php-wordpress_skill

Overview

This skill provides practical mastery of WordPress development for building themes, plugins, Gutenberg blocks, and REST API integrations. It targets WordPress 6.x and modern workflows, with emphasis on secure, maintainable code and performance. Use it to learn concrete patterns, examples, and troubleshooting tactics for real projects.

How this skill works

The skill guides you through focused modules: theme development, plugin architecture, Gutenberg block creation, REST API endpoints, and security hardening. Each module maps beginner → intermediate → advanced topics and includes code samples, error codes, retry recommendations, and debug settings. You supply a topic and level and receive targeted guidance, examples, and recovery steps for common issues.

When to use it

• Building or migrating a theme (classic, block, or hybrid)
• Creating a custom plugin with settings, AJAX, or custom tables
• Developing custom Gutenberg blocks and patterns
• Exposing custom REST API endpoints for headless or SPA integrations
• Hardening a site with sanitization, escaping, nonces, and capability checks

Best practices

• Always sanitize inputs and escape outputs; use wp_kses_post, sanitize_text_field, esc_html, esc_attr, esc_url
• Verify nonces and user capabilities before processing requests
• Follow WordPress hooks discipline: check action/filter names and timing to avoid HOOK_ERROR
• Use theme.json and block.json for block themes and standardized block metadata
• Prefer prepared statements with $wpdb->prepare for custom DB queries and enable WP_DEBUG log for troubleshooting

Example use cases

• Create a portfolio plugin that registers a post type and REST routes for front-end consumption
• Build a block theme with theme.json, Full Site Editing templates, and performance optimizations
• Author a custom Gutenberg testimonial block with server-side rendering and InnerBlocks support
• Extend WooCommerce with a payment or product extension following plugin architecture patterns
• Debug a white screen by enabling WP_DEBUG_LOG and tracing failing hooks or fatal errors