WP My Plugin

A modern, low-coupling WordPress plugin scaffold that demonstrates the current mainstream PHP/WordPress stack — hooks, wpdb, and the WP REST API — through a small but complete Records manager feature.

• PHP 8.1+, namespaced, PSR-4 autoloaded via Composer.
• Repository pattern: a single class (RecordRepository) owns all wpdb access.
• Immutable model: Record is a readonly value object.
• Self-registering services: each service implements Registrable and wires its own hooks, so the bootstrapper stays tiny and features stay decoupled.
• Admin parent menu + submenus built with the Settings API and WP_List_Table (no build step).
• Settings stored via the Options API; records stored in a custom wpdb table.
• REST API CRUD under wp-my-plugin/v1/records with permission and schema checks.
• Tests with PHPUnit + Brain Monkey (no database required), plus PHPCS (WPCS) and PHPStan.

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.1
• WordPress >= 6.4
• Composer (for autoloading and dev tooling)

Installation (development)

composer install

Then symlink or copy this directory into wp-content/plugins/ and activate it from Plugins in wp-admin (or wp plugin activate wp-my-plugin).

The plugin requires the Composer autoloader. If vendor/ is missing it bails gracefully instead of fataling, but the admin/REST features won't load until you run composer install.

Project layout

wp-my-plugin.php          Entry point: constants, autoload, activation hooks, bootstrap
uninstall.php             Guarded cleanup (drops table + options)
src/
  Plugin.php              Composition root: builds services and registers them
  Contracts/Registrable.php
  Activation/             Activator + Deactivator
  Database/               Schema (dbDelta + migration) + RecordRepository (the only wpdb user)
  Model/                  Record (readonly VO) + RecordStatus (enum)
  Settings/               SettingsService (Options API)
  Admin/                  AdminMenu, RecordsListPage, RecordsListTable, SettingsPage
  Rest/                   RecordsController (WP_REST_Controller)
  Frontend/               RecordsShortcode ([wpmp_records])
  Assets/                 AssetRegistrar (auto-loads CSS/JS from assets/manifest.php)
assets/                   manifest.php + admin.css, admin.js, frontend.css, frontend.js
tests/                    PHPUnit unit tests (Brain Monkey)

Admin

A top-level WP My Plugin menu with submenus:

• All Records — list table with add / edit / delete (nonce + capability protected)
• Add New — create/edit form
• Settings — records_per_page, public REST read access, enable shortcode

REST API

Base: wp-json/wp-my-plugin/v1/records

# List (uses an application password for auth)
curl -s -u admin:APP_PASSWORD https://example.test/wp-json/wp-my-plugin/v1/records

# Create
curl -s -u admin:APP_PASSWORD -X POST https://example.test/wp-json/wp-my-plugin/v1/records \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"title":"Hello","content":"World","status":"published"}'

Shortcode

[wpmp_records status="published" limit="5"]

Frontend CSS/JS are enqueued automatically by the shortcode at render time (only on pages that actually use it) — no manual wp_enqueue calls needed.

Assets (auto-load)

src/Assets/AssetRegistrar.php is the single point of contact for the plugin's CSS/JS:

• assets/manifest.php is the source of truth — each entry declares handle, file path, area (admin / frontend), and condition (screen substring or shortcode tag).
• Every manifest entry is wp_register_*'d on init, so handles exist for the entire request.
• Admin entries are auto-enqueued on admin_enqueue_scripts when the current screen slug matches.
• Frontend entries stay registered until a service (e.g. the shortcode) calls AssetRegistrar::enqueue().

To add a new asset, drop the file under assets/ and add one entry to assets/manifest.php — no other code changes required. Other plugins can hook the wpmp_assets_manifest filter to amend the list dynamically.

Extensibility (hooks)

The plugin exposes filters/actions so other code can extend it without edits:

• wpmp_record_insert_data / wpmp_record_update_data — adjust data before write
• wpmp_record_created / wpmp_record_updated / wpmp_record_deleted — react to changes
• wpmp_rest_records_query_args — adjust the REST collection query
• wpmp_assets_manifest — add or remove entries from the asset registry

Development

composer run lint      # php -l on all files
composer run phpcs     # WordPress Coding Standards
composer run phpstan   # static analysis (WordPress stubs)
composer run test      # PHPUnit unit tests (Brain Monkey, no DB)
composer run check     # all of the above

Integration tests (optional)

Unit tests mock WordPress and need no database. Full integration tests for the wpdb-backed repository methods require the WordPress test suite and MySQL — e.g. wp scaffold plugin-tests wp-my-plugin and bin/install-wp-tests.sh. This is left as an optional follow-up.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.