Liquid is Shopify's templating language. Understanding the basics lets you customize your theme beyond what the editor allows.
What Is Liquid?
Liquid is a template language created by Shopify. It processes data from your store and outputs HTML. It is designed to be safe — it cannot access the database or execute arbitrary code.
Basic Syntax
Liquid uses three types of delimiters. Output variables with {{ double curly braces }}. Write logic with {% curly brace percent signs %}. Comments go inside {% comment %} tags.
Objects and Properties
Objects contain data from your store. product.title, collection.products, customer.email. Liquid gives you access to nearly every piece of store data.
Filters
Filters modify output. Common filters: upcase, downcase, date, money, strip_html, truncate. Chain filters for complex transformations.
Tags
Tags control logic flow. Use for loops to iterate over products. Use if/else for conditions. Use assign to create variables. Use include to reuse template snippets.
Where to Learn More
Shopify's Liquid documentation is excellent. Start with the basics, experiment in a duplicate theme, and build up from there.
You do not need to master Liquid to use Shopify. But knowing the basics unlocks serious customization capability.