Rob Ruiz has been working with WordPress since about 2010, evolving from design into development, software engineering, and architecture. He maintains WP Rig, an open source starter theme and developer toolkit designed to give teams and individuals a minimal, modern, best-practice starting point for building WordPress themes.
What WP Rig is
WP Rig combines a starter theme with an integrated development framework. It provides scaffolding for files and tooling so you do not start from zero. Rather than adding a foreign templating layer, WP Rig keeps theme code native to WordPress while bundling Composer and Node dependencies, build tools, linters, and helper commands. It also includes utilities to convert projects between classic, hybrid, and block-based theme paradigms.
Why Rob chose WP Rig
Rob appreciates WP Rig for its minimal, standards-first approach and its alignment with WordPress core practices. The project makes modern CSS workflows and other recent front-end features accessible through a build step that maintains browser compatibility. Crucially, WP Rig avoids introducing unfamiliar template systems, keeping development familiar for WordPress developers while giving them a modern toolchain.
Who benefits from WP Rig
– Designers or site owners who want to learn development incrementally. Start with CSS or templates and adopt more tooling over time.
– Developers and agencies building bespoke sites who want a consistent, opinionated workflow.
– Teams that need shared tooling and guardrails to keep code readable, consistent, and reviewable.
Core workflow and requirements
Development with WP Rig runs locally. Required components include:
– Node.js for JavaScript tooling
– Composer for PHP package management
– A local WordPress environment such as Local, wp-env, Docker, or similar
The workflow runs build processes that convert modern CSS into browser-compatible output, compile TypeScript/JavaScript, lint PHP, and bundle a production-ready theme. The bundle step produces a deployable theme package named for your project and strips WP Rig references so the shipped theme looks like your own product.
Why coding still matters
Rob contrasts page-builder and GUI approaches with code-based theming. Page builders are quick but impose limits: settings live in the database and can be awkward to change sitewide. Coding gives immediate control over HTML, CSS, and JS, enabling deeper customization and easier adoption of new web standards. For long-term maintainability and full control, theme development by code is more flexible.
Full Site Editing and block themes
Full Site Editing changed theme architecture. Rob initially worried FSE would make theme frameworks irrelevant, but WP Rig adapted to support the new paradigm. It started as a classic-theme toolkit and now includes commands to convert projects into hybrid or block-based themes. Theme-level decisions still determine whether a site uses FSE features.
There is ongoing discussion about whether custom blocks belong in plugins or themes. Rob points out that theme-level blocks can make sense when block functionality needs tight integration with design, such as custom navigation behavior. However, bundling blocks into a theme can affect theme distribution options, for example when submitting to the official theme directory, so the choice depends on the intended audience and distribution plan.
Education and guardrails
Education is a primary goal for WP Rig. The project provides documentation, videos, and automated checks that act as guardrails: linters, PHPCS with the WordPress Coding Standards, and build-time validations. These tools help new contributors produce code that meets project and WordPress standards, easing reviews and reducing friction for contribution and distribution.
Maintainer experience and project evolution
When Rob took over maintenance, WP Rig needed modernization. Older build tooling like Gulp and legacy PostCSS workflows were replaced during the move to WP Rig v3. The project adopted faster modern tools, for example esbuild and Lightning CSS, making the toolkit leaner and faster while aligning it with current front-end practices.
Community and contribution
Activity dipped after the original maintainer stepped back, and Rob now handles most of the maintenance while welcoming community contributions. WP Rig has a Discord and a YouTube channel linked from the project site. The GitHub repository contains contributing guidelines and a CONTRIBUTING.md to help new contributors open issues or submit pull requests. Rob encourages developers to get involved and sees WP Rig as a way to onboard more people into WordPress contribution.
Why WP Rig matters
WP Rig matters because it lowers the barrier to learning theme development while enforcing best practices. It is practical for shipping themes in production and serves as a learning platform that encourages adoption of standards and eventual contribution back to WordPress core and related projects. The project helps grow the pool of developers who know how to build and maintain modern WordPress sites.
Getting started
Explore documentation, tutorials, and contribution guidance at wprig.io. Rob is available on LinkedIn and the WP Rig Discord to answer questions and help new contributors get started.
Summary
WP Rig is a modern, opinionated starter theme and toolkit that supports classic, hybrid, and block-based theme development. It provides automation, build optimizations, and coding standards enforcement to help learners, designers moving into development, agencies, and teams build consistent, maintainable themes while learning current front-end workflows.