prepare-wordpress

Feel free to fork and customize this skill for your specific needs. The provided code is a starting point for me when I need to quickly set up a WordPress project with best practices. It can be extended to include additional tools, configurations, or support for specific frameworks (like React, Vue, etc.) as needed.

An agent skill that scaffolds (or updates) a WordPress project with dev tooling, coding standards, testing, and i18n support.

Works with Claude Code, VS Code Copilot, and other agents that support the skills format.

Install

npx skills add https://github.com/soderlind/prepare-wordpress --skill prepare-wordpress -g

-g installs globally (available in all projects). Without it, the skill is installed into the current project only.

What it does

When triggered, the skill prompts for plugin metadata, runs a detection script to check your project's current state, then only adds what's missing:

Phase	What it sets up
Metadata	Prompts for plugin name, description, author, license, WP/PHP versions, git remote URL
Plugin file	Creates <slug>.php with a standard WordPress plugin header
readme.txt	Creates a WordPress.org-style readme.txt (optional)
Init	git init, git remote add origin, npm init -y, composer init (if missing)
Agent skills	Installs 6 WordPress dev skills from automattic/agent-skills and jeffallan/claude-skills
Composer	PHPUnit, Pest, WPCS, PHPCS installer + test, lint, and check scripts
Config files	.editorconfig (4-space, UTF-8, LF) and .gitignore (vendor, node_modules, .env)
Vitest	vitest + jsdom, config file, test setup, and test:js npm script
i18n	i18n-map.json template, languages/ directory, and WP-CLI i18n npm scripts
Cleanup	Removes stray yarn.lock created by npx commands

Feature flags and dry-run

Use the planner to preview what will run before writing changes:

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --dry-run

Limit execution to specific phases:

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --dry-run --only=init,composer,config

Skip phases you do not want:

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --dry-run --skip=skills,vitest

Apply safe shell commands from the plan:

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --apply --only=init,skills,composer

Get machine-readable dry-run plan output for tools/automation:

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --json --only=init,composer

Get machine-readable apply output (includes per-phase command results):

node skills/prepare-wordpress/scripts/plan_setup.mjs --json --apply --only=cleanup

Available phase flags: plugin, readme, init, skills, composer, config, vitest, i18n, cleanup.

Smart detection

The skill's detection script checks for existing files and configs before each phase. If something already exists, it's skipped (or merged in the case of .gitignore). Existing plugin files, readme.txt, git remote origin, and installed agent skills are all detected automatically.

Usage

After installation, the skill is triggered automatically when you ask your agent to prepare or scaffold a WordPress project. Examples:

Prepare this project for WordPress plugin development

Set up dev tooling for this WordPress project

Add testing, linting, and i18n to this WordPress plugin

After scaffolding

1. i18n-map.json — Replace BLOCK-NAME with your actual block directory names (if you have blocks)
2. Run composer install and npm install

The text domain and plugin slug are derived from the current folder name automatically.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Composer 2+
• PHP 8.3+
• git
• WP-CLI (for i18n commands)

Other commands

# List installed skills
npx skills list -g

# Update to latest version
npx skills update prepare-wordpress -g

# Remove
npx skills remove prepare-wordpress -g

License

GPL-2.0-or-later