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Choose your install path

Installing Dialog has two concerns, and they don’t always live in the same place:

  • Data ingestion — uploading your product catalog (and optionally blog / pages) so the assistant can answer accurately.
  • Frontend integration — embedding the assistant widget on your storefront so visitors can use it.

Some paths cover both at once (Shopify app, Prestashop module). Other stacks need you to mix-and-match (e.g. Shopify headless: app handles data ingestion, you embed the frontend yourself).

Find your stack below. Each card links to the two pages you’ll need: one for data ingestion, one for the frontend embed.

What your team has to do depends on the path:

  • Shopify or Prestashop merchant → you install the app or module yourself from the back office. No developer needed for a standard setup; a few minutes of clicking. Your catalog syncs automatically.
  • Shopify legacy theme (< 2.0) → same install, but a developer (yours or your agency’s) needs to paste a few snippets into your theme — usually under an hour.
  • Headless Shopify, or any other custom storefront with frontend developers → your developers integrate Dialog into your storefront codebase. They get full control over how the assistant connects to your cart and your product pages, which means it fits cleanly into your existing checkout flow. Plan for a few hours to a day of frontend work.
  • Non-Shopify / non-Prestashop, no frontend developers available → use Google Tag Manager. You set it up from your GTM account, no code touched. Trade-off: the widget loads after the rest of the page, so visitors get a delay and a layout shift, and it won’t quite match your site’s look. Last-resort path — use it only when an SDK install isn’t possible.

Frontend integration options for custom or headless stacks

Section titled “Frontend integration options for custom or headless stacks”

If your data ingestion is handled but you still need to embed the assistant on a custom frontend, share this with your developers:

  • React@askdialog/dialog-react — drop-in DialogProductBlock and DialogInput.
  • Vue 3@askdialog/dialog-vue — same components, Vue flavor.
  • Other JS frameworks (Svelte, SolidJS, Lit, vanilla, server-side templating like Twig / Blade / ERB) → @askdialog/dialog-sdk — vanilla SDK, the team builds the UI shell around it.

The add-to-cart UI refresh (cart icon, bubble, mini-cart, drawer) is the single most common issue, on every platform. After you install Dialog, open the assistant on a product page, add a product, and check that your cart UI updates without a page reload. If it doesn’t, see Add to cart issues — the fix differs by install path.