Building a WordPress plugin in 2026 still means stitching together half a dozen concerns before you write your first feature: PHP bootstrap, REST routes, asset pipelines, admin UI, i18n, release ZIPs, and (if you're lucky) some kind of dev proxy so you're not manually refreshing minified bundles. I've done this enough times for client projects that I finally productized the scaffolding. It's called Vipresso — a GPL boilerplate you fork once, rename once, and ship from. Repo: https://github.com/tommasomeli/vipresso The problem I kept hitting Most "WordPress + React" starters solve one layer well and leave you maintaining registration lists forever: You add a REST handler → edit a central routes file You add an admin tab → wire React Router manually You add a shortcode → hope visitors don't download your entire admin bundle You cut a release → hand-build a ZIP and pray the headers are correct WordPress already has great primitives (capabilities, options, REST, hooks, cron, WP-CLI).…