Post to Group — Guidelines

Guidelines for the /post-to-group Claude Code skill. This skill handles posting content to the BuddyBoss practice platform (practice.baseworks.com) via three distinct mechanisms.

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Scope

The /post-to-group skill covers:

1. Forum topic — creates a new topic in a bbPress forum (e.g., a session summary post in the study group forum)
2. Forum reply — replies to an existing forum topic
3. Group activity post — posts to the BuddyBoss group activity feed

Out of scope: Direct messages (BuddyBoss messages use a separate table and a separate skill when needed).

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Voice Compliance

All content posted through this skill is outward-facing and must pass a voice compliance check before the confirmation gate. The check runs in Phase 1d of the skill workflow and covers:

• Em dashes (—): zero allowed — replace with comma, period, colon, parentheses, or restructure
• Exclamation marks: not allowed in professional or community contexts
• Negative-framing openers: lead with what something IS, not what it isn’t
• Banned phrases: “land on” / “lands on” as attention metaphors; unapproved metaphors
• Result must be reported in the confirmation gate preview (clean or fixed with description)

This applies to forum topics, forum replies, and group activity posts equally.

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Confirmation Gate

A mandatory preview is shown before any database write. The preview includes the full post body (with @mention HTML visible), the target forum or group, the author, and the tag list. The user must type YES before the post is created. No exceptions.

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Technical Mechanisms

The three mechanisms use different database tables and different WordPress APIs:

• Forum topics and replies — stored in areb_posts (WordPress posts table) with post_type=topic or post_type=reply. Created via bbp_insert_topic() and bbp_insert_reply().
• Group activity posts — stored in areb_bp_activity (BuddyBoss activity table). Created via bp_activity_add(). These are NOT WordPress posts and cannot be created with wp post create.

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Critical Rules

These rules were learned from failures during the Spring 2026 study group. They are enforced by the skill and must not be bypassed.

Never use wp_update_post() or wp post update on bbPress content

Both silently reset post_parent to 0, detaching the topic from its forum or the reply from its topic. The post appears to exist but is no longer accessible via the forum.

If a topic or reply needs to be edited after creation, use a direct UPDATE areb_posts SET post_content = '...' WHERE ID = N query — never wp_update_post().

@mentions must be in the content at creation time

BuddyBoss @mention notifications fire when the post is first created. If the @mention HTML is patched in afterward, no notification is sent — even if the HTML looks correct visually. Build the full content including @mention HTML before calling bbp_insert_topic() or bp_activity_add().

Tags require —by=id

wp post term set without --by=id interprets numeric IDs as term names and creates new terms named after those numbers (e.g., a term literally named “702”). Always pass --by=id when setting topic-tag terms by their term_id.

No “Tags:” line in post body

Tags belong in the topic-tag taxonomy only. Including a “Tags:” summary line in the post body means it appears as visible text in the forum post. The skill never adds this line to the content.

Never call bbp_update_forum_topic_count() from CLI

The WPML icl_translations filter adds NOT IN clauses to WP_Query that cause this function to return 0 when called from the command line. The forum topic count corrects itself on the next user interaction. Calling this function from CLI leaves the count at 0 and makes the forum appear empty.

Never embed content captured from wp db query

wp db query output includes a column header row and may embed literal \n characters. Capturing this output and using it as post content results in malformed posts. Build post content independently.

Always fire do_action(‘bp_groups_posted_update’, …) after bp_activity_add()

bp_activity_add() does NOT fire the bp_groups_posted_update action — only the UI posting path does. Without this action, group members subscribed to the group’s activity feed receive no in-app or email notification.

After bp_activity_add() succeeds and post_title is set, always fire:

do_action( 'bp_groups_posted_update', $content, $user_id, $group_id, $activity_id );

Parameters: post content (string), author user_id, group_id, activity_id. The notification handler bb_subscription_send_subscribe_group_notifications() hooks here at priority 11.

This action is now included in the skill’s group activity template (added 2026-05-14).

bbPress kses strips all heading tags — use strong instead

bbp_kses_allowed_tags() does not include h1 through h6. Any heading tags in topic or reply content are stripped at save time, leaving bare unstyled text. When converting markdown headings (##, ###) to HTML for a forum post, always use <strong> — never <h2> or <h3>.

This applies to both new posts and any direct DB update fixing existing content.

Always fire do_action(‘bbp_new_reply’, …) after bbp_insert_reply()

bbp_insert_reply() does NOT fire the bbp_new_reply action hook — only the form handler bbp_new_reply_handler() does. Without this action:

• No activity record is created in areb_bp_activity
• Topic subscribers receive no bb_forums_subscribed_reply notifications
• The @mention notification pipeline does not fire

After bbp_insert_reply() succeeds and post_parent is fixed, always fire:

do_action( 'bbp_new_reply', $reply_id, $topic_id, $forum_id, array(), $author_id, false, 0 );

Parameters: reply_id, topic_id, forum_id, anonymous_data (empty array), author_id, is_edit (false), reply_to (0).

Forum subscriptions vs topic subscriptions

BuddyBoss has two subscription types:

• Forum subscription (type=forum) — notifies when a new topic is created in the forum (bb_forums_subscribed_discussion)
• Topic subscription (type=topic) — notifies when a new reply is posted to a topic (bb_forums_subscribed_reply)

Patrick and Asia are subscribed to the Primer Community forum (item_id=20019), which means they receive new-topic notifications but NOT reply notifications. To receive reply notifications, a user must subscribe to each individual topic.

Patrick and Asia’s topic subscriptions are managed in areb_bb_notifications_subscriptions. When a new topic is created in the Primer Community forum, subscribe Patrick and Asia to it by inserting a row with type='topic', item_id=$topic_id, secondary_item_id=$forum_id.

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@Mention HTML Format

<span class="atwho-inserted"><a class='bp-suggestions-mention' data-bb-hp-profile='USER_ID' href='{{mention_user_id_USER_ID}}' rel='nofollow'>@login</a></span>

The href uses a template placeholder format {{mention_user_id_USER_ID}} — this is resolved by BuddyBoss at render time. The data-bb-hp-profile attribute triggers the notification.

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Known Program Contexts

Program	forum_id	group_id
Spring 2026 Study Group Montreal	21929	5

Spring 2026 Participant User IDs

Name	user_id	login
Patrick	8	patrick
Asia	2	asia
Nathalie Doré	432	nathalie.dore
Noémie Normandin	433	noemie.normandin
Elinor