Strava Stories

A WordPress dashboard widget that surfaces your latest Strava activity inline, with a carousel through your recent activities and a one-click Let's blog it button that creates a pre-filled WordPress draft.

What you get

• Strava embed — the official Strava iframe is used when the API returns an embed_token; a styled fallback card is used otherwise.
• Stats — type, distance, moving time, average pace/speed, elevation gain. Distances and pace switch between metric and imperial based on the site locale (en_US → imperial, otherwise metric).
• Description excerpt — the first ~280 chars of the activity description.
• Carousel — left / right arrows (and ← / → keys when the widget has focus) page through the last 10 activities.
• Let's blog it — creates a draft post with the activity title, a stats list, the description, and a link back to Strava, then sends you to the block editor.

Setup

1. Install and activate

Drop the plugin folder into wp-content/plugins/strava-stories/ and activate Strava Stories from the Plugins screen. You'll see a new top-level Strava Stories menu item in the admin sidebar.

2. Register a Strava API app (admin, one time per site)

1. Visit https://www.strava.com/settings/api.
2. Click Create & Manage Your App.
3. Set the Authorization Callback Domain to your site's host (no scheme, no path) — for example example.com.
4. After creating the app, copy the Client ID and Client Secret.

3. Save credentials in WordPress (admin)

1. Go to Strava Stories in the admin menu.
2. Paste the Client ID and Client Secret. Save.
3. The page shows the exact callback URL the plugin uses; you don't have to enter the URL on Strava's side, only the domain (step 2.3 above).

4. Connect your Strava account (any user)

1. On the same Strava Stories page, click Connect Strava.
2. Approve the read,activity:read scopes on Strava's authorize screen.
3. You'll be redirected back to the settings page with a success notice.

5. View the widget

Open the WordPress dashboard. The Strava Stories widget loads your most recent activity automatically.

Permissions

• The widget and the Let's blog it action require edit_posts.
• Saving site-wide OAuth credentials requires manage_options.
• Each user connects their own Strava account; tokens are stored per-user in user meta and never shared with other site users.

Data flow

• Dashboard load — one GET /strava-stories/v1/activities request fetches the 10 most recent activities live from Strava. Nothing is cached server side.
• Let's blog it — server re-fetches activities, matches the chosen ID, and creates the draft. The client never gets to choose post content.
• Token refresh — automatic when within 60 seconds of expiry, using the refresh token Strava issues at connect time.

File map

strava-stories/
├── strava-stories.php                       — bootstrap, autoloader, hooks
├── uninstall.php                            — wipe option + user tokens
├── assets/
│   ├── strava-stories.css                   — widget + admin styles
│   └── strava-stories.js                    — carousel + blog handler
└── includes/
    ├── class-strava-stories-client.php      — OAuth + Strava API
    ├── class-strava-stories-admin.php       — settings page
    ├── class-strava-stories-rest.php        — REST endpoints + presenter
    └── class-strava-stories-widget.php      — dashboard widget shell

License

GPL-2.0-or-later, matching WordPress core.