PRC Homepages

Manages the Pew Research Center homepage through a custom homepage post type, enabling editors to draft, schedule, and version-control the front page without touching the block theme template. The most recently published homepage post is rendered on the front page via the prc-platform/latest-homepage block.

What it does

• Registers the homepage custom post type with full block editor, revision, and custom fields support
• Provides the prc-platform/latest-homepage block, which renders the content of the most recently published homepage post on the frontend; in the editor it uses InnerBlocksAsSyncedContent so the homepage layout is editable in-place inside the block theme template
• Exposes inspector controls in the block editor for creating a new draft homepage and for switching the editor preview to any existing homepage
• Rewrites the permalink of a published homepage post to home_url() so the post link always points to the site root
• Replaces the generic "Edit Page" admin bar item with "Edit Homepage" when a logged-in user is viewing the front page
• Registers a custom RSS feed at /feed/homepage that enumerates all prc-block/story-item post IDs found in the latest published homepage, cached in transients for 1 hour and flushed on save

Key files

File	Purpose
prc-homepages.php	Plugin entry point; defines constants, registers activation/deactivation hooks, boots Plugin
includes/class-plugin.php	Core class — registers the post type, block, permalink filter, admin bar item, and block render callback
includes/class-feed.php	Generates and caches the /feed/homepage RSS feed; extracts story post IDs by recursively walking parsed blocks
includes/utils.php	Global helpers: get_latest_homepage_id(), get_latest_homepage_title(), get_latest_homepage_permalink()
src/block.json	Metadata for prc-platform/latest-homepage
src/edit.jsx	Block editor component; fetches the latest homepage via useEntityRecords and renders it with InnerBlocksAsSyncedContent
src/controls.jsx	Inspector panel wiring up the preview and create modals
src/preview-selection-modal.jsx	Modal to switch the editor preview to any existing homepage post
src/create-new-homepage-modal.jsx	Modal to create a new draft homepage (pre-seeded with the default grid layout)
src/constants.js	POST_TYPE, POST_TYPE_LABEL, and DEFAULT_CONTENT (the default block template serialized as block markup)
tests/create-homepage-post.spec.ts	Playwright e2e test for homepage creation

Filters / hooks

Hook	Type	Direction	Description
init	Action	Registers	Registers the homepage post type
init	Action	Registers	Registers the prc-platform/latest-homepage block via register_block_type
init	Action	Registers	Registers the custom /feed/homepage feed endpoint via add_feed
post_link	Filter	Modifies	Rewrites the permalink of any published homepage post to home_url()
admin_bar_menu	Action	Modifies	Swaps the default "Edit Page" node for "Edit Homepage" when on the front page
save_post_homepage	Action	Listener	Flushes the prc_homepage_feed_content and prc_homepage_story_ids transients

Architecture notes

How the front page is served

The block theme's front-page template contains a single prc-platform/latest-homepage block. On the frontend, its render_callback runs a WP_Query for the most recently published homepage post, pipes its post_content through apply_filters('the_content', ...), and returns the result. No page is set as the WordPress "front page" in Settings — the template + block combination owns that responsibility entirely.

Scheduling a new homepage

Create a homepage post in the block editor, build the layout, then schedule it for a future publish date. Once WordPress publishes it, the render callback will automatically return its content because it always queries by orderby=date DESC limit=1 post_status=publish.

Default block template

When creating a homepage (either through the admin or via the "Create New Draft" modal in the block editor), the post is seeded with a 3-column prc-block/grid-controller layout containing five prc-block/story-item blocks. The serialized block markup lives in src/constants.js as DEFAULT_CONTENT and the PHP equivalent is defined in Plugin::get_template().

Feed caching

The /feed/homepage endpoint caches its output in two transients:

Transient key	Contents	TTL
prc_homepage_feed_content	Full rendered RSS XML string	1 hour
prc_homepage_story_ids	Array of post IDs from prc-block/story-item blocks	1 hour

Both are deleted on save_post_homepage. The feed is generated only once per hour unless a homepage is saved.

Dependencies

• prc-platform-core (required plugin)
• @prc/components — InnerBlocksAsSyncedContent, EntityPatternModal, EntityCreateNewModal (editor only)

Build

npm run build -w @prc/homepages