WordPress Plugin Template

This repository provides a modern, well-structured template for developing WordPress plugins. It's designed to help developers quickly bootstrap new WordPress plugins with best practices, modern development tools, and a standardized structure.

Features

• Modern development environment with Composer for PHP dependencies
• Block editor (Gutenberg) support with built-in block registration
• ESLint configuration for JavaScript/TypeScript development
• GitHub Actions workflows for automated testing and deployment
• Standardized plugin structure following WordPress coding standards
• Apache 2.0 License

Prerequisites

• PHP 7.4 or higher
• WordPress 6.4.4 or higher
• Composer
• Node.js and npm (for block development)

Getting Started

1. Create a new repository from this template

   • Click the "Use this template" button on GitHub
   • Name your new repository
   • Clone the new repository to your local machine

2. Update plugin information

   • Edit plugin.php and replace the placeholder values:
     • {Plugin Name} with your plugin name
     • {plugin-name} with your plugin slug
     • {PluginName} with your plugin's namespace
     • Update the description and other metadata

3. Install dependencies

   composer install

4. Development

   • Place your PHP classes in the src directory
   • Create new blocks in the Blocks directory
   • Use the provided namespace structure: Bcgov\{PluginName}\{ClassName}

5. Building blocks

npm install
npm run build

Project Structure

├── Blocks/          # Gutenberg blocks
├── src/             # PHP source files
├── vendor/          # Composer dependencies
├── workflows/       # GitHub Actions workflows
├── plugin.php       # Main plugin file
├── composer.json    # PHP dependencies
└── package.json     # Node.js dependencies

Development Guidelines

1. PHP Development

   • Follow PSR-4 autoloading standards
   • Use namespaces for all classes
   • Document your code with PHPDoc comments

2. Block Development

   • Create new blocks in the Blocks directory
   • Use block.json for block registration
   • Follow WordPress block development best practices

3. Testing

   • Write unit tests for your PHP code
   • Test blocks in the WordPress block editor
   • Ensure compatibility with WordPress versions specified in plugin.php

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Commit your changes
4. Push to the branch
5. Create a Pull Request

.gitattributes

This template uses .gitattributes to exclude development and documentation files from production plugin archives.

Files marked with export-ignore are omitted from git archive–based packaging, helping ensure deployments contain only runtime code and assets.

This file should be kept when creating a new plugin from the template. You may update it if your plugin adds or removes development tooling.

License

This template is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See the LICENSE file for details.

Support

For questions or issues, please create an issue in the repository.