Your AI agent can perform different types of actions. Some happen automatically, some need to be enabled, and some behaviors can't be changed.
Information lookup (automatic)
The AI automatically searches when relevant:
- Help articles — Your knowledge base content
- Canned responses — Pre-written templates
- Shopify products — Product details, pricing, availability
- Shopify orders — Order status, tracking, history
Conversation actions (always available)
These are always available to your AI agent:
- Respond to customer — Send messages to customers
- Hand over to human agent — Transfer to your team
- Resolve conversation — Close completed tickets
- Snooze conversation — Pause until a specific time
- Assign to agent or team — Route to the right person
- Add or remove labels — Categorize conversations
- Add private notes — Internal documentation
Shopify actions (must be enabled)
The AI agent can automatically handle common customer requests by performing actions in Shopify. This eliminates delays when customers need immediate changes to their orders, especially outside business hours.
These actions must be enabled in Settings → AI Agent → Actions:
Cancel order Cancels an unfulfilled Shopify order completely. This will cancel all unfulfilled items, stop pending fulfillment, automatically restock products, process a full refund, and send a confirmation email. If the order is already fulfilled/shipped, the agent will explain that cancellation is no longer possible.
Edit order items Replaces or swaps items in a Shopify order (e.g., different size/color). The agent will ask which item to remove and what to add, check stock availability, restock removed items, and handle payment adjustments. For price increases, creates a handover to your team for additional payment. For decreases, automatically refunds the difference.
Remove items from order Removes specific items from a Shopify order when customers change their mind. The agent will confirm which items to remove, restock them in Shopify, refund the amount for removed items, and send a confirmation email.
Change shipping address Updates the delivery address for a Shopify order. The agent will verify the new address with the customer before making the update.
Hold order fulfillment Temporarily pauses the fulfillment process. Useful when you need to make changes, verify information, or resolve issues before shipping.
Tag Shopify order Adds custom tags to orders for organization and tracking (e.g., "urgent", "gift", "review_needed").
Issue full refund Processes a complete refund for all items in a Shopify order. Use with strict guidance as this refunds the entire order value.
Using actions in guidance
Once enabled, reference actions naturally in your guidance instructions:
1. Check if the order is unfulfilled
2. If unfulfilled, apologize and cancel the order
3. Confirm the cancellation and explain refund timing
4. Resolve the conversation
The AI recognizes action phrases and performs them automatically:
- "Cancel the order" → Executes cancel
- "Hold fulfillment" → Pauses shipping
- "Add tag: rush-delivery" → Tags the order
- "Assign to returns team" → Routes conversation
- "Escalate to human" → Hands over to agent
Enabling Shopify actions
Navigate to AI agent → Actions to enable Shopify actions.
Each action can be individually enabled or disabled. Click "Edit" to configure conditions that must be met before the AI executes each action.
Setup requirements:
- If you installed Commslayer before August 2025, reauthorize your Shopify connection in Settings → Shops to grant order editing permissions
- Each action requires individual activation using the toggle switches
Extend with custom actions
Need to connect your AI agent to external systems? Custom actions let you trigger HTTP webhooks to tools like Zapier, n8n, or your own APIs.
- Custom actions — Connect to external systems via HTTP requests
- Build a shipping issues tracker — Step-by-step tutorial for logging data to Google Sheets
Default behaviors (cannot override)
Some AI agent behaviors are automatic and cannot be changed via guidance.
Pending on reply When the AI responds and expects the customer to reply, the conversation moves to "pending" status automatically. You cannot override this with guidance instructions.
The AI determines whether it expects a reply based on context (e.g., asking a question vs. providing final information).
Order lookup and customer verification
The AI agent has built-in order lookup and identity verification. You don't need to write guidance for this.
How it works:
- Email/SMS channels: Customer identity is automatically verified from the channel (their email address or phone number)
- Chat and other channels: The AI asks for their email or phone, then verifies it against the order
What happens automatically:
- Customer asks about "my order" → AI finds their latest order by verified email/phone
- Customer provides order number → AI verifies it belongs to them before sharing details
- Customer wants to cancel/edit → AI confirms identity first, then proceeds
If verification fails:
- Email/phone doesn't match the order → AI does not share order details or make changes
- AI asks if they used a different email or phone at checkout
- If still no match → AI hands over to a human agent
You cannot customize:
- The verification flow or what information is required
- The matching logic (email/phone to order)
- When verification is triggered