If you’re setting up your Composable Storefront, the SLAS Client ID is one of the first things you’ll need. SLAS — Shopper Login and API Access Service — issues the access tokens your storefront uses to call Shopper APIs, but its setup flow spans Business Manager, Account Manager, and a separate Admin UI, which makes it easy to get lost. This guide walks through that flow end to end.
Official Guide
Salesforce publishes its own guide for this setup: Authorization for Shopper APIs. Some steps below go into more detail than that guide; others are covered there more thoroughly, including a newer CLI-based path (b2c slas client create) as an alternative to the Admin UI. That guide also covers how to use the APIs once SLAS is set up, which I won’t repeat here.
Step 1: Get a sandbox
If you want to connect the Composable Storefront to your own APIs (including SLAS), you need your own sandbox. I won’t go into how to get one here — it’s covered in a previous article and in Salesforce’s own documentation.
Step 2: Go to the Salesforce Commerce API Settings
After you have logged into the Business Manager of your environment, go to the following: “Administration > Site Development > Salesforce Commerce API Settings”
Salesforce’s own documentation doesn’t show a clickable SLAS Admin UI link on this page by default — construct the URL yourself from the Short Code (the identifier tied to your instance’s API hostname): https://{{Short_Code}}.api.commercecloud.salesforce.com/shopper/auth-admin/v1/ui/. If you have the DWithEase browser extension installed, it may add a shortcut link here for you, but the manual URL is the dependable path either way.
On this screen, you’ll also find the Organization ID — the identifier the CLI and PWA Kit use to address your instance’s APIs — alongside the Short Code. You’ll need both later. Open the SLAS Admin UI URL from above (or the shortcut link, if DWithEase added one) to continue.
When you click this link, the screen above should appear, with a blue “SLAS Admin UI Login” button. Clicking it signs you in with your Account Manager user. To actually manage SLAS, that user needs a specific permission: a role in Account Manager with the correct Scopes assigned. Don’t skip that — without it, the SLAS Admin UI login will reject you.
Step 3: Add a new SLAS Client
If your account has the correct permissions, you’ll land on a “Welcome screen”.
On this page, click the “Clients” tab to see the list of clients you’re permitted to manage (per the scopes from the previous step).
Click the “Add Client” button on this page to go to the next step.
Fill in the following information:
- What tenant will be used?: Fill in the Tenant ID — the realm ID and instance ID from your Organization ID, joined with an underscore. For an on-demand sandbox this looks like
zzte_053; POD sandboxes use a different pattern, likezzrf_s01. - What site will be used?: Fill in the site IDs you’ll use, separated by a space.
- Which App Type will be used?: Select “PWA Kit or SFRA or Mobile” — this is the Composable Storefront path. Selecting this option will make a Public Client: one that can’t keep a secret confidential (like a browser-based app), so it authenticates without one. Salesforce’s current guidance recommends a private client instead for most PWA Kit 3.5+ projects, since a private client can hold a secret safely, which is a stronger security posture. The SLAS Admin UI creates both the same way; if your form offers the choice explicitly, pick private unless you have a specific reason not to. Step 4 and Step 5 below assume you know which one you picked.
- Client Id: The Client ID to use during the installation of the PWA Kit. This can be left as-is. Note: This Client ID does not need to exist as an API Client in the Account Manager. They are not related.
- Secret: Public clients don’t need a secret. Private clients do — store it in an environment variable, never directly in your project files.
- Do you want the default shopper scopes?: Leave this checked — the Composable Storefront needs the default shopper scopes.
- Enter custom shopper scopes: This step can be left empty.
Click “Submit” to create the client.
Typo in the scopes
When this article was first written in January 2023, the SLAS Admin UI’s default scope bundle had a missing space between “sfcc.shopper-myaccount.orders” and “sfcc.shopper-myaccount.paymentinstruments”, and had to be fixed by hand before saving. I couldn’t confirm live in July 2026 whether that’s still the case — Salesforce’s Authorization Scopes Catalog now lists the two as separate, correctly spaced entries (and the payments scope has since become sfcc.shopper-myaccount.paymentinstruments.rw), but that’s static documentation, not the live Admin UI’s generated textbox. Check the scope list your own Admin UI produces before saving — if two scope names run together, add the missing space manually.
Step 4: Update your OCAPI settings (public clients only)
If your project uses PWA Kit 3.5 or later, it’s configured to use a SLAS private client by default, and private clients skip this step entirely — jump straight to Step 5.
Note
This step only applies if you deliberately created a SLAS public client in Step 3. It’s also worth knowing that OCAPI was deprecated platform-wide in April 2026 and now receives security patches only. The instructions below still work today, but they lean on a maintenance-mode API, not a long-term foundation.
If you are on a public client, follow the “Update Open Commerce API Settings” step on Salesforce’s Set Up API Access guide, using the SLAS Client ID generated in the previous step.
Step 5: Use the new SLAS Client
With your SLAS Client, Short Code, and Organization ID in hand, you’re ready to install the PWA Kit. Open your terminal and enter:
npx @salesforce/pwa-kit-create-app@latest
Pin an explicit version (e.g. @v3.5.0) instead of @latest if you want reproducible results — Salesforce’s own docs warn that omitting a version can produce unexpected results due to caching of old versions. During the run you’ll be asked for the following:
What is your Project ID
Choose an identifier for your project. It doubles as the local folder name the CLI creates; Salesforce’s current docs also tie it to your entry in Managed Runtime Admin, though for a sandbox-only local setup any identifier works.
What is the URL for your Commerce Cloud instance
Fill in the URL of your sandbox, and this looks something like:
https://xxxx-0xx.dx.commercecloud.salesforce.com/
What is your Commerce API client ID
Enter the SLAS Client ID generated in step 3. Salesforce’s current CLI docs call this the “Commerce API client ID” rather than “SLAS Client ID” — it’s the same value, obtained the same way.
Public or private client?
The CLI now asks explicitly whether you’re using a private or public client. Private is the default and what most new projects should pick; only choose public if that’s what you created in Step 3 (in which case Step 4’s OCAPI update also applies to you).
What is your Site ID in Business Manager
Enter the Site ID of the site you will use (e.g. RefArch).
What is your Commerce API organization ID in Business Manager
This information can be found in the “Salesforce Commerce API Settings” in the Business Manager of your environment. This was covered in step 2.
What is your Commerce API short code in Business Manager
This information can be found in the “Salesforce Commerce API Settings” in the Business Manager of your environment. This was covered in step 2.
Step 6: Run the PWA Kit
With SLAS running and the PWA Kit installed locally, go into the new folder the command created and run:
npm start
A browser window opens automatically, and the storefront’s homepage should load after a short wait.
That’s the full path: a sandbox, a SLAS client from the Admin UI, and a Composable Storefront pointed at your short code and org ID. Most of what trips people up is exactly what this guide calls out explicitly — the scope list to double-check before saving, whether you picked a public or private client, and which OCAPI step that choice lets you skip. Get those three right and the rest is just following the CLI’s prompts.