Building a WordPress Theme from Scratch

This series starts where most tutorials won’t: at the command line, before any code is written. From there it builds up through HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and WordPress, arriving at a fully hand-built theme and a working plugin. 18 chapters. macOS and Ubuntu are both covered; Windows is out of scope.

The chapters are sequential. Each one assumes you’ve read the one before it. That’s not a warning, it’s the point. There’s a version of this material that lets you skip around and pick up the bits you’re missing. This isn’t that. The goal is to build a complete mental model, not fill in gaps.

If you already know what the box model is, or you’ve shipped a WordPress site before, some early chapters will feel slow. That’s fine: skim them. But if you’ve ever felt like your CSS knowledge has holes in it, or like you’re following instructions without understanding why they work, starting from chapter 1 is worth the time.