WordPress Web Development

Ready to build beyond themes and plugins? This is your developer track — the concepts that unlock everything else.

The developer roadmap

1. Local environment — Local, WordPress Playground or Docker; plus VS Code and Git.
2. The hook system — Actions and filters are how everything in WordPress connects. Learn them with real examples.
3. Block themes & theme.json — Templates made of blocks, styles in JSON. Explained for humans.
4. Custom blocks — Start with @wordpress/create-block and the Block Editor Handbook.
5. Custom post types & fields — Model your content properly.
6. REST API — Headless front ends, integrations and apps.
7. Security & performance — Sanitize, escape, nonces, capabilities, caching, query optimization.
8. Tooling — WP-CLI, Query Monitor, automated tests and deployments.

A tiny example: add a “Reading time” line under post titles

<?php
add_filter( 'the_content', function ( $content ) {
    if ( ! is_singular( 'post' ) || ! in_the_loop() ) {
        return $content;
    }
    $words   = str_word_count( wp_strip_all_tags( $content ) );
    $minutes = max( 1, (int) ceil( $words / 220 ) );
    $badge   = '<p class="reading-time">' . esc_html( sprintf( '%d min read', $minutes ) ) . '</p>';
    return $badge . $content;
} );

Developer resources

Dev guides