I’ve got some ideas for a WordPress theme and a plugin. I asked Cursor to create a new WordPress theme for me. I started by asking the AI to create a README.md file outlining the plan for building a block-based WordPress theme. I then asked the AI to create the theme, and provided the README.md as context.

Once I had this initial scaffolding, I had to find a way to see my theme. At first I was just gonna install it on this site. But I wondered if there was a better way.

I started by installing Studio from WordPress.com, which gave me a local WordPress environment in a few minutes. I asked the AI to zip up the theme files (which, honestly, I was surprised it accomplished) and uploaded it to my local WordPress site.

I also grabbed a quick exported of my live site’s posts and pages.

The resulting theme is far from beautiful, but I’ve only invested about 10 minutes and I have a working, custom made, block theme.

Having to zip up the theme files and upload it every time I make a small change is not going to be a tenable solution. So I asked ChatGPT how I can improve this workflow:

I’m building a WordPress theme. Right now I have WordPress running locally using WordPress.com/studio and I have to manually upload a new zip file every time I make a change in the code. There has to be a better way do to this with automation.

Asking ChatGPT how to improve my WP theme dev workflow.

Oooh, symlinks! Its been a while since I’ve set one up, but thankfully the AI gave me the command. I create the link, which lets me make a change in my Cursor project and have it immediately reflected in the wp-content/themes folder and in my browser. Cool.

After a little bit of back-and-forth with the AI, I’ve got something that’s starting to look like my site.

I’ve got a lot of work to do still, but in just about 15 minutes I was able to clear a bunch of hurdle without much thought. Now I get to focus on the thing I care about: the design of my theme.