Blog
Field notes from building DesignSetGo Apps.
Design rationale, release notes, and the occasional aside. Authored in WordPress, rendered through the same DSGo runtime that powers every page on this site.
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Give a client a dashboard inside wp-admin without writing a plugin
Read post →A custom admin page used to mean a PHP plugin, an add_menu_page call, a templated .php file, and a maintenance burden. The display.modes admin flag in your manifest does the same job with one line.
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Versioning and rollback: what happens when an app update breaks
Read post →A plugin update that breaks your site requires a backup restore and a coffee. A DesignSetGo app rollback is one CLI command and you are back in three seconds. Here is the model.
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Roles and capabilities: the WordPress concepts every app author needs to know
Read post →If you came from React and Vercel, WordPress’s capability system is the part of the platform you most need to internalize. It is not user roles. It is a permission graph every other plugin extends.
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Apps as content: the case for the Gutenberg block as the default embed surface
Read post →Site owners think in posts and pages, not at standalone URLs. The block embed is the wedge. Standalone /apps/{slug} is the secondary surface, not the primary.
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A recipe filter that actually uses your recipes (food-blogger vertical)
Read post →Tasty, WP Recipe Maker, and the generic filter plugins all read from their own schemas. A DesignSetGo App reads from your posts and your tag taxonomy, so adding a new ingredient is just publishing a post.
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App secrets, the right way: why DesignSetGo never asks you to paste a key into your source
Read post →The first thing most AI plugins do is ask for your OpenAI key. DesignSetGo asks for nothing. The site already has a Connector with provider credentials; apps call dsgo.ai.prompt() and inherit them.
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Calculated Fields Form vs a DesignSetGo App: when each one is the right call
Read post →Calculated Fields Form is great for form-shaped math. It is the wrong tool for a custom-branded calculator that reads your products or posts. Here is the honest decision table.
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Vibe coding vs hiring a WordPress developer: when each is the right call
Read post →The honest decision table. Where AI builders (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, v0, Lovable) beat hiring a developer for a WordPress feature, where they do not, and the middle case where you should use both.
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How to add a mortgage calculator to a real-estate WordPress site
Read post →Real-estate agents reach for generic mortgage calculator plugins and end up with a sidebar widget nobody clicks. A DesignSetGo App lets you embed a calculator inside the listing post, pre-filled with that listing’s price.
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Ghost, Substack, Hashnode, or WordPress for the blog on your vibe-coded site?
Read post →Four real options for the blog half of a Lovable, v0, Bolt, Claude Code, or Astro site. Which one fits behind a vibe-coded homepage without fighting it, and which one is the lock-in tax you do not want.
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blog.yoursite.com or yoursite.com/blog? A decision for your vibe-coded site
Read post →Three real ways to add a WordPress blog to a vibe-coded site: subdomain, subdirectory reverse proxy, or one WP install hosting the front-end too. The SEO, cookies, and auth consequences of each.
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Keep WordPress for the blog, vibe-code the rest? Try one site instead of two.
Read post →You vibe-coded your homepage in Lovable, v0, or Claude Code. You still want WordPress for the blog. The natural plan splits across two hosts; here is the one-site shape that does not.