richtabor/skills/wordpress-add-links

WordPress Add Links

Find and add internal and external links to a blog post draft, naturally woven into existing sentences.

Trigger

• "find links for this post"
• "find internal links"
• "add links to this post"
• "link this draft"

Environment Variables

• WORDPRESS_URL — Blog base URL (e.g. https://yourblog.com)
• WORDPRESS_USERNAME — WordPress account username
• WORDPRESS_APP_PASSWORD — Application password (not your regular password)

Process

Phase 1: Load the Post

Determine input type from what the user provides:

Local file — Read the markdown file. Parse any frontmatter for title, tags, or topic context.

WordPress URL — Extract the slug from the URL, then fetch via REST API:

curl -s "$WORDPRESS_URL/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?slug={slug}&_fields=id,title,content,tags,categories"

Store the post ID for later update if working from WordPress.

Phase 2: Fetch Internal Content

Fetch published posts from the same WordPress site:

curl -s -u "$WORDPRESS_USERNAME:$WORDPRESS_APP_PASSWORD" \
  "$WORDPRESS_URL/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?per_page=100&_fields=id,title,link,excerpt,tags,categories"

From the results:

• Build a list of existing posts with titles, URLs, and excerpts
• Identify posts that are topically relevant to the current draft
• Internal links take priority over external links when both could cover the same topic

Phase 3: Find External Links

Use web search to find authoritative external references for key topics in the post (tools, libraries, concepts, standards).

Prefer in this order:

1. Official documentation and project pages
2. Primary sources (specs, RFCs, research)
3. Well-known reference sites (MDN, Wikipedia)

Avoid linking to other blog posts or news articles unless no better source exists.

Phase 4: Add Links Inline

Insert links into the existing text. Rules:

• Don't add new sentences or paragraphs — only add links to words/phrases already in the draft
• Keep anchor text short — link the subject/topic (2–4 words), not full clauses or sentences. E.g. link "something new" not "Let each project teach you something new"
• Natural reading test — if read aloud, the sentence should sound identical with or without the link
• Link density constraints:
  • 3–5 internal links per post (fewer for shorter posts)
  • 2–4 external links per post (fewer for shorter posts)
• No links in the opening paragraph — let the reader settle in
• No link clustering — spread links across different paragraphs
• No duplicate destinations — each URL appears once
• No duplicate anchor text — each linked phrase is unique

Phase 5: Review with User

Do not explain what you found, list existing links, or narrate your process. Just present the table and ask for approval.

Present proposed links as a table using AskUserQuestion. Each link is a selectable option so the user can pick which ones to apply:

| # | Text | URL | Type | Reason | |---|------|-----|------|--------| | 1 | "block patterns" | /block-patterns | Internal | Related tutorial | | 2 | "WCAG" | w3.org/WAI/WCAG21 | External | Official spec |

Use AskUserQuestion with multiSelect: true so the user can check the links they want applied. List each link as an option (e.g. label: "block patterns" → /block-patterns, description: the reason).

Do not proceed to Phase 6 until the user selects links.

Phase 6: Save

After approval:

Local file — Overwrite the draft with the linked version.

WordPress post — Update via REST API:

curl -s -X POST \
  -u "$WORDPRESS_USERNAME:$WORDPRESS_APP_PASSWORD" \
  "$WORDPRESS_URL/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/{post_id}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"content": "...updated HTML..."}'

Report final counts:

• Internal links added: X
• External links added: Y