example my wordpress cpt section

WP Explorer — custom post types and their folder

Every custom post type your plugin registers shows up in the site window automatically, grouped into a folder named after your plugin. This page covers what you get for free, and the three hooks for the cases where the defaults are wrong.

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What you get without writing anything

Register a post type the normal way and it becomes a browsable section:

add_action(
	'init',
	static function () {
		register_post_type(
			'acme_recipe',
			array(
				'labels'       => array( 'name' => __( 'Recipes', 'acme' ) ),
				'public'       => true,
				'show_ui'      => true,
				'show_in_rest' => true,
				'menu_icon'    => 'dashicons-food',
				'supports'     => array( 'title', 'editor', 'thumbnail' ),
			)
		);
	}
);

The section appears inside an Acme folder at the root of the site window, labelled from your plugin's Plugin Name header. Its tiles show each recipe's featured image, and drag-to-trash, the lock badge, and the live item counter all work the way they do for Posts.

Three details are worth knowing:

• show_ui => true is the gate. A type registered with show_ui => false is treated as internal bookkeeping and never appears. This is how OpenStation keeps its own private types out.
• The current user must hold the type's edit_posts capability. Users who can't edit recipes never see the folder.
• menu_icon is reused as the section icon — a Dashicons class, an image URL, or a base64 data URI all work. Types without one fall back to dashicons-admin-post.

Types that aren't on the REST API

A type registered with show_in_rest => false has no wp/v2 collection, so OpenStation serves it from desktop-mode/v1/post-type/<slug> instead. That route is read and trash only — no create, no update — and requires the type's edit_posts capability in every context, so it is never publicly readable.

If your type holds something that should have no REST endpoint at all, opt out:

add_filter(
	'openstation_my_wordpress_post_type_rest_enabled',
	static function ( $enabled, $post_type ) {
		return 'acme_licence_key' === $post_type ? false : $enabled;
	},
	10,
	2
);

The section then disappears from the window rather than rendering a folder that can't open.

Hiding a type from the window

add_filter(
	'openstation_my_wordpress_post_types',
	static function ( $slugs ) {
		return array_values( array_diff( $slugs, array( 'acme_import_log' ) ) );
	}
);

The capability check has already run by the time this filter fires, so everything still in the array is editable by the current user.

Sharing one folder across a plugin suite

Attribution follows whichever file called register_post_type(), so a suite split across several plugins lands in several folders. Point them at one:

add_filter(
	'openstation_my_wordpress_post_type_group',
	static function ( $group, $post_type ) {
		$ours = array( 'acme_recipe', 'acme_menu', 'acme_ingredient' );
		if ( ! in_array( $post_type, $ours, true ) ) {
			return $group;
		}
		return array(
			'id'    => 'plugin:acme-suite',
			'label' => __( 'Acme Suite', 'acme' ),
			'icon'  => 'dashicons-food',
			'order' => 15,
		);
	},
	10,
	2
);

Returning null instead pulls a type out of its folder entirely and renders it loose at the root, next to Posts and Pages.

Lower order values sort first; the built-in resolver uses 20 for plugins and 30 for themes, so 15 puts your folder ahead of both.

Turning thumbnails off for one section

Featured images replace the section icon by default. For a type where the featured image carries no meaning at a glance, keep the uniform icon grid:

add_filter(
	'openstation_my_wordpress_post_type_entity',
	static function ( $entity, $post_type ) {
		if ( 'acme_import_log' === $post_type->name ) {
			$entity['thumbnails'] = false;
		}
		return $entity;
	},
	10,
	2
);

Registering a section by hand

If you'd rather define the section yourself — a custom label, a different REST collection, your own render kind — add it through openstation_my_wordpress_entities with a post_type that matches. The automatic pass skips any type a section already covers, so there's no duplicate folder:

add_filter(
	'openstation_my_wordpress_entities',
	static function ( $entities ) {
		$entities[] = array(
			'id'         => 'acme-recipes',
			'label'      => __( 'Recipes', 'acme' ),
			'icon'       => 'dashicons-food',
			'restPath'   => 'acme/v1/recipes',
			'kind'       => 'post',
			'post_type'  => 'acme_recipe',
			'thumbnails' => true,
			'group'      => 'plugin:acme-suite',
			'groupLabel' => __( 'Acme Suite', 'acme' ),
			'groupIcon'  => 'dashicons-food',
			'groupOrder' => 15,
		);
		return $entities;
	}
);

See also

• Hooks reference — WP Explorer
• JavaScript reference — WP Explorer
• WP Explorer — add a preview-pane action button