Plugin SDK

The open-source SDK for building plugins anywhere. WordPress today; more platforms next. Built so humans and AI agents can ship plugins that look native, behave correctly, and pass review.

Why

Every plugin-host ecosystem — WordPress, Shopify, Figma, VSCode, Slack, Chrome — makes you re-learn the same three things: how to make your plugin look native, how to keep it secure, and how to keep an AI agent from generating the wrong shape of code.

Plugin SDK is the answer: one SDK, with platform adapters that emit native-looking output, platform-correct security patterns, and agent-readable skill files. WordPress is the first adapter — it gets the full design system, runtime helpers, plugin scaffold, and 7 focused agent skills. Other platforms are next.

Repo layout

plugin-sdk/
├── packages/
│   ├── cli/                  → @plugin-sdk/cli — the cross-platform scaffolder (new)
│   ├── wp-tokens/            → @plugin-sdk/wp-tokens
│   ├── wp-core-css/          → @plugin-sdk/wp-core-css
│   ├── wp-react/             → @plugin-sdk/wp-react
│   └── wp-composer/          → plugin-sdk/wp (Composer)
├── boilerplates/
│   └── wordpress/            ← Ready-to-clone WordPress plugin scaffold
├── platforms/
│   └── wordpress/
│       ├── AGENTS.md         ← WordPress-specific agent instructions
│       └── skills/           ← Focused expertise: security · database · enqueue · …
├── apps/
│   ├── site/                 ← wp-admincss.com (will migrate to plugin-sdk.com)
│   └── videos/               ← Remotion promo videos
└── package.json              ← npm workspaces root

Quick start

Drop the CSS into an existing WordPress plugin

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/css/latest.css">

<div class="wrap">
  <h1 class="wp-heading-inline">My Plugin</h1>
  <a href="?page=add-new" class="page-title-action">Add New</a>
  <hr class="wp-header-end">

  <div class="notice notice-success is-dismissible">
    <p><strong>Settings saved.</strong></p>
  </div>

  <p class="submit">
    <button class="button button-primary">Save Changes</button>
  </p>
</div>

Pin to a version in production: https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/css/v0.1.0/wp-admin.css.

Scaffold a new WordPress plugin

npx @plugin-sdk/cli@next create "My Plugin"

Interactive prompts ask for the slug, namespace, constant prefix, author, and distribution channel. For a fully non-interactive run:

npx @plugin-sdk/cli@next create my-plugin \
  --platform=wordpress \
  --channel=wp.org \
  --yes

The channel decides which CI workflows and helper scripts ship with the scaffold:

`--channel=`	Updates from…	`release.yml`?	`readme.txt` + submission-prep?	PUC code?
`wp.org` (default)	WordPress.org SVN	no	yes	none
`github`	GitHub releases (Plugin Update Checker)	yes	no	always-on
`dual`	Both — wp.org for the directory, GH for early access	yes	yes	marker-gated

Every scaffold is a complete working plugin with:

Manifest-driven runtime — plugin-sdk.json declares the settings page, REST routes, and custom tables; one Plugin::fromManifest() call wires every WordPress hook with capability checks, nonces, sanitisation, and JSON-schema body validation built in.
Build pipeline — bin/build.sh produces a wp.org-clean dist + zip via rsync and .distignore. phpcs.xml.dist + composer run lint mirror what wp.org reviewers run.
CI workflows — .github/workflows/ci.yml runs lint + Plugin Check on every push. For github / dual channels, .github/workflows/release.yml auto-bumps the version (commit message tokens [major] / [minor] / [skip-release] control it), pushes the bump back to main, builds the dist, runs Plugin Check, and publishes a GitHub release with both zips.
Submission prep (wp.org / dual) — npm run prep walks the same checks a wp.org reviewer will run and prints the SVN trunk → tag commands for first submission and subsequent releases.
Slug research — npm run slug-research queries the wp.org API + scans for trademark collisions before you commit to a slug (which can't be renamed after wp.org approval).
Reference WordPress code — secure settings page, custom-table repository (using the WP 6.2+ %i identifier placeholder), REST controller, lifecycle hooks, PSR-4 autoload, i18n setup, scoped asset enqueue. Lint-clean against WPCS + PHPCompatibilityWP on a fresh scaffold.

