WordPress Block Editor Handbook

What it covers

The Block Editor Handbook documents the editor that WordPress users know as Gutenberg. It is organised into five parts: Getting Started (setting up a development environment and the fundamentals of block development), How-to Guides with task-focused tutorials, Reference Guides (the core of the handbook, covering block.json, block supports, attributes, components, data stores and packages), Explanations of the architecture, and a Contributor Guide.

The tutorial: your first block

The getting-started tutorial walks you through building a Copyright Date block that shows the copyright symbol, the current year and an optional starting year. Along the way you use:

• @wordpress/create-block, the official scaffolding tool, which generates a plugin with a block, a build setup and the files you need.
• wp-env, a command that starts a local WordPress site in Docker for development.
• block.json, the metadata file that names the block, declares its attributes and supports, and points at its scripts.
• edit.js for how the block behaves in the editor, render.php for dynamic server-side output, and later save.js for static output.

The tutorial explains the difference between dynamic blocks, whose HTML is generated on each request, and static blocks, whose HTML is saved into the post content. It ends with a hybrid approach and explains why. That distinction is the single most useful idea in the handbook for client work.

Is it worth your time?

If you build WordPress sites professionally, yes, at least the tutorial. Knowing how blocks work lets you create a small custom block or block pattern instead of installing a heavy page builder or a plugin for every layout request. It also makes block themes and theme.json easier to understand.

Prerequisites

Modern JavaScript (ES modules, arrow functions, destructuring), basic React ideas such as components and props, some PHP, and Node.js with npm installed. wp-env needs Docker; if Docker is a problem on your machine, you can use a local WordPress from a tool like Local instead and build the block there.

Free or paid

Free and open source. No account needed.

What you can do after

Scaffold, build and ship a custom block inside a plugin, choose between static and dynamic rendering, and read the reference to add block supports such as colour, spacing and typography controls.

Common questions

Do I need React for WordPress work? Not for site building. You need it once you write custom blocks or editor extensions.

Do I need to build blocks for every site? No. Most client sites work with core blocks, patterns and a good theme. Custom blocks are for repeated layouts or data the core blocks cannot handle.