WordPress for Developers
Hook Priority: Why Your Callback Fires Too Early
Priority decides order inside one hook, not across hooks. Why 999 is not a fix, what happens on a tie, and how to find…
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Tag: Developer Workflow
WordPress for Developers
Actions and Filters: The Difference That Trips Everyone Up
A filter is asked for a value and an action is not. Why returning something from an action does nothing, why forgetting to return…
Reading the Error
Building a Minimal Reproduction Before You Ask Anyone
Learn how to build a minimal reproduction by isolating code, data, dependencies, and configuration so you can find bugs faster and report them clearly.
WordPress for Developers
WordPress Execution Order: What Runs, and When
The request lifecycle from the front controller to wp_footer, which hook is available at each stage, and why the right code on the wrong…
AI Coding Assistants
When Not to Use an AI Coding Assistant
A practical checklist for PHP and WordPress developers on when writing the code yourself beats prompting an AI assistant, and why.
AI Coding Assistants
What AI Coding Tools Actually Cost on a Real Project
GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Claude Code pricing as of today, sourced from each vendor's own page, plus the review-time cost that never appears on…
AI Coding Assistants
AI Coding Assistants Compared for PHP and WordPress Work
General-purpose IDE agents versus WordPress-specific snippet tools for PHP and WordPress development, and how to pick between them for a real task.
AI Coding Assistants
Constraining What an AI Agent Can Touch in Your Repo
How to keep an AI coding agent away from config files, secrets and lockfiles, what an ignore file actually guarantees, and what it does…
AI Coding Assistants
Writing AI Coding Prompts That Produce Reviewable Code
How to phrase a coding request so the AI's output is a small, checkable diff instead of an impressive one you cannot verify in…
AI Coding Assistants
AI Code and Open-Source Licenses: The Attribution Problem
AI-generated code can carry copyleft obligations with no attribution signal at all. What GPL contamination means and how to realistically check for it.
AI Coding Assistants
Who Owns the Code an AI Wrote for You?
The current US position on AI-generated code copyright, why creative input matters, and why this is not the same answer everywhere. Not legal advice.
AI Coding Assistants
When AI-Generated Code Passes Tests and Is Still Wrong
A green test suite does not mean correct behavior. Why AI-written tests miss edge cases, and what actually catches the bug they didn't.
AI Coding Assistants
Giving an AI Assistant the Right Amount of Codebase Context
Why an AI assistant keeps ignoring your conventions, what to actually feed it as context, and the drift problem that shows up months later.
AI Coding Assistants
AI Coding Assistants and Your API Keys: A Security Checklist
AI assistants read your whole workspace, .env files included. Here is what to exclude, what to rotate, and how to tell if a key…
AI Coding Assistants
Ten Checks Before You Merge AI-Written Code
A short, ordered checklist for reviewing AI-generated code before it merges, from dependency checks to actually running the feature.