For AI agents

Pick your platform. WordPress today: https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/wordpress/AGENTS.md. Other platforms coming.
Load skills as needed. Available at https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/wordpress/skills/<name>.md. The current set:
- security.md — required for any state-changing action.
- database.md / data-modeling.md — $wpdb patterns + deciding where to store data.
- enqueue.md — adding admin CSS/JS.
- i18n.md — translation patterns.
- plugin-manifest.md — the declarative plugin-sdk.json reference.
- plugin-structure.md — file layout + autoloading.
- publishing.md — Plugin Check rules + slug research + readme.txt format.
- submission-prep.md — the wp.org submission flow (npm run prep, SVN trunk → tag).
- release-pipeline.md — the GitHub release flow (auto-bump on merge, PUC, dual-channel).
Scaffold via the CLI — npx @plugin-sdk/cli@next create "<name>" — or use the boilerplate directly at boilerplates/wordpress/.
Browse the visual catalog at wp-admincss.com/components and wp-admincss.com/layouts.

Packages

`@plugin-sdk/wp-tokens`

CSS custom properties mirroring WP admin's design system. Override-able per WP color scheme via the native .admin-color-* body classes.

@import "@plugin-sdk/wp-tokens";

.my-plugin-card {
  border-left: 3px solid var(--wpadmin-primary);
  padding: var(--wpadmin-space-4);
  color: var(--wpadmin-text);
}

`@plugin-sdk/wp-core-css`

The WordPress admin CSS bundle (common, forms, list-tables, dashboard, etc.) plus a small extensions.css layer for modern patterns WP core doesn't ship (status badges, stat cards, toggle switches, empty states, skeleton loaders, WP-style pointers, help tips). Dashicons included by default.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/css/latest.css">

`@plugin-sdk/wp-react`

React components that render real WordPress admin class names. No styled-components, no runtime CSS-in-JS. Pair with wp-core-css for styles.

npm install @plugin-sdk/wp-react @plugin-sdk/wp-core-css

import { Wrap, PageHeader, Notice, Button } from '@plugin-sdk/wp-react';

<Wrap>
  <PageHeader title="My Plugin" action={{ label: 'Add New', href: '?page=new' }} />
  <Notice variant="success" dismissible><p><strong>Settings saved.</strong></p></Notice>
  <Button variant="primary">Save Changes</Button>
</Wrap>

`plugin-sdk/wp` (Composer)

PHP render helpers for plugins that render admin pages server-side.

composer require plugin-sdk/wp

use PluginSDK\WP\Components;
use PluginSDK\WP\Assets;

add_action('admin_enqueue_scripts', [Assets::class, 'enqueue_cdn']);

echo Components::wrap(
  Components::page_header('My Plugin', ['action' => ['label' => 'Add New', 'href' => '?page=new']]) .
  Components::notice_success('Settings saved.', ['dismissible' => true]) .
  Components::button('Save Changes', ['variant' => 'primary'])
);

Component library

Browse every primitive at wp-admincss.com/components and pre-assembled full plugin pages at wp-admincss.com/layouts. Each component has a live preview, the HTML to copy, and an AI prompt you can hand straight to your coding agent.

CDN

Hosted at cdn.wp-admincss.com (migrating to cdn.plugin-sdk.com later):

URL	Content
`https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/css/latest.css`	Latest CSS bundle (rolling)
`https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/css/v0.1.0/wp-admin.css`	Pinned version
`https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/AGENTS.md`	Master agent instructions (WordPress)
`https://cdn.wp-admincss.com/skills/<name>.md`	Individual skill files

Pin a version for production.

Color schemes

Tokens respond automatically to WP's nine built-in color schemes. Add the WP body class — or apply it to any ancestor element for isolated theming.

