The situation
InterLinks does its job without being opened. A merchant saves a keyword and a destination, and from then on that word becomes a link wherever it appears on the store. That is the point of automatic linking. It is also the problem: an app that runs itself is an app nobody visits, so merchants stop knowing what it has done for them. Is "silver bracelet" linked? What points at the Summer Sale collection? What should I link next? The answers were all inside InterLinks, three clicks and a search away.
Meanwhile Shopify had put Sidekick, its AI assistant, in the admin sidebar of every store. Merchants were starting to ask Sidekick first and open apps second. In October 2026 Shopify opened Sidekick to apps through app data extensions: a way for an app to register read-only tools that Sidekick can call when a merchant's question is about that app's data.
The decision: a front door, not a house
Sidekick offers two ways in. App actions let Sidekick do things on a merchant's behalf, but only for a closed list of intents (discounts, campaigns, product imports) that does not include internal linking. App data extensions let Sidekick ask an app questions. InterLinks chose the second, and chose it as policy rather than as a stopgap.
The rule, written down before the first line of code: Sidekick is the front door, InterLinks is the house. Sidekick answers from the store's real link data and hands the merchant a card that opens the exact page in InterLinks. Every action, from creating a link to approving a batch of suggestions, still happens inside the app, where the merchant can see it, review it, and own it. Nothing about how InterLinks matches or ranks keywords is exposed; Sidekick gets answers, not algorithms.
What was built
Fourteen tools, grouped into three families that follow a merchant's life with the app:
"How do I get started?", "Is InterLinks working?", "Will this work with my theme?", "Make my first link", "What have I done so far?"
"Is X linked anywhere?", "What links to my Y collection?", "How many automatic links do I have?", "Find me the best linking opportunity", "Link the best words on my site", "Which keywords aren't working?"
"What does my URL report say?", "What should I blog about?", "How many posts has InterLinks written?"
Each tool answers in well under a second from data InterLinks already has: the link table, stored match counts, and the summary of the last Link Activity report. No tool scans the store live, and none can write. Every answer carries a card that opens a page built for the question, so "link the best words on my site" lands on a review page with the top suggestions already selected, and "make my first link" lands on a page that creates one from a collection name.
The whole thing took one working day from first commit to a verified build on staging, and went to production in release 2.11.1 on October 12, 2026.
In practice
These are real exchanges from InterLinks stores this week, with the store names removed. The first is the one that made the team stop and look.
Your InterLinks setup has substantial coverage, but I’d clean up and verify the existing keywords before adding more.
You have 615 automatic-link keywords, all active. Your October 13 report found 36,023 keyword matches across 10,000 URLs. That report hit its limit, so it’s a partial view, not a full-store count.
The main gap is keyword health: 88 active keywords have zero recorded matches, and 404 haven’t had their match counts checked yet. There are also 80 suggestions waiting, but I’d prioritize checking those existing keywords first.
Active status alone doesn’t confirm links are displaying. The setup page can check your theme embed live, so that’s the other check I’d make before expanding.
That answer is the case for the whole approach in one screen. The question is vague. Sidekick called the setup check, the URL report summary, and the keyword health tool, then wrote a plan: verify before expanding, here are the two pages to do it on. InterLinks supplied numbers and pages. Sidekick supplied judgment.
I’d start with “How to Style Paparazzi Bracelets: Stacking, Color Pairing, and Everyday Looks.” “Paparazzi Bracelets” is your strongest InterLinks topic, with 1,933 matches across your store, and it already links to a blog article. Review that article first so the new post adds something useful rather than repeating it.
For follow-up posts, “How to Style a Blue Necklace” and “What to Wear with a Brass Necklace” are also grounded in your keywords, with 37 and 31 matches respectively.
InterLinks’ top suggestion is “paparazzi earring,” with 37 unlinked matches across 4 pages. It would point to Paparazzi Earring ~ Wraparound Whimsy - Silver.
I’d review those matches before approving it: the phrase is broad, so make sure they refer to that specific product.
You’re already underway with 315 automatic links, and InterLinks has 112 suggestions ready to review. I’d start with its setup checklist, which shows which of the seven steps are done and what to do next.
What it took to ship
Three things were learned the hard way and are worth passing on to any app team heading the same direction.
- Sidekick reads your instructions as a person would, and Shopify scans them as a policy would. The first draft told Sidekick what to do in imperatives: never say this, present it exactly like that. Shopify's safety scan blocked that version. Rewriting every line as a plain description of what each tool returns passed the scan, and Sidekick followed the layout just as well. It also began adding its own sensible caveats, which turned out to be an improvement.
- Describe data tools as reporting, never as doing. One tool's description promised to "create a link for me". Sidekick never invoked it, not once, while thirteen identically built tools worked. Reworded as "where the first link is made", it worked on the next deploy.
- A conversation only sees the tools that existed when it started. Sidekick checks an app's capabilities once per chat. After a deploy, test in a new chat. The first call in a store asks the merchant to allow InterLinks once; after that it just works.
What changed
Before the integration, every question about automatic links had the same answer: open InterLinks and look. Now the admin's own assistant answers from InterLinks data, offers the next step, and opens the right page to take it. The app did not get a chatbot. The platform's assistant got an app it can see into.
Fourteen tools occupy fourteen of Shopify's twenty-tool allowance, and the team has deliberately left the rest empty. When Shopify adds an intent type for internal linking, "Sidekick, link this to that" becomes a one-afternoon extension. Until then, the front door stays a front door.
"Merchants don't open an app to ask a question anymore. They ask Sidekick. We built InterLinks so that keyword based linking runs itself. Now the knowledge runs itself too."
Try it on your store
Install InterLinks, open Sidekick anywhere in your Shopify admin, and ask "How do I get started?". The first answer asks you to allow InterLinks once. After that, every question about your automatic links is a sentence away.