Automattic / Automattic/studio

Explore WooCommerce support for Studio site generation

Open
#3,323 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Enhancement
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
517
Forks
95
Avg merge
1d 23h
Merged PRs (30d)
172

Description

## Problem
Studio site generation does not currently have a dedicated WooCommerce-aware path.

On Studio `trunk`, site generation is based on the agent creating WordPress/block output directly. It does not currently provision WooCommerce, seed products, create store pages, or validate shop/cart/checkout behavior as a first-class generation workflow.

If a user asks Studio to build a shop, store, product catalog, cart, checkout flow, or ecommerce site, Studio should eventually be able to produce a real WooCommerce-backed local site rather than a visually plausible generic site.

## Current state
- Studio `trunk` does **not** use Static Site Importer for site generation.
- The current mainline generation path uses agent-authored WordPress/block output.
- Static Site Importer is being explored separately in the Studio SSI draft PR / `bfb-mu-plugin-agent-output-draft` branch as an experimental local site-generation substrate.
- My intended exploration path for WooCommerce support is to stack a future draft experiment on top of that SSI draft branch after the non-commerce import loop is more stable.
- The related importer/conversion/benchmark repos are listed in the Links section below.

WooCommerce currently appears only incidentally in generic tooling examples, such as WP-CLI plugin installation. There is no first-class WooCommerce site-generation workflow.

## Proposed direction
Explore WooCommerce-aware site generation as a future draft experiment stacked on the Studio SSI draft branch.

The shape I want to explore:

```txt
User asks for a shop/store/products/cart/checkout
-> Studio detects commerce intent
-> Studio provisions WooCommerce for the local site
-> Generation captures page design plus structured product data
-> Static Site Importer imports the design and seeds WooCommerce products
-> Product grid/cart/checkout regions become WooCommerce-native where feasible
-> Benchmarks validate WooCommerce state, pages, blocks, and frontend behavior
```

The important product direction is that the user request stays natural. The system should turn the generated store concept into WordPress/WooCommerce-native data and pages through the generation/import substrate.

## Potential areas of work

### Studio
- Commerce intent detection.
- WooCommerce install/activation/provisioning for local generated sites.
- A generation/import mode that knows a store is being created.

### Static Site Importer draft branch
- A structured product data contract, such as products, categories, prices, descriptions, and images.
- Product seeding into WooCommerce.
- Mapping high-confidence product grids/cards/CTAs to WooCommerce-native blocks or pages.
- Store-specific import diagnostics.

### Conversion substrate
- Recognition of common product-card/product-grid/cart/checkout static HTML patterns.
- WooCommerce-aware block or placeholder mapping where the importer has product data.

### Validation/benchmarking
- WooCommerce is active.
- Products are created with expected data.
- Shop/cart/checkout pages render.
- Product links work.
- Blocks validate cleanly.
- Visual and semantic fidelity remain acceptable.

## Acceptance criteria for a draft experiment
- A prompt like "build a small online shop" creates a local WordPress site with WooCommerce active.
- The result includes real WooCommerce products, not just static product cards.
- Shop, cart, checkout, and product views render without block validation errors.
- The non-commerce generation path remains unaffected.

## Notes
This is intentionally exploratory. The issue tracks a future WooCommerce site-generation capability and names the Studio SSI draft branch as the likely experimental base. It does not claim that Static Site Importer is the current Studio `trunk` generation path.

## Links
- Studio SSI draft PR: https://github.com/Automattic/studio/pull/3309
- Static Site Importer: https://github.com/chubes4/static-site-importer
- Block Format Bridge: https://github.com/chubes4/block-format-bridge
- HTML to Blocks Converter: https://github.com/chubes4/html-to-blocks-converter
- Homeboy Studio rigs: https://github.com/chubes4/homeboy-rigs/tree/main/Automattic/studio

## AI assistance
- **AI assistance:** Yes
- **Tool(s):** OpenCode (gpt-5.5)
- **Used for:** Revising the issue framing and link structure based on Chris's correction; Chris remains responsible for review and prioritization.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reading Studio SSI draft PR #3309 and the bfb-mu-plugin-agent-output-draft branch, then compare them with the current Studio trunk generation path. A draft experiment is done when a shop prompt creates a local WordPress site with real WooCommerce products, working shop/cart/checkout and product views, clean block validation, and no regression to non-commerce generation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript, wordpress
Domain
desktop, web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
28/100

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