Rob Ruiz has been part of the WordPress world since about 2010, evolving from designer to developer, software engineer, and now architect. He works at an agency full-time and maintains side projects in his free time. One of those projects is WP Rig (wprig.io), a free, open-source starter theme and toolkit for modern WordPress theme development that Rob now maintains.
What WP Rig Is
WP Rig is a minimalist, opinionated starter theme and development framework. It scaffolds the common files and folders you expect from a starter theme while bundling a modern toolchain so developers can work with current frontend workflows out of the box. That includes Composer for PHP dependencies, Node-based frontend tooling for compiling CSS/JS/TypeScript, linters and code checks, and a build process that produces a deployment-ready theme. The goal is to make it easier to adopt best practices, standardize projects across teams, and let developers use newer CSS features today by compiling them for compatibility.
How Rob Became Custodian
Rob discovered WP Rig while evaluating theme frameworks and appreciated its small, practical set of opinions and close alignment with WordPress core. When the project needed new maintainers he joined a community call, spoke with the previous lead, and accepted stewardship. He now runs WP Rig with a few contributors and has overhauled it into a leaner, faster v3 that embraces modern bundlers and tooling.
Who WP Rig Is For
WP Rig is useful to a broad audience:
– Designers and people comfortable with CSS who want to create or customize themes with code.
– Developers building bespoke sites or working in teams who want consistent tooling and coding standards.
– Learners transitioning from page-builders to code-based development and looking for a guided, practical environment.
Rob stresses that WP Rig is approachable: you don’t need to learn the entire toolchain at once. Start small—work on CSS or a single template—and expand your knowledge incrementally.
Why Code Matters
Rob contrasts code-based theme development with page builders. Page builders often store layout and configuration in the database, which can make global changes and adopting new web features more difficult. Building with code lets you change things universally, adopt new browser features immediately, and avoid waiting for builder or CMS updates. For many, that control and clarity make building themes from scratch especially satisfying.
Core Features and Workflow
WP Rig sets up tools and guardrails that help teams ship consistent, quality themes:
– Local-first development with automatic compilation of CSS and JS, TypeScript support, and testing tools.
– Composer and Node integration so PHP and frontend packages can be managed together.
– Linters and coding standards checks, including PHP CodeSniffer configured with the WordPress Coding Standards (WPCS), to validate code before distribution.
– A bundling process that produces a standalone theme: WP Rig references are replaced with your theme’s name and the output behaves like any other deployable theme.
Full Site Editing, Blocks, and Flexibility
When WordPress introduced Full Site Editing (FSE), Rob initially wondered how WP Rig would fit. He now sees it as an opportunity. WP Rig supports classic themes, block-based themes, and hybrid “universal” themes. Projects can move between modes using command-line commands that adjust files and configuration.
WP Rig also supports authoring blocks at the theme level. While some prefer placing blocks in plugins, theme-level blocks make sense in cases tied closely to a theme’s design—navigation blocks tailored to a theme are a typical example. Developers should be aware that bundling blocks into a theme can affect eligibility for the wordpress.org theme repository, so that choice depends on distribution goals.
Education and Guardrails
A central aim of WP Rig is education. The toolkit’s guardrails—linters, automated checks, and coding standards—help developers learn official practices and avoid common mistakes that lead to rework during theme review. Rob views WP Rig as a teaching tool: it helps newer developers test themselves, learn to meet standards, and ship cleaner code.
Project Health and Community
When Rob took over, the project had a larger team; over time many contributors moved on. Maintaining WP Rig now requires knowledge beyond WordPress itself—modern tooling like esbuild, Lightning CSS, and task runners—which has narrowed the active contributor base. Rob is rebuilding the community with updated docs, a Learn section of videos, and an active Discord. The GitHub repository includes contribution guidelines, and Rob encourages people to open issues, submit PRs, and join conversations in Discord to help the project grow.
Getting Started
To try WP Rig, visit wprig.io for documentation, tutorials, and contribution information. Requirements for local development include Node.js for frontend tooling, Composer for PHP package management, and a local WordPress development environment (Local WP, Docker setups, wp-env, etc.). Rob is active on LinkedIn and in the WP Rig Discord for questions and guidance.
In short, WP Rig is a modern, minimal starter theme and toolkit designed to help developers build custom WordPress themes with contemporary tooling and enforced best practices. It supports classic, hybrid, and block-based approaches, provides educational resources and guardrails, and is actively evolving under Rob Ruiz’s stewardship. Contributions and community participation are welcome.