PRC Staff Bylines

Canonical docs: docs/plugins/prc-staff-bylines/

Staff profile and byline management system for the PRC Platform. Links a staff custom post type to a bylines taxonomy via [prc/term-data-store](https://github.com/pewresearch/term-data-store) (namespace PRC\TDS), enabling multi-author bylines on any post type while keeping a single source of truth for each person's data.

What it does

• Registers the staff post type and bylines taxonomy and binds them through prc/term-data-store so each staff member is addressable by either a post ID or a term ID.
• Registers supporting taxonomies: areas-of-expertise, staff-type.
• Stores bylines, acknowledgements, and display flags as post meta on any post type that declares prc-bylines support.
• Adds a staffInfo REST field to both bylines terms and staff posts, exposing a normalized staff data object to the editor and frontend consumers.
• Redirects WordPress native author archives to 404s — the bylines taxonomy term archive serves as the canonical author page.
• Applies Maelstrom protection: on publish, strips bylines for staff whose _maelstrom meta contains restricted region/country terms matching the post's taxonomy assignments.
• Integrates with Yoast SEO to populate wpseo_meta_author, wpseo_opengraph_author_facebook, and wpseo_enhanced_slack_data from the post's bylines rather than the WordPress post author.
• Adds noindex/nofollow robots directives to byline term archives for staff members with bylineLinkEnabled disabled.
• Registers five Gutenberg blocks for composing author displays in the editor.
• Provides a WP-CLI command for creating guest-author byline terms.

Post types and taxonomies

Enabling bylines on a post type

The bylines taxonomy and its meta fields are automatically applied to any post type that supports prc-bylines. post is opted in by default.

// Add bylines support to a custom post type.
add_post_type_support( 'my-post-type', 'prc-bylines' );

// Legacy filter (still honored, prefer add_post_type_support).
add_filter( 'prc_platform__bylines_enabled_post_types', function( $types ) {
    $types[] = 'my-post-type';
    return $types;
} );

Post meta

On staff posts

On bylines-enabled post types

REST API

Extended fields

staffInfo is registered as a REST field on both the bylines taxonomy and the staff post type via register_rest_field.

Endpoints:

• GET /wp-json/wp/v2/bylines/<id> — includes staffInfo
• GET /wp-json/wp/v2/staff/<id> — includes staffInfo

**staffInfo shape:**

{
  "staffName": "Jane Smith",
  "staffJobTitle": "Senior Researcher",
  "staffJobTitleExtended": "a Senior Researcher focusing on...",
  "staffImage": { "full": [...], "thumbnail": [...] },
  "staffExpertise": [{ "url": "...", "label": "...", "slug": "..." }],
  "staffBio": "<p>...</p>",
  "staffBioShort": "<a href=\"...\">Jane Smith</a> is a Senior Researcher...",
  "staffLink": "https://pewresearch.org/staff/jane-smith"
}

Collection ordering:

The staff REST collection accepts orderby=last_name in addition to the standard WP params. This is handled by Content_Type::filter_add_rest_orderby_params and Content_Type::orderby_last_name.

Blocks

Editor sidebar panels

Two scripts are enqueued via enqueue_block_editor_assets:

• **bylines-inspector-sidebar-panel** — injected on all prc-bylines-enabled post types. Provides the bylines picker UI.
• **staff-inspector-sidebar-panel** — injected on the staff post type only. Provides staff-specific meta fields.

Filters / hooks

WP-CLI commands

wp prc bylines guest-authors create --first=<first> --last=<last> [--middle=<middle>] [--dry-run]

Creates a bylines term for an external contributor who has no staff post. Dry-run is enabled by default; pass --dry-run=false to execute. Checks for an existing term before creating.

Maelstrom

_maelstrom is a staff-level safety net that automatically removes a staff member's byline from a post at publish time if the post is tagged with regions or countries the staff member has marked as restricted. This is intentionally obfuscated in the codebase to reduce exposure of the feature's purpose.

Configure via the _maelstrom post meta on the staff post:

{
    "enabled": false,
    "restricted": ["Middle East & North Africa", "China"]
}

The enabled flag is computed at publish time based on whether the post's regions-countries terms overlap with restricted. Do not rely on the stored enabled value at rest.

The Staff object

Staff is the primary data accessor, resolving a unified staff member from either a post ID or a bylines term ID. It caches hydrated data in the object cache (staff_data group, 1-hour TTL) for unauthenticated requests.

// From a staff post ID.
$staff = new \PRC\Platform\Staff_Bylines\Staff( $post_id );

// From a bylines term ID.
$staff = new \PRC\Platform\Staff_Bylines\Staff( false, $term_id );

$staff->name;            // string
$staff->job_title;       // string — prepended "Former" if not currently employed
$staff->link;            // string|false — false if bylineLinkEnabled is off
$staff->is_currently_employed; // bool
$staff->photo;           // ['full' => [...], 'thumbnail' => [...]] | false
$staff->expertise;       // [['url'=>'...','label'=>'...','slug'=>'...']] | false
$staff->social_profiles; // array
$staff->bio;             // string (filtered post content)
$staff->mini_bio;        // string (linked name + job_title_extended sentence)

For guest contributors (byline terms with no linked staff post), set_guest() is called instead, populating the same interface with defaults.

The Bylines object

$bylines = new \PRC\Platform\Staff_Bylines\Bylines( $post_id );

$bylines->should_display; // bool — reads displayBylines post meta
$bylines->bylines;        // array keyed by term ID, or WP_Error if none set

// Format options:
$bylines->format( 'array' );  // raw keyed array of staff data
$bylines->format( 'string' ); // "Jane Smith, John Doe, and Alex Lee"
$bylines->format( 'html' );   // same with <a> or <span> per-author, comma/and separators