score.
  4. Onboarding complete: Once the bootstrap finishes, you get full access to the dashboard and all features.

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Who becomes the store owner

When you install Layers, the Shopify account owner becomes the Layers store owner. Layers may also add other staff emails from your Shopify store as members so your team can sign in right away. If the account owner needs to change later, contact support to transfer ownership. You can also invite or remove teammates at any time from Settings → Users & Invites.

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Pending onboarding

After installing from the Shopify App Store, Layers redirects you to a Pending Onboarding screen. This screen confirms that your store installed successfully and that the search-quality bootstrap is in progress. During this time:
  • Layers is syncing your product catalog from Shopify.
  • Layers is reading your historical search data and seeding query clusters, your brand description, and the autocomplete curation prompt.
  • You do not need to take any action.

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What Layers seeds automatically

You don’t need to export search data, write a brand description, or draft an autocomplete prompt before going live. On install, Layers will:
  • Seed historical searches. Layers pulls the last 30 days of your storefront search terms from Shopify and uses them to build the initial query clusters that power autocomplete and search analytics.
  • Draft a brand description. If your store description in Layers is empty, Layers reads your storefront’s SEO and meta description and summarizes them. AI-driven features like autocomplete curation and search instructions use this description.
  • Draft an autocomplete prompt. If your autocomplete curation prompt is empty, Layers generates a starter prompt based on your seeded searches and brand description, then runs the first curation pass.
  • Run catalog analysis. Once the catalog bulk sync finishes, Layers automatically runs catalog, visual, and variant-option analysis so attributes, facets, and ranking signals are ready when you open the dashboard.
  • Run a baseline evaluation. Layers fires one baseline evaluation against your top 250 seeded queries so you can compare future changes against a starting score.
All of these run automatically on a brand new install — there is no flag to enable. Anything Layers generates (brand description, autocomplete prompt) is a starting point you can edit later. Layers will never overwrite text you have already saved.

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Reviewing what was generated

After onboarding completes, you can review and edit anything Layers seeded:
  • Brand description — Settings → General in the Layers dashboard.
  • Autocomplete curation prompt — Settings → Autocomplete. See Configure autocomplete curation.
  • Baseline evaluation results — Lab → Evaluation runs.

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Next steps

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Troubleshooting

If your store has been in the pending onboarding state for longer than expected, or if the brand description or autocomplete prompt did not generate, contact the support team for an update on your store’s status.