Documentation

Getting started

Choosing options

• PrestaShop versions — 8.x, 9.x or both, on the toolbar under the composer. Both is the default. Supporting both occasionally costs something, because some back-office hooks and controller patterns differ between them, and the agent will say so when it does; 1.7 is shown in the picker but cannot be selected.
• Languages — which translations the module itself ships with: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Portuguese, in any combination, with English, French, Spanish and German on by default. Every extra language is real build time, since it is translated and screenshotted. This is not the same setting as the language this site is displayed in, which you change in the footer or on your account page.
• Multistore — turn it on if your shop runs PrestaShop's multistore mode. It decides whether settings are per-shop or global and whether custom tables carry a shop column, which is cheap to settle before the build and expensive to retrofit after it.
• Reference screenshot — attach a PNG, JPEG or WebP of up to 5 MB when a picture is faster than a paragraph, for instance the exact page you want the module to appear on. It is attached to the conversation you open; describe what it shows as well, because the wording of the spec is what the build works from.
• Theme — the agent asks whether the classic theme is enough or the module has to survive a custom one. That answer decides how defensively the front-office templates hook in, so it is worth a moment's thought.

Build credits

One credit is one module, taken all the way: written, tested, translated, documented and packaged. Accounts start with none; we add credits when you request them. There is no card and no payment page.

Brainstorming costs nothing, however long the conversation runs. The credit is spent at the moment you approve — and if the handover to the build pipeline fails right then, it goes straight back onto your balance. What you have left is on your account page.

Every approval spends one, whether it is a second module or a changed version of one you already have. When the balance reaches zero the build button is disabled; write to us at the address in the footer to top it up.

Installing the module you get

The download is an ordinary PrestaShop module zip, named after the module and its version. It needs a shop on PrestaShop 8.x or 9.x running PHP 8.1 or later — the versions you chose when you described it. Nobody from module.monster touches your shop; you install it yourself, by whichever route you normally use:

• In the back office, go to Modules, then Module Manager, and use “Upload a module” to drop the zip in. PrestaShop unpacks and installs it in one step. The screen is in the same place on 8.x and 9.x.
• Or unpack the zip and copy the folder it contains into your shop's /modules directory over FTP or SSH, keeping the folder name exactly as it comes out of the zip. The module then appears in the Module Manager, where you press Install.
• Either way, finish in the Module Manager: “Configure” opens the module's own settings page in the back office. Uninstalling from the same screen removes the tables, tabs and settings it created.

Install it on a staging copy of your shop first and click through it there. It is ordinary PHP that belongs to you — read it, change it, hand it to your developer — but it is code your shop has not run before, and a live shop is a bad place to discover that.

Limits and expectations

• One module at a time, sized at roughly what a good developer would build in a day. A bigger idea gets trimmed in the conversation to the smallest version that stands on its own, with the rest suggested as a separate module later.
• PrestaShop 8.x and 9.x only, on PHP 8.1 or later. Nothing older is supported, 1.7 included.
• The module is built and tested against a standard PrestaShop installation. A heavily customised theme, or another module competing for the same hook, can still call for adjustments once it is on your shop.
• A module can talk to an outside service, but the account and the credentials are yours, and that part cannot be exercised during testing. Treat any such integration as something to verify on your own staging shop.
• Approving closes the first build. After the zip is ready you can keep chatting on the same module and rebuild with changes — each rebuild uses another credit. Read the summary before you press the button.
• What you download is the module zip. The illustrated user guide written during the build is not part of that download — write to us if you would like a copy.
• No access in either direction: nothing is installed on your shop for you, and the module never calls home. That also means no automatic updates — what you downloaded stays as it is until you build something new.
• Builds do fail. A step that keeps coming back wrong is retried up to three times, and then the module is flagged as needing attention instead of shipping something broken. You see that on the module's page, and we look into those ourselves.