Documentation

Overview

SeedPress is a WordPress developer tool that generates realistic fake content for local or staging environments. Every generation job is driven batch-by-batch from the browser via a REST endpoint — no PHP timeouts, and the progress bar updates after every single batch.

The plugin ships with a modern React admin UI at Tools → SeedPress. Each content type has its own tab. Configure the options, click "Generate", and watch the real-time progress bar tick up.

How it works

1. You submit a job from the admin UI (or WP-CLI).
2. SeedPress stores the job parameters in a custom database table.
3. The browser calls POST /wp-json/seedpress/v1/jobs/{id}/tick to run one batch synchronously and returns the updated state.
4. The progress bar updates after every batch — no polling delay. Steps in a Recipe chain instantly when one completes.
5. When the job completes, every generated item carries the private meta key _seedpress_generated so it can be identified and safely removed later.

Requirements

Content Generators

Each generator lives in its own tab in the SeedPress admin UI. All generators share a common Count field (max 200 for Free, 10,000 for Pro) and a Run in background checkbox (always on for large jobs).

Image Providers

SeedPress can attach images to posts, users, and products using external image services. Select your preferred provider in the Settings tab. The active provider is used for all generators automatically.

Seed Recipes let you chain multiple generation steps into a single, repeatable workflow. A recipe defines an ordered list of generator steps — for example: create categories first, then create posts assigned to those categories, then add comments to the posts.

SeedPress ships with four built-in presets:

Custom recipes can be created in the Recipes tab. Each step lets you pick a generator type, configure its options, and set an order. Recipes are stored in the database and can be shared across team members.

SeedPress Pro registers a wp seedpress command group. Unlike the admin UI (which drives generation from the browser), WP-CLI runs generation synchronously in the terminal and reports a real-time progress bar. Ideal for CI/CD pipelines and local development scripts.

Available commands

# Generate posts
wp seedpress generate post <count> [--post-type=<type>] [--status=<status>] [--with-content] [--assign-terms] [--with-image]

# Generate users
wp seedpress generate user <count> [--role=<role>]

# Generate taxonomy terms
wp seedpress generate term <count> [--taxonomy=<taxonomy>]

# Generate comments
wp seedpress generate comment <count> [--post-type=<type>]

# Generate WooCommerce products (Pro)
wp seedpress generate product <count> [--with-image] [--with-sale]

# Generate Events Calendar events (Pro)
wp seedpress generate event <count>

wp seedpress recipe run <recipe-slug>
wp seedpress recipe list

# Delete all seeded content (all types)
wp seedpress cleanup all --yes

# Delete only seeded posts
wp seedpress cleanup post --yes

# Per-job rollback is available in the admin Cleanup tab (not WP-CLI)

Example: Full blog seed

# 1. Create taxonomy terms
wp seedpress generate term 20 --taxonomy=category

# 2. Generate 500 posts with images and term assignments
wp seedpress generate post 500 --with-content --assign-terms --with-image

# 3. Add comments
wp seedpress generate comment 200

# Done!
✓ 20 categories, 500 posts, 200 comments created in 42.1s

When SeedPress Pro detects Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) or MetaBox installed and active, it automatically reads every registered field group and populates custom fields with realistic data that matches the field type.

Supported ACF field types

Supported MetaBox field types

SeedPress Pro auto-detects Yoast SEO and RankMath. When either plugin is active, every generated post automatically receives a focus keyword, an SEO title, and a meta description — written by Faker to be plausible lorem-ipsum SEO copy.

No configuration needed — detection is automatic based on active plugins.

Cleanup & Uninstall

Every item created by SeedPress is tagged with the private post meta key _seedpress_generated (value: 1). The cleanup tool targets only items with this key — your real content is never affected.

Cleanup tab (admin UI)

The Cleanup tab in the SeedPress admin lists all seeded item counts by type. You can delete all seeded content at once, or delete by content type individually. A confirmation modal protects against accidental deletion.

Rollback last job

On the Cleanup tab, recent completed jobs list a Rollback action. From 1.4.2 onward, each job records the IDs of items it created; rollback deletes only those items (still flagged with _seedpress_generated), leaving earlier seeded content intact. A confirmation modal is required. Jobs started before ID tracking have no tracked IDs — use type-wide Cleanup for those.

Uninstalling SeedPress

Deactivating the plugin leaves all seeded data in place (it's just WordPress posts and users). To perform a full cleanup before uninstalling:

1. Go to Tools → SeedPress → Cleanup.
2. Click "Delete all seeded content" and confirm.
3. Deactivate and delete the plugin from Plugins → Installed Plugins.

The plugin's custom database table (wp_seedpress_jobs) is dropped automatically on uninstall.