WordPress Publishing

Publishing states

Command	WordPress post_status	Guard
scs wp draft --dry-run	—	No WordPress call
scs wp draft	draft	Creates or updates a draft; refuses live-post downgrade
scs wp publish pending	pending	Moves a draft to pending review
scs wp publish 2026/12/31	future	Schedules a publish date (QA gate required)
scs wp publish now	publish	Publishes live now (QA gate required)
scs wp status	reads current state	Updates the local publishing snapshot
WordPress approved workflow	(optional)	Visual review only; state changes are terminal-controlled

note

Publishing state is now terminal-controlled: scs wp draft, scs wp publish now, scs wp publish <date>, and scs wp publish pending. Live posts are never converted back to draft. scs wp publish now and scheduled publishes require an approved QA snapshot.

Payload mapping

Source	WordPress
title	post_title
Article half (after <!-- scs:article -->)	post_content (Gutenberg blocks)
publishing.slug	post_name
publishing.wp_author_id	post author
publishing.wp_category	category
publishing.wp_tag	tags
publishing.wp_content_format	content_format taxonomy
publishing.wp_authority_topic	webboulder_authority_topic
publishing.meta_title / meta_description	SEOPress metadata
clusters.kc_type	ACF content_type
keywords.keyword	ACF primary_keyword
clusters.entity_coverage	ACF semantic_tags
scs_pid	post meta idempotency key

Review gate fields

Field	Values
wpw_review_status	not_reviewed, in_review, changes_requested, approved
wpw_reviewer	WordPress user
wpw_review_date	Ymd
wpw_review_scope	factual, technical, editorial, ymyl, legal, accessibility
wpw_review_checklist	accuracy, sources, originality, internal_links, metadata, schema, media, disclosure
wpw_review_notes	Textarea

scs qa pull snapshots these into publishing.csv as qa_status, qa_reviewer, qa_date, qa_scope, qa_notes. WordPress remains authoritative.

Status vocabulary

WordPress	SCS snapshot
not_reviewed	pending
in_review	in_review
changes_requested	changes_requested
approved	approved
fields missing	not_configured

Taxonomy rules

• Categories map to wp_category and must exist in WordPress.
• Tags come from wp_tag (comma-separated).
• Pillar pages are WordPress Pages; regular content is Posts.
• content_format is the article format taxonomy.
• ACF content_type is hub / pillar / cluster / supporting, from kc_type.

Safety

• Only the article half is sent; the brief stays local.
• A published post is never converted back to draft.
• A non-draft post SCS did not create needs --force.
• The draft is keyed by scs_pid; title matching is not used.
• Secrets stay in server config, never in Markdown or CSV.

Markdown that converts

Supported: headings, paragraphs, bold/italic/inline code, links, lists, tables, fenced code, Mermaid, blockquotes, images, :::tip / :::note / :::warning, and horizontal rules.

Use [anchor](pid:FS-0003) for internal links; SCS resolves the PID to the published permalink.

Sitemap

SCS does not generate sitemap XML. SEOPress creates and serves it automatically from published content, so drafts never appear and nothing is rebuilt after scs publish.

curl -sSI https://example.com/sitemaps.xml | grep -iE 'HTTP/|content-type'
curl -sS https://example.com/post-sitemap1.xml | grep -F 'https://example.com/your-post/'
curl -sS https://example.com/robots.txt
wp option get seopress_xml_sitemap_option_name --format=json

/sitemaps.xml is the SEOPress index (plural); /sitemap.xml redirects to it. Google's sitemap ping endpoint is retired — submit or check the sitemap in Search Console instead. See XML Sitemaps.