Payflow in Claude and ChatGPT
You can connect Payflow to Claude or ChatGPT and describe what you want in your own words: “offer Cash on Delivery only in Czechia and Slovakia up to 5,000 CZK”, “why is my rule not hiding PayPal for Slovak addresses?”. The assistant reads your payment methods, shipping rates and rules, creates rules for you, checks them on an example cart and makes them live when you say so.
It works on every Payflow plan. Your plan’s limits on active rules apply to what the assistant does.
Connect an assistant
Section titled “Connect an assistant”In Payflow, open Settings → AI assistants and click Connect next to Claude or ChatGPT. On the dashboard, Connect Claude and Connect ChatGPT on the card Set up Payflow in chat open the same window. It has three steps:
- Add Payflow as a connector. Copy the address and add it to your assistant. Claude: Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector, and paste the address. ChatGPT: Settings → Apps → Advanced settings → turn on Developer mode, then create an app with the address (changing rules needs a paid ChatGPT plan). Open Claude or Open ChatGPT takes you to that page. For Claude Code, click Using Claude Code? Copy the command instead.
- Approve with a connection code. The assistant opens a Payflow page in your browser that asks for a code. Back in the Payflow window, check Your name (it starts with your first name from Shopify) and click Get connection code. Enter the code on the Payflow page and click Allow access. The code works once, for 15 minutes. If it runs out, click Get a new code.
- Start chatting. As soon as you allow access, the window shows that the assistant is connected. Copy one of the example prompts or ask your own question, for example “What payment and shipping rules do I have, and what does each do?”
Each person on your team can connect their own assistant: Connect stays available after someone has connected. In Settings → AI assistants, each assistant lists the people who connected it, with the date.
Testing mode and confirmations
Section titled “Testing mode and confirmations”Payflow rules run in your live checkout, so the assistant works in steps:
- New rules start in testing mode. A testing rule only applies to carts opened through your store’s testing link, so you can try it before your customers see it. Payment instructions created in chat start switched off.
- Preview first. Before every change, the assistant can show you exactly what will change.
- Nothing goes live without your yes. Activating a rule, changing or switching off an active rule, and changing active payment instructions all need your explicit confirmation in the chat. Deleting a rule needs a separate confirmation.
- Stale changes are refused. If you or a colleague changed the rule in Payflow while the assistant was working, its change is refused instead of overwriting yours.
- Some rules are never created. Payflow refuses a rule that would hide every payment method or every shipping method with no condition, and warns before a checkout rule that would block every order.
Finding out why a rule does nothing
Section titled “Finding out why a rule does nothing”Ask the assistant “why does my rule not work?” with an example order. It can:
- simulate a checkout for a cart you describe (country, postcode, products and tags, customer, shipping method) and tell you, rule by rule, whether it applied and which condition stopped it — using the same code your checkout runs, without touching your store,
- explain a rule in plain words,
- find rules that fight each other, such as two rules renaming the same method,
- check rule health: a Payflow function missing from your store, conditions a rule’s function can’t read, rules left in testing mode.
History and undo
Section titled “History and undo”Every change to your rules is recorded with who made it — you or a colleague in Payflow, or an assistant with the name of the person who connected it. Settings → AI assistants shows the latest changes under Change history. Click Full history to open the Change history page, which keeps every change for 180 days. Assistant requests shows what the assistants did lately: which tool, when and whether it worked.
You can put a change back yourself on the Change history page:
- Undo returns a changed rule to its earlier settings, including whether it was active or in testing mode.
- Restore brings back a deleted rule in testing mode. Restored payment instructions come back switched off.
- Creating a rule can’t be undone there. Delete the rule instead.
- If the rule changed again later, undo the newer change first.
Undo in Payflow applies right away, also to an active rule: your click is the confirmation. You can also ask the assistant to undo a change, with the same confirmations as any other change.
Disconnect or pause
Section titled “Disconnect or pause”- Disconnect next to a person’s name in Settings → AI assistants removes all of that person’s connections to that assistant immediately. Other people’s connections stay.
- Pause stops every connected assistant at once without disconnecting them. While access is paused, a warning banner says so, the assistants show Paused instead of Connected, and no new connection code can be created. Resume in the banner turns them back on.
- Uninstalling Payflow disconnects every assistant.
What the assistant can use
Section titled “What the assistant can use”These are the tools Payflow gives the assistant. Read tools only look; write tools change your rules, with the confirmations above.
| Tool | What it does | Type |
|---|---|---|
payflow_get_shop_context | Shop context | Read |
payflow_list_payment_methods | List payment methods | Read |
payflow_list_shipping_methods | List shipping methods | Read |
payflow_list_rules | List rules | Read |
payflow_get_rule | Get a rule | Read |
payflow_list_condition_types | List condition types | Read |
payflow_list_rule_templates | List rule templates | Read |
payflow_get_payment_instructions | Get payment instructions | Read |
payflow_simulate_checkout | Simulate a checkout | Read |
payflow_explain_rule | Explain a rule | Read |
payflow_find_rule_conflicts | Find rule conflicts | Read |
payflow_get_rules_health | Check rules health | Read |
payflow_check_cod_setup | Check the Cash on Delivery setup | Read |
payflow_search_docs | Search the Payflow docs | Read |
payflow_get_doc | Read a Payflow docs page | Read |
payflow_create_payment_rule | Create a payment rule | Write |
payflow_create_delivery_rule | Create a delivery rule | Write |
payflow_create_checkout_rule | Create a checkout rule | Write |
payflow_update_rule | Change a rule | Write |
payflow_activate_rule | Activate a rule | Write |
payflow_deactivate_rule | Deactivate a rule | Write |
payflow_delete_rule | Delete a rule | Write |
payflow_update_payment_instructions | Create or change payment instructions | Write |
payflow_list_rule_changes | List rule changes | Read |
payflow_undo_rule_change | Undo a rule change | Write |
payflow_create_support_ticket | Open a support ticket | Write |
Claude and ChatGPT also offer ready-made conversations in their prompt menu: Set up Cash on Delivery and payments for Czechia and Slovakia, Why does my rule not work? and Set up Cash on Delivery with a fee.
The assistant answers how-to questions from these docs and links the page. When something needs support — a refund, a billing question, a bug — it can open a ticket for you: it shows you what it will send, and sends it only after you agree.
Your data
Section titled “Your data”- The assistant only sees your store’s Payflow data: rules, payment and shipping method names, and payment instructions — including the bank account (IBAN) you entered, which it shows only to you. No tool returns your orders or your customers’ data.
- Payflow keeps a log of the assistant’s tool calls (which tool, when, whether it worked — not what was sent or returned) for 7 days, and the history of rule changes for 180 days.
- Connection codes and access tokens are stored only as hashes.
- A support ticket the assistant opens for you contains your message and Payflow’s own check of your rules (names, states, problems found) — never your bank details or your customers’ data.