Shopify Admin Inventory Transfer Between Locations

Purpose

Transfers a specified quantity of inventory from a source location to a destination location using paired inventory adjustments (decrement source, increment destination). Used for inter-warehouse rebalancing, pre-positioning stock before a sale, or redistributing inventory after a location change. Replaces manual inventory transfer in Shopify Admin.

Prerequisites

• Authenticated Shopify CLI session: shopify store auth --store <domain> --scopes read_products,write_inventory,read_inventory
• API scopes: read_products, read_inventory, write_inventory
• Both source and destination must be active Shopify locations

Parameters

Safety

⚠️ inventoryAdjustQuantities directly modifies inventory levels. Decrementing the source below zero is possible if the quantity exceeds available stock — the skill will warn but Shopify does not block negative adjustments. Run with dry_run: true to verify available quantities at the source before committing. This does NOT create a transfer order record in Shopify; it is a direct adjustment.

Workflow Steps

1. OPERATION: locations — query Inputs: first: 50 Expected output: All locations with id, name — validate source and destination IDs exist

2. OPERATION: inventoryItems — query Inputs: Batch lookup by SKU to get inventoryItem.id for each transfer SKU Expected output: Inventory items with current quantities at source location

3. Validate: for each SKU, confirm available >= quantity at source. Warn if not but proceed if dry_run: false

4. OPERATION: inventoryAdjustQuantities — mutation Inputs: Two changes per SKU: { inventoryItemId, locationId: source, delta: -quantity, reason: "correction" } and { inventoryItemId, locationId: destination, delta: +quantity, reason: "correction" } Expected output: inventoryAdjustmentGroup { changes { delta, location } }, userErrors

GraphQL Operations

# locations:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
query ActiveLocations {
  locations(first: 50, includeInactive: false) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        name
        isActive
        fulfillsOnlineOrders
      }
    }
  }
}

# inventoryItems:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
query InventoryLevelsAtLocation($ids: [ID!]!) {
  nodes(ids: $ids) {
    ... on InventoryItem {
      id
      sku
      inventoryLevels(first: 20) {
        edges {
          node {
            location {
              id
              name
            }
            quantities(names: ["available", "on_hand"]) {
              name
              quantity
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

# inventoryAdjustQuantities:mutation — validated against api_version 2025-01
mutation InventoryAdjustQuantities($input: InventoryAdjustQuantitiesInput!) {
  inventoryAdjustQuantities(input: $input) {
    inventoryAdjustmentGroup {
      createdAt
      reason
      changes {
        delta
        quantityAfterChange
        item {
          id
          sku
        }
        location {
          id
          name
        }
      }
    }
    userErrors {
      field
      message
    }
  }
}

Session Tracking

Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.

On start, emit:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: Inventory Transfer Between Locations ║
║  Store: <store domain>                       ║
║  Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC>             ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝

After each step, emit:

[N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION>  <OperationName>
          → Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
          → Result: <count or outcome>

If dry_run: true, prefix every mutation step with [DRY RUN] and do not execute it.

On completion, emit:

For format: human (default):

══════════════════════════════════════════════
OUTCOME SUMMARY
  SKUs transferred:   <n>
  Total units moved:  <n>
  Warnings (low stock): <n>
  Errors:             <n>
  Output:             inventory_transfer_<date>.csv
══════════════════════════════════════════════

For format: json, emit:

{
  "skill": "inventory-transfer-between-locations",
  "store": "<domain>",
  "started_at": "<ISO8601>",
  "dry_run": true,
  "source_location": "<name>",
  "destination_location": "<name>",
  "outcome": {
    "skus_transferred": 0,
    "units_moved": 0,
    "warnings": 0,
    "errors": 0,
    "output_file": "inventory_transfer_<date>.csv"
  }
}

Output Format

CSV file inventory_transfer_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv with columns: sku, product_title, inventory_item_id, source_location, destination_location, quantity_transferred, source_qty_before, source_qty_after, destination_qty_before, destination_qty_after

Error Handling

Best Practices

• Always run with dry_run: true first — the skill verifies available quantities and shows exactly what will change.
• This creates raw inventory adjustments, not a transfer order. For audit trail purposes, add a note in the reason field and document the transfer separately.
• For large transfers (50+ SKUs), run during off-peak hours to avoid interfering with live inventory reads by the storefront.
• Pair with multi-location-inventory-audit to identify which locations have excess stock before deciding transfer quantities.