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Knowledge Base & Catalog Training

Your AI Shopping Guide is only as good as the information it can access. ShopGuide combines automated product catalog synchronization with a dedicated Knowledge Base for store policies, ingredient details, and custom brand guidelines.

You can access the Knowledge Base by opening Extras → Train your Guide in the ShopGuide app.

1. Automated Product Catalog Synchronization​

When you install ShopGuide, the app automatically performs an initial catalog bootstrap:

  • What is indexed: Your Shopify product catalog, including descriptions, variants and prices.
  • Ongoing updates: When you update a product in your Shopify Admin, the assistant's catalog knowledge updates automatically.
  • Only the Online Store: Active products that are not published to the Online Store are not indexed.
  • Manual sync buttons: Your products sync automatically, so re-sync only if something looks off. After bulk CSV catalog imports or major inventory overhauls, click Sync Products (Delta) on the Train your Guide page to re-process only the products changed since the last sync, or Force Full Sync to rebuild everything. A progress bar on Home and on the Train page shows how far a sync has got. (On a brand-new store the first button reads Sync Products.)
Zero Risk to Custom Knowledge

Manual and automated product syncs only update product points in the AI's catalog memory. Your custom brand FAQs, policies, and behavioral rules are protected and never overwritten during catalog syncs.

Shopify's Knowledge Base app​

Your Guide reads your Shopify Knowledge Base: the published FAQs and the store facts you have confirmed, plus Shopify's brand profile of your store. The chat may take a few minutes to pick up a change. Nothing to upload.

On Train your Guide, the Shopify Knowledge Base card shows what Shopify tells AI shopping agents about your store, in three labelled layers. Edits go live immediately.

  1. Your FAQs: written by you, here, in Shopify's Knowledge Base app, or with Answer in Knowledge Base on a knowledge gap. Click Add FAQ, fill in Question and Answer (Shopify recommends 1–2 sentences), and click Save to Shopify. Each FAQ has Edit and Delete buttons (Delete asks you to confirm).
  2. Shopify's profile of your store: facts and a brand profile that Shopify writes from your storefront. Entries show Written by Shopify until you check them, and Confirmed by you once you click Edit and save. There is no separate approve step. Your Guide uses the brand profile to match your store's voice; an entry you have not confirmed shapes tone only and is never stated to shoppers as fact. The same brand profile is in Settings → Essentials (see Settings).
  3. From your Shopify settings: Shopify's default answers (shipping countries, returns, local pickup, languages, store credit) come straight from your store settings. To change one, change the setting in Shopify, or override it in Shopify's Knowledge Base app (the card links there).

The three layers of the Shopify Knowledge Base card: your FAQs, Shopify's profile of your store, and your Shopify settings

The three layers: who writes each one, and where you change it.

  • On Chats, a knowledge gap about a policy or product info has an Answer in Knowledge Base button. It opens a pre-filled FAQ form, saves your answer to Shopify's Knowledge Base, and marks the gap resolved. See Chat management.

Shopify shares your store's answers with its AI shopping agents, so write FAQs you are happy to see used outside your own chat.

If the card says "We couldn't read your Shopify Knowledge Base", reopen the app so it can ask for the missing permission.

2. Ingesting Store Policies & Custom FAQs​

While product descriptions provide specifications, customers often ask broader operational questions.

What your Guide already knows: every product in your catalog, plus the pages, blog posts and store policies on your Shopify store, and the FAQs in Shopify's Knowledge Base app. Not automatically: FAQs that live inside another app (a help-desk or FAQ app). Paste those into the Knowledge Base below.

The Train page has two tabs, Knowledge Base and Behavior Rules. The Knowledge Base tab gives you three ways to train the AI on non-catalog facts:

A. Paste text or upload a file​

Paste full policy text from your website, or upload a file (.txt, .md, .json or .pdf):

  • Shipping policy & transit times.
  • Return & refund eligibility windows.
  • Care instructions and wash guides.
  • Sizing charts and measurement guidelines.
  • PDFs such as technical specification sheets, certificates of analysis, wholesale catalogs or brand lookbooks.

B. CSV import​

For structured rows such as bulk FAQ sheets. Use Download empty CSV template to get the right columns. Uploads appear in an Imports list.

C. Add a row manually​

Perfect for concise, frequent customer inquiries. Each row has a Category, Customer Question, Answer / AI Instruction, Answer Type, Required Follow-up Questions and an optional Source URL:

  • Question: "Do you offer local pickup?"
  • Answer: "Yes! Free local pickup is available at our main warehouse in Michigan Monday through Friday, 9am to 4pm. Select Local Pickup during checkout."

You can search your rows from the tab.

Behavior Rules​

The Behavior Rules tab holds shop-wide rules, for example "always ask about system compatibility before recommending". Rules are added by CSV or manually, not as free text.

3. The Live Testing Sandbox​

Never test experimental prompts or new policies on live customers. The Train page includes an Ask a Test Question card:

  1. Type a question just like a shopper would.
  2. Observe the AI Response: its answer, tone, and formatting.
  3. Open Sources Used to confirm whether the AI retrieved data from a product record or a specific Knowledge Base entry.
  4. If an answer needs adjustment, use the thumbs-down button. A box asks "How should the AI respond differently?" (minimum 50 characters) and your correction is saved as feedback, which you can review under Settings → AI Behavior (see Chat management). You can also update the source document directly.