"i only speak liquid" #91: Debugging Liquid

Hey everyone,

This is Georgie’s 3rd edit of “i_only_speak_liquid”. Georgie is a developer based between Lisbon and NY. She’s contributed to projects for leading brands including John Frieda, Bioré and Bio Oil. Her expertise spans front-end development, Shopify e-commerce, EDM creation, and digital consulting.

Ofc: She’s an expert on Storetasker 😉 apply here.

Let’s dive in 🤿

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What I’ve been thinking about:

Debugging in Liquid is one of those skills you only really appreciate once you’re deep in a build and something should be working… but isn’t. No console, no helpful errors. Just a page refusing to render what you want.

This might sound incredibly basic but it has been super helpful for me recently. Where I’ve found debugging useful lately is when I’m using metafields and metaobjects. I use them a lot, but I almost never remember the exact namespace, key, or structure off the top of my head, especially with metaobjects. Instead of trying multiple options, I’ve started leaning on debugging to tell me what’s actually available in that context. Although it’s quite messy, I find it’s faster, and way less frustrating.

How I debug metafields & metaobjects in Liquid

Just print the whole thing on the page
When I’m unsure about names, structure, or relationships, I dump the object immediately:

{{ product.metafields.custom.product_callout | json }}

{{ metaobject | json }}

This is hands-down the easiest way to see:

• Exact namespaces and keys

• Whether a field is a reference, list, or text

• How deeply things are nested

I find this much easier than trying to remember the correct dot notation from memory especially for metaobjects.

Inspect the specific thing you’re looping over
If I’m inside a loop and something isn’t showing up:

{% for item in shop.metaobjects.product_callouts.values %}

  {{ item | json }}

{% endfor %}

Seeing the raw structure makes it immediately obvious whether:

• The field exists

• The name is wrong

• I’m dealing with a reference vs a value

This has saved me so much time with metaobjects.

Use debugging instead of memorising patterns

With metaobjects especially, I’ve stopped trying to memorise patterns like:

shop.metaobjects.type.values

or remembering whether it’s .value, .values, or .reference.

I just print it once, confirm the shape, and then write the logic properly, it’s sooo much quicker!

Common metafield & metaobject gotchas

• Forgetting to access .value on metafields

• Treating references like plain text

• Mixing up handles vs IDs

• Using the wrong metaobject definition name

Pros and cons of this approach

Pros

• Way faster than guessing

• Makes metaobjects feel much less “magical”

• Helps you actually understand the data model

Cons

• Ugly output while debugging

• Don’t forget to remove the debug before moving on!

• Can be overwhelming on large objects

3 links you can’t miss:

For website inspiration, I love to check out these sites:
- Site Inspire
- Readymag.com

This one I found helpful when I started out with Liquid, they have some great short course available and a great community: www.superhi.com/

One learning as a freelancer:

I’ve learned to stop treating “I don’t remember the exact field name” as a failure. Debugging is the workflow. The faster I accept that Liquid is about inspection rather than recall, the faster I move and the less mental energy I waste trying to be perfect.

-Georgie