Manage your Custom Post Types on WordPress.com

I’ve talked about the WordPress.com REST API on this blog before. I even created a plugin allowing you to make use of it on your own site. This API powers WordPress.com, the desktop WordPress.com apps, and is used in more and more areas of the Jetpack plugin.

Did you know that API also allows you to manage your Custom Post Types via the WordPress.com interface?

Make your Custom Post Type available in the WordPress.com REST API

By default, that API allows you to query Posts and Pages on your site, but won’t query Custom Post Types. Luckily, Jetpack includes a filter you can use to whitelist some of your Custom Post Types, to make them available in the WordPress.com REST API. To use that filter, you can paste the following in a functionality plugin:

/**
 * Filter the list of Post Types available in the WordPress.com REST API.
 *
 * @param array $allowed_post_types Array of whitelisted Post Types.
 * @return array $allowed_post_types Array of whitelisted Post Types, including our 'ghactivity_event' Custom Post Type.
 */
function jeherve_allow_post_type_wpcom( $allowed_post_types ) {
    $allowed_post_types[] = 'ghactivity_event';
    return $allowed_post_types;
}
add_filter( 'rest_api_allowed_post_types', 'jeherve_allow_post_type_wpcom' );

Once you’ve done so, your content will be available in the WordPress.com REST API. If you go to WordPress.com/posts, or if you install one of the WordPress.com desktop apps, you’ll see the Post type in your sidebar:

You will then be able to create new posts or edit existing ones right from WordPress.com, without having to log in to your site.

Magic!