Johanne Courtright moved from Dreamweaver and static HTML into agency WordPress work in 2011. Early on she relied on Advanced Custom Fields, custom post types, and integrations with CRMs and APIs. Over time she learned React to work with Gutenberg and adopted a block-first workflow for her projects, aiming to make block-based sites pixel-accurate, performant, and easy for clients to manage.
Practical goals and Groundworx
Her aim is pragmatic: give agencies tools and workflows that fill the gaps left by Core while remaining compatible with WordPress fundamentals. That led to Groundworx, an open-source collection of blocks, extensions, and theme scaffolding designed to solve the advanced needs common in agency projects. Groundworx targets the 20 percent of features agencies frequently need but that fall outside Core’s 80/20 scope.
Why agencies need more than Core
Core’s blocks cover many use cases, but agencies often require tighter control and repeatable results: predictable responsive breakpoints, consistent brand palettes and presets, editing experiences that reduce client confusion, and layout options that support pixel-perfect designs. Johanne prefers blocks and extensions that avoid rigid HTML so styles can be rearranged with grid and CSS without bloating markup. Her theme philosophy is minimal: rely on theme.json for design tokens and keep CSS and JS small so themes can be swapped without locking clients into a single look and workflow.
What Groundworx provides
Groundworx has two complementary parts:
– Custom blocks that address features Core lacks or where different behavior is desired, for example tabs that become accordions at a chosen breakpoint, reveal cards, and media/content split blocks.
– Extensions that augment Core blocks with agency-focused controls: responsive typography settings for headings and paragraphs, breakpoint-specific padding, column count per breakpoint, reverse stacking order, full-height sticky groups, and video performance improvements.
Extensions are intentionally unobtrusive so they do not interfere if Core later adopts similar features. The idea is to provide the fine-grained controls agencies need while keeping the basic editing experience simple for less technical users.
Navigation as a case study
Navigation was a major inspiration for Groundworx. Johanne appreciated Core’s navigation concepts but wanted a single HTML structure that adapts cleanly across layouts without duplicating menus for mobile and desktop. Groundworx stores reusable menu parts in a custom post type and pairs those with blocks for Branding, Menu, Sub Menus, Link, and Spacer. This approach supports patterns like full-height column menus, vertical menus, and accordion submenus, implemented with the Interactivity API to avoid added DOM bloat.
Design tokens and theme.json
Johanne emphasizes theme.json as the foundation for consistent, swappable design systems. Meaningful keys and labels make creating a new theme mostly a matter of changing values. She would like theme.json to support more flexible custom variables — allowing components to declare keys and selectors that theme.json can populate — so pieces like navigation can use more variables than the current limited palette slots without requiring extra CSS injection.
Moving to block-first development
Transitioning from classic themes and builders to block-centric development requires a mindset shift. Many developers are intimidated by Gutenberg’s modern stack: React, the Interactivity API, and theme.json. Johanne stopped using heavy utility frameworks like Tailwind in WordPress sites, favoring lean SCSS and focused block styles. Once developers study how Core expects layout and styling to work, they often become excited about the possibilities and more comfortable building with blocks.
Core versus third-party builders
Johanne contrasts Core’s minimal, override-friendly approach with page builders that add extra markup and inline styling. She prefers extending Core’s intended patterns rather than building on top of third-party platforms that create their own layers. This approach yields lighter themes, easier customizations, and more predictable client experiences.
Discovery, distribution, and the plugin directory
Discovery remains a major pain point for block developers. The WordPress plugin directory search can be noisy and hard to browse, and it doesn’t highlight new or Gutenberg-focused projects well. Johanne would like better categorization — for example indicating Gutenberg support or whether a plugin relies on jQuery — plus editorial curation and featured listings that help users and businesses get noticed. Better surfacing of block-based plugins would make it easier to build a commercial ecosystem around blocks.
Business realities
Johanne treats Groundworx primarily as a toolkit she uses and iterates on, rather than expecting instant commercial success. The block ecosystem is still maturing, and businesses and marketplaces need better discovery and infrastructure to scale. Still, as Full Site Editing, block APIs, and admin UX evolve, she sees growing opportunity for thoughtful block products.
Practical advice
– Build flexible HTML: design blocks so their structure can be rearranged or restyled via CSS grid rather than fixed markup.
– Keep themes light: use theme.json for design tokens and branding; minimize theme CSS/JS to make theme switching low-friction.
– Prioritize client UX: presets for palettes, font scales, and templates reduce setup time and client confusion.
– Use the Interactivity API and modern patterns to avoid DOM bloat and reliance on jQuery.
– Respect Core’s scope: accept the 80/20 rule — Core solves broad needs; deeper agency controls belong in plugins or project-specific tooling.
– Advocate for better discovery: improved directory features and editorial curation would help block authors and buyers connect.
Where to find Groundworx and Johanne
Groundworx is available at groundworx.dev. Johanne shares updates and interacts with the community on X. She plans to publish a starter theme.json and documentation to help others adopt Groundworx patterns.
Conclusion
Johanne Courtright’s Groundworx demonstrates a pragmatic way to extend Gutenberg for agency workflows while staying aligned with Core’s direction. By favoring minimal themes, reusable blocks, responsive controls, and client-friendly presets, she shows how teams can adopt block-first workflows that are both flexible and maintainable. As block tooling, discovery, and Core APIs improve, there is room for a stronger commercial ecosystem — provided the platform makes it easier to find and support high-quality block projects.