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wp term create

Overview

Add new terms to any WordPress taxonomy — categories, tags, or custom taxonomies like product categories. Supports slug, description, and parent assignment.

What It Does​

wp term create calls wp_insert_term() to create a new taxonomy term. Returns the new term ID on success.

Syntax​

wp term create <taxonomy> <term> [OPTIONS]

Arguments & Options​

FlagDescription
--slug=SLUGURL-friendly slug (auto-generated from name if omitted)
--description=TEXTTerm description
--parent=TERM_IDParent term ID (for hierarchical taxonomies)
--porcelainOutput the new term ID only

Basic Usage​

Create a category​

wp term create category "Technology"

Create with custom slug and description​

wp term create category "Machine Learning" \
  --slug=machine-learning \
  --description="Articles about AI and ML"

Create a child category​

PARENT_ID=$(wp term get category python --field=term_id)
wp term create category "Django" --parent=$PARENT_ID

Create a WooCommerce product category​

wp term create product_cat "Electronics" --slug=electronics

Real-World Scenarios​

Scenario 1: Set up a full category hierarchy​

DEV_ID=$(wp term create category "Development" --slug=development --porcelain)
wp term create category "Frontend" --slug=frontend --parent=$DEV_ID
wp term create category "Backend"  --slug=backend  --parent=$DEV_ID
wp term create category "DevOps"   --slug=devops   --parent=$DEV_ID

Scenario 2: Bulk create tags from a list​

TAGS="wordpress wpcli automation devops sysadmin"
for tag in $TAGS; do
  wp term create post_tag "$tag" --slug="$tag"
done

Quick Reference​

wp term create <taxonomy> "<Name>"              # Basic create
wp term create <taxonomy> "<Name>" --slug=slug  # Custom slug
wp term create <taxonomy> "<Name>" --parent=<id>
TERM_ID=$(wp term create <taxonomy> "<Name>" --porcelain)

Next Steps​