Getting a plugin listed on Wordpress.org

[NickGrogan]

I decided to make a plugin, a fairly simple one. I will link to it once its up.

I used ChatGPT 4 to make it. I gave it an API, told it I wanted a plugin, and it gave me some files in response.

To my surprise, it worked perfectly.

I submitted it to Wordpress.org and waited.

I just got the code review.

The list of issues is longer than the code for the plugin.

I'll feed these into ChatGPT and see what it says.

Has anyone else successfully made a Wordpress plugin? With or without ChatGPT...
How long did it take to get listed?

 

[fisicx]

I've got a number of plugins hosted with wordpress.

Start with this:

Plugin Check (PCP)

Plugin Check is a WordPress.org tool which provides checks to help plugins meet the directory requirements and follow various best practices.

wordpress.org

You also need to fully comply with all the security requirements which can be boiled down to:

• Never trust user input.
• Escape as late as possible.
• Escape everything from untrusted sources etc (this means your API).
• Never assume anything.
• Sanitation is okay, but validation/rejection is better.

Security – Common APIs Handbook | Developer.WordPress.org

Congratulations, your code works! But is it safe? The WordPress development team takes security seriously. With so much of the web relying…

developer.wordpress.org

I'm pretty good at meeting all the checks but it still takes me two or three goes to get accepted.

ChatGPT won't be able to fix everything because it doesn't know the rules. You have to get your hands dirty and do the coding yourself.

 

[NickGrogan]

passed the plugin check first time.

Your list above looks a lot like a summary of the email they sent.

 

[fisicx]

Then it's all about security.

When the data is pulled from the API you need to escape and sanitise before doing anything.

If there are any outputs you need to escape everything.

If there is any user input you need to sanitise everything before any processing.

The email they sent you usually has some examples of where it failed. Most common will be if you echo anything.

You will probably need to use this function:

wp_kses() – Function | Developer.WordPress.org

Filters text content and strips out disallowed HTML.

developer.wordpress.org

Bad people will try to hack your plugin. Even areas you consider safe (like the dashboard) can be compromised using techniques like XSS.

 

[fisicx]

On the other hand....

You can always add a download to your own website, do all the promotion yourself and take WP out the loop. I do this for a number of very niche plugins and it works well. A lot simpler than trying to meet all the conditions for the WP repository.

 

[antropy]

I used ChatGPT 4 to make it. I gave it an API, told it I wanted a plugin, and it gave me some files in response.

I've got the paid ChatGPT but at this point it's really not great at coding much, it's likely your plugin will be full of bugs.

Paul.

 

[NickGrogan]

I've got the paid ChatGPT but at this point it's really not great at coding much, it's likely your plugin will be full of bugs.

Paul.

That could also be true. To be fair its a simple plugin that doesn't really do very much, so it might not be that bad.

 

[NickGrogan]

On the other hand....

You can always add a download to your own website, do all the promotion yourself and take WP out the loop. I do this for a number of very niche plugins and it works well. A lot simpler than trying to meet all the conditions for the WP repository.

Its a test to see how easy it is to make a plugin and get listed as anything else.

Otherwise I'd just hire someone who passed the tests before to write the full plugin for me

 

[fisicx]

That could also be true. To be fair its a simple plugin that doesn't really do very much, so it might not be that bad.

Probably isn't too bad. You just need to fix the security. Which can be very tedious.

 

[fisicx]

Its a test to see how easy it is to make a plugin and get listed as anything else.

Making a plugin is easy. Getting it listed less so (as you have discovered).