Module 8 — Capstone Projects
Goal: combine everything into shippable features.
Every chapter until now taught one thing at a time: a builder method, a pattern, a piece of a real feature. This module doesn’t teach anything new. It combines what’s already here into two complete, shippable features, the kind you’d actually add to a real site.
What’s in this module
- Capstone 1: AI Alt-Text Generator. A Media Library feature that looks at an uploaded image and writes real alt text for it, combining a system instruction, structured JSON output, proper error handling, feature detection, and a REST endpoint into one admin-side tool.
- Capstone 2: AI Content Block + Frontend Widget. A custom block editor tool and the frontend-facing feature it powers, built on the same public REST pattern and conversation history from Module 7.
Where each piece actually comes from
Nothing in either capstone is new. Here’s what each one is actually built from:
The Alt-Text Generator uses using_system_instruction() from Chapter 5, as_json_response() from Chapter 8, the is_wp_error() habit from Chapter 3, is_supported_for_image_generation()-style feature detection from Chapter 17, and the REST endpoint pattern from Chapter 20.
The Content Block + Widget uses the block registration approach from Chapter 22, the public REST pattern from Chapter 25, and with_history() from Chapter 16, the same building block that Chapter 27’s chat widget used.
If a step in either capstone looks unfamiliar, that’s worth treating as a signal to go back to the chapter it came from, not to push through and hope it makes sense anyway.
On to Chapter 28.