Controlling Which Product Metafields  Shoply Can Use

Your AI Shopping Assistant is designed to help customers by reading your product information, answering questions, and making recommendations.

However, not all product data is meant for customers. Some product metafields  may include internal information (such as profit margin), supplier details, or other attributes that should remain private. In these cases, you may prefer that Shoply does not use those metafields when answering customer questions.

Shoply uses AI to automatically determine which metafields can be used when answering customer questions. However, to give you full control, Shoply allows you to set blacklist (exclude) specific product metafields or entire metafield namespaces.

This guide explains why this is useful and how to configure it.

Where to set the blacklist settings?

Go to the “Settings” section of the app’s admin console, and then scroll down to the “Advanced Settings” section. In this section, you can provide a JSON object  that defines:

• `blacklist_product_fields — an array of field names.

• blacklist_namespaces — an array of metafield namespaces.

What are blacklist_product_fields and blacklist_namespaces?

blacklist_product_fields

A list of exact metafield keys (field names) you want to exclude. The field name must match the metafield’s key exactly as it appears inside Shopify.

Example metafield keys:

• start_date
• product_type
• backstock_number
• upc
• shipping_lead_time

blacklist_namespaces

A list of entire namespaces  you want the AI to ignore.

Example:

• RenterInfo

If a metafield belongs to a blacklisted namespace, all fields in that namespace are excluded automatically.

This is useful when a whole namespace is internal or sensitive.

Example of a valid JSON object

Here is a fully valid example:

{
  "blacklist_product_fields": [
    "profit_margin",
    "inventory_level",
    "product_type",
    "category_name"
  ],
  "blacklist_namespaces": [
    "SupplierInfo"
  ]
}

You can remove items you don’t need, or add your own metafield keys and namespaces.

📝 Tips for merchants

👍 Recommended to blacklist:

• Supplier codes
• Warehouse / inventory details
• Internal fulfillment notes
• Metafields used by other apps
• Any field that shouldn’t be visible to customers

⚠️ Avoid blacklisting fields like:

• Product title
• Description
• Material
• Size, dimensions, or specs
• Ingredients
• Care instructions
• Variant names/options

(These help the AI give better answers.)