Viget Post Type Taxonomy Sync

Keeps a post type and a taxonomy in sync automatically: publish a post and a matching term is created (and kept up to date); create or edit a term and the matching post follows along. Handy when a taxonomy needs to double as a lightweight, linkable "profile" for a post — e.g. syncing a product post type to a product-line taxonomy so other content can be tagged with a product without duplicating its data.

Features

• Define any number of post type ↔ taxonomy mappings from Settings → Post/Tax Sync.
• Automatically creates, updates, and deletes the paired term/post when either side is saved or deleted.
• Syncs hierarchy: when both the post type and taxonomy are hierarchical, parent/child relationships are mirrored too.
• A manual "Sync" action per mapping backfills missing terms/posts and removes orphaned ones.
• Hides the auto-managed taxonomy's term-management UI (submenu, "Add New Term" controls, block editor panel) so editors don't edit synced terms directly.
• Excludes a post's own synced term from its taxonomy picker, so a post can't be tagged with itself.
• A small set of filters for customizing behavior without forking, and a read-only REST API for fetching synced relationships — see docs/api.md.
• Checks for updates from GitHub releases directly in the WordPress dashboard.

Installation

Manual

1. Download the latest release zip.
2. Upload it via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or extract it to wp-content/plugins/viget-post-type-taxonomy-sync/.
3. Activate the plugin.

Composer

composer require viget/viget-post-type-taxonomy-sync

Requires composer/installers (installed automatically as a dependency) to place the plugin in wp-content/plugins/.

Usage

1. Go to Settings → Post/Tax Sync.
2. Add a mapping between a post type and a taxonomy, then save.
3. Publishing a post of that type creates/updates a term of that taxonomy with a matching name and slug (and vice versa).
4. Use the row's Sync button at any point to backfill existing content or clean up orphaned terms/posts for that mapping.

Only one taxonomy can be mapped per post type (and vice versa). If both the post type and taxonomy are hierarchical, parent/child structure is mirrored automatically.

Auto-Updates

This plugin checks GitHub releases every 12 hours and surfaces available updates directly in Plugins in wp-admin — no wordpress.org listing required. See includes/class-github-plugin-updater.php.

Note: shipping a custom update checker is intentionally incompatible with wordpress.org's plugin directory (the Plugin Check tool flags it as a hard error under plugin_updater_detected). If this plugin is ever submitted there, the updater would need to be removed first.

Developer API

Public methods, filters, and REST API routes are documented in docs/api.md.

Development

npm install        # install JS build tooling
npm run start      # watch mode
npm run build      # production build (writes to build/, which is committed)
npm run lint:js    # eslint
npm run lint:css   # stylelint
composer install   # PHP dependencies (composer/installers)

Local WordPress environment

npm run env:start   # boots WordPress + this plugin via @wordpress/env (requires Docker)
npm run env:stop

Tests

PHPUnit tests run against a real WordPress install via @wordpress/env's tests-wordpress/tests-cli services (WP core's test suite is downloaded automatically the first time it's needed):

npm run env:start   # only needed once per session
composer install    # installs phpunit + yoast/phpunit-polyfills
npm test

The suite covers Core, Settings, Sync (including regression tests for two WordPress-core hook-signature bugs fixed in 2.0.0 — see the changelog), Admin, the REST API, and the GitHub updater (with mocked HTTP responses).

Releasing a new version

Versioning, tagging, and publishing are handled by one command:

npm run release -- patch   # or: minor | major

This bumps package.json, syncs the version into the plugin header/constant and readme.txt (see bin/sync-version.js), commits, tags vX.Y.Z, and pushes. Pushing the tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yaml, which builds the plugin zip and publishes a GitHub release.

Changelog

See readme.txt for the full version history.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later