I’m putting together a new WordPress development process and want to see what others are doing this year.
I’m looking to move away from basic PHP templates and try some newer approaches. Here’s my current plan:
What I want to include:
Roots Sage theme for better structure
Blade for templating
Custom Gutenberg blocks using ACF Pro
Tailwind for CSS styling
theme.json for configuration
WP-CLI for management tasks
Local development with Docker or Valet
Bedrock with Composer and Git deployment
I’m curious about what everyone else is using:
• What’s in your current WordPress toolkit?
• Which tools make your work easier?
• Any packages or tricks you can’t work without?
Feel free to share any resources or examples if you have them. Would be great to build a good reference for developers wanting to modernize their WordPress workflow.
I’ve been running a similar setup for about eight months now and it’s been a game changer. One thing I’d strongly recommend adding to your stack is Lando instead of Docker directly - it handles the WordPress-specific configuration much better and eliminates most of the networking headaches I used to have. For deployment, I actually switched from straight Git to using Trellis alongside Bedrock. The Ansible automation saves me hours on server provisioning and the staging/production environments are identical every time. Worth the initial learning curve. Also consider adding WP Migrate Pro to your toolkit if you’re working with clients. The database sync between environments becomes trivial and you can pull production data down safely. I know it costs money but the time savings pay for itself quickly. One gotcha I ran into with ACF Pro blocks - make sure you’re using the newer block.json registration method rather than the PHP array approach. Better editor integration and you’ll thank yourself later when WordPress updates start breaking the older registration patterns.
Been developing WordPress sites professionally for about six years and recently made the jump to a modern workflow similar to what you’re planning. The biggest productivity boost for me came from integrating Vite into my build process alongside Sage and Tailwind. Hot module replacement during development is incredible when you’re working on custom blocks. For Gutenberg development, I’d suggest looking into @wordpress/create-block instead of relying solely on ACF Pro blocks. The native approach gives you more control and better performance, especially for complex interactive elements. One tool that doesn’t get mentioned enough is WP Browser for automated testing. Setting up proper PHPUnit and Codeception tests early saves countless hours debugging later. Also recommend adding Composer scripts for common tasks like database imports and cache clearing. Makes onboarding new developers much smoother. The biggest challenge you’ll face is client education - many expect the traditional admin customization approach, so budget time for explaining the benefits of your modern workflow upfront.
honestly your setup looks solid but i’d throw in wp-env instead of docker - way less config headaches and spins up instantly. been using it for months now and its a lifesaver. also maybe consider headless with next.js if your doing anything complex, the performance gains are insane compared to traditional themes.