Getting Started
The checkout is an essential part of the ecommerce flow. Use the Bold Checkout APIs to customize your store's checkout experience to include everything you need and nothing you don’t.
Use this guide to get started using the Bold Checkout APIs.
Install Bold Checkout
To call the Checkout APIs, you must have the Bold Commerce app installed on your store. The installation process varies slightly based on your store's platform. Refer to the following guides for more information and instructions:
Bold Checkout is called Bold Cashier on Shopify. Bold Cashier is only available to merchants who installed the app prior to January 20, 2020. New enterprise customers can submit a request to Shopify to use Bold Cashier. Please reach out to our Partners Team for more information.
Enable development mode
Complete the following steps to turn on development mode, which enables you to process test transactions.
- In the Bold Checkout admin, navigate to Payment Options > Payment Gateways.
- Switch the Development mode toggle to On.
- Configure a development payment gateway. Payments are not captured for orders submitted while the store is in development mode.
- If you are using any of the following scenarios, submit a support request:
- If you are not using Spreedly as a payment gateway, you must submit a support request. Bold Checkout uses Spreedly to provide a test payment gateway. For most other gateways, including those in development mode, Bold Checkout requires that you provide a credit card. This card will not be charged when the store is in development mode. However, if your store will be used exclusively for development, submit a support request to request that the credit card requirement is waived for your store.
- If you create a password-protected development store on Shopify, you must also include the storefront password in your support request. Production stores do not require this step.
Create an API access token
An API access token gives you access to the Bold APIs. The process to generate this token depends on the type of integration you build:
- For private integrations, which are installed on a single store and are not available in the Integrations Marketplace, create your API access token through the Bold Account Center. Complete the steps in the Quick Start guide to generate this token and make your first API calls.
- For public integrations, which can be made available in the Integrations Marketplace, create your API access token through an OAuth 2.0 flow. Complete the steps in the Building Public Integrations guide to generate this token and make your first API calls.
When prompted to specify the scopes of your API access token, select the following scopes:
| Category | Scope | Permissions |
|---|---|---|
| Core | Customers | Read & Write |
| Core | Orders | Read & Write |
| Core | Shop Settings | Read & Write |
| Core | Shops | Read |
| Checkout | Payments | Write |
Find the shop identifier
Find the shop_identifier for your store by calling the Get Info endpoint. This identifies your store to the API and is required for all Checkout endpoints, so it may be wise to store it somewhere easily accessible.
The following example shows retrieving the shop_identifier using the API access token you previously created:
curl --request GET 'https://api.boldcommerce.com/shops/v1/info' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {api_access_token}' \
--header 'Bold-API-Version-Date: 2022-05-01'
A successful API call returns a JSON object with information about your shop. The shop_identifier value is required for the following step.
Add all domains to CORS allowlist
The Bold Checkout APIs are protected by a restrictive Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy, which blocks frontend JavaScript code from calling the APIs.
You must manually add your domain to CORS allowlist if you are self-hosting your checkout or using a custom domain for your checkout page. Failing to do so causes in errors from your browser or a failure of your browser to load the checkout frontend.
If your store has Bold Checkout installed and is in development mode, it is automatically added to the CORS allowlist and you do not need to manually add it to the allowlist.
Next steps
Payments are processed through a Payment Isolation Gateway Interface (PIGI) iframe. Refer to the Payment Interface page for information on setting up PIGI.