<body class="admin-color-midnight">
  <!-- All tokens now use Midnight scheme values -->
</body>

Schemes: Default, Blue, Coffee, Ectoplasm, Midnight, Ocean, Sunrise, Light, Modern.

Customize for your brand

Override CSS custom properties in your plugin's stylesheet:

.my-plugin-page {
  --wpadmin-primary: #7c3aed;
  --wpadmin-primary-dark: #6d28d9;
  --wpadmin-radius: 8px;
}

Scope to a wrapper class so the rebrand only affects your plugin's screen — the rest of WP admin stays consistent.

Development

npm install        # installs workspaces
npm run dev        # starts the site dev server
npm run build      # builds the production site + CDN
npm run build:site # site only (apps/site/dist/)
npm run build:cdn  # CDN only (cdn/)
npm test           # runs unit + smoke tests across all packages

Deploy

The project ships as two Cloudflare Pages projects:

Project	Source dir	Custom domains
`wp-admincss-site`	`apps/site/dist/`	`wp-admincss.com`, `www.wp-admincss.com`
`wp-admincss-cdn`	`cdn/`	`cdn.wp-admincss.com`

npm run build
wrangler pages deploy apps/site/dist --project-name=wp-admincss-site --branch=main
wrangler pages deploy cdn --project-name=wp-admincss-cdn --branch=main

License

Split license:

Apache 2.0 — repo root, packages/cli/, apps/site/, platforms/wordpress/AGENTS.md, and platforms/wordpress/skills/. These are tools and docs — never distributed inside a plugin. See LICENSE and NOTICE.
Apache 2.0 OR GPLv2-or-later (your choice) — packages/wp-composer/, packages/wp-tokens/, packages/wp-react/. These get vendored INSIDE distributed plugins, so they are dual-licensed: pick GPLv2-or-later when shipping to the WordPress.org directory, Apache 2.0 anywhere that suits you better. Each package carries LICENSE (Apache) and LICENSE-GPL2.
GPLv2-or-later — packages/wp-core-css/ (bundles WordPress core admin CSS, which is GPL) and boilerplates/wordpress/ (WordPress plugin scaffold). See packages/wp-core-css/LICENSE, packages/wp-core-css/NOTICE, and boilerplates/wordpress/LICENSE.

Why the dual license: Apache 2.0 is GPLv3-compatible but not GPLv2-compatible, and the WordPress.org directory requires GPLv2-or-later compatibility for everything a plugin ships. Under the dual license a plugin author simply elects the GPL branch for the vendored packages and the whole zip is cleanly GPLv2-or-later.

Built by Artificial Poets.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
apps		apps
boilerplates/wordpress		boilerplates/wordpress
packages		packages
platforms/wordpress		platforms/wordpress
scripts		scripts
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LAUNCH.md		LAUNCH.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
NOTICE		NOTICE
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
STABILITY.md		STABILITY.md
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json

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Plugin SDK

Why

Repo layout

Quick start

Drop the CSS into an existing WordPress plugin

Scaffold a new WordPress plugin

For AI agents

Packages

`@plugin-sdk/wp-tokens`

`@plugin-sdk/wp-core-css`

`@plugin-sdk/wp-react`

`plugin-sdk/wp` (Composer)

Component library

CDN

Color schemes

Customize for your brand

Development

Deploy

License

About

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Plugin SDK

Why

Repo layout

Quick start

Drop the CSS into an existing WordPress plugin

Scaffold a new WordPress plugin

For AI agents

Packages

@plugin-sdk/wp-tokens

@plugin-sdk/wp-core-css

@plugin-sdk/wp-react

plugin-sdk/wp (Composer)

Component library

CDN

Color schemes

Customize for your brand

Development

Deploy

License

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`@plugin-sdk/wp-tokens`

`@plugin-sdk/wp-core-css`

`@plugin-sdk/wp-react`

`plugin-sdk/wp` (Composer)