Build Production-Ready WordPress Sites

This skill orchestrates an eight-phase WordPress development workflow - setup, theme development, plugin development, WooCommerce integration, performance optimization, security hardening, testing, and deployment - each phase delegating to named specialist skills via copy-paste @skill-name prompts (e.g. @frontend-developer for theme components, @wordpress-penetration-testing for security audits, @playwright-skill for E2E tests). It documents concrete file structures for both themes (style.css, functions.php, template hierarchy files, template-parts/) and plugins (activator/deactivator/loader classes, admin/, public/ directories), plus WooCommerce customization (custom product types, checkout flow, payment gateways, subscriptions) and a security checklist (core/plugin updates, 2FA, security headers, XML-RPC disabling, database prefix changes).

Its most distinctive content is deep, code-level coverage of WordPress 7.0 (April 2026) features, each with explicit backward-compatibility notes: Real-Time Collaboration using Yjs CRDT (falls back to post locking when legacy meta boxes are detected; requires show_in_rest => true on custom post meta to participate); the provider-agnostic AI Connectors API (wp_ai_client_prompt() with using_temperature(), using_model_preference(), and as_json_response() for structured output, backed by OpenAI/Claude/Gemini provider plugins configured under Settings > Connectors, worked with a full auto-excerpt-generation example on save_post); the Abilities API (a standardized capability-declaration system with wp_register_ability(), its own REST manifest endpoint, and an MCP adapter for AI agent integration, shown with a full custom "generate-summary" ability including permission callback); DataViews/DataForm replacing WP_List_Table on admin screens; PHP-only block registration without JavaScript; and Interactivity API changes (watch() replacing effect). PHP 7.4 becomes the new minimum, dropping 7.2/7.3 support.

Use this skill when building a new WordPress site, creating custom themes, developing plugins, setting up WooCommerce stores, optimizing WordPress performance, hardening security, or specifically implementing WordPress 7.0 features (RTC, AI Connectors, Abilities API, DataViews). Each phase's specialist skills should be invoked directly for hands-on implementation; this skill is the roadmap connecting them.

It names four related workflow bundles for adjacent scope - development (general web dev), security-audit, testing-qa, and ecommerce - and a quality-gate checklist confirms testing, security, performance, cross-browser, mobile, and accessibility (WCAG 2.1) before moving between phases.

Input is a WordPress project at any stage, from initial setup through deployment. Output is a sequenced plan naming which specialist skill to invoke per phase, working code examples (RTC-compatible post meta, AI Connector calls, Abilities API registration, PHP-only blocks), phase-specific checklists, and copy-paste prompts to execute each step.

define('WP_COLLABORATION_MAX_USERS', 5);

Coordinates specialist skills across its eight phases (app-builder, frontend-developer, backend-dev-guidelines, payment-integration, web-performance-optimization, wordpress-penetration-testing, playwright-skill, deployment-engineer, and more), and integrates directly with WordPress 7.0's new core APIs (AI Connectors, Abilities API, RTC via Yjs) plus WooCommerce for ecommerce.

Teams building or modernizing production WordPress sites - themes, plugins, WooCommerce stores - who need both the phase-by-phase project roadmap and concrete WordPress 7.0 API code (AI, real-time collaboration, Abilities) rather than generic WordPress tutorials.