How to Programmatically Create a WordPress Post Without Plugins in 3 Easy Steps

Sometimes you don’t want to create posts manually – you want code to handle it for you. Maybe you’re importing data, generating content from a form, or syncing from another system. WordPress makes this pretty straightforward with wp_insert_post(), and you don’t need any plugins to use it.

Step 1: Open Your functions.php File

First, open your active theme’s `functions.php` file. You’ll find it under `wp-content/themes/your-theme-name/functions.php`. This is where we’ll add the function that creates a post programmatically. If you prefer to keep logic out of the theme, you can also put this code into a small custom plugin instead.

Step 2: Add a Function That Creates a Post

Now we’ll write a function that uses `wp_insert_post()` to create a post. Here’s a simple example you can drop into `functions.php`:

1function create_my_post() {
2      // Post data
3      $my_post = array(
4          'post_title'   => 'My awesome post',
5          'post_content' => 'This is the content of my awesome post.',
6          'post_status'  => 'publish',
7          'post_author'  => 1,
8          'post_category'=> array( 8, 39 ),
9      );
10  
11      // Insert the post into the database
12      $post_id = wp_insert_post( $my_post );
13  
14      if ( is_wp_error( $post_id ) ) {
15          // Handle error if needed
16          error_log( 'Post creation failed: ' . $post_id->get_error_message() );
17      }
18  }

In this example we set a title, some content, the status (publish), the author ID, and assign the post to categories with IDs `8` and `39`. `wp_insert_post()` returns the new post ID on success or a `WP_Error` on failure, so we capture that in `$post_id` and do a basic error check.

Step 3: Call the Function Safely

If you just call `create_my_post();` at the bottom of `functions.php`, WordPress will run it on every page load – which means you’ll get a new post every time the site is loaded. That’s usually not what you want.

A quick way to trigger it once while testing is to temporarily hook it into an admin action, then remove it after the post is created. For example:

// Temporary: create a post when an admin page loads
  // add_action( 'admin_init', 'create_my_post' );

Uncomment that line, load any admin page once, check that the post was created, then comment it out again. In a real project, you’d usually call `create_my_post()` in response to something specific – for example, when a custom form is submitted, or when you run an import script.

Full Example

1function create_my_post() {
2      // Post data
3      $my_post = array(
4          'post_title'   => 'My awesome post',
5          'post_content' => 'This is the content of my awesome post.',
6          'post_status'  => 'publish',
7          'post_author'  => 1,
8          'post_category'=> array( 8, 39 ),
9      );
10  
11      // Insert the post into the database
12      $post_id = wp_insert_post( $my_post );
13  
14      if ( is_wp_error( $post_id ) ) {
15          error_log( 'Post creation failed: ' . $post_id->get_error_message() );
16      }
17  }
18  
19  // For one-time testing, uncomment the line below, reload an admin page, then comment it again.
20  // add_action( 'admin_init', 'create_my_post' );

Useful Links

WordPress Developer Reference – wp_insert_post():

Programmatically creating posts gives you a lot of flexibility for imports, automations, and custom tools. Just be careful about when the code runs so you don’t accidentally flood your site with duplicate posts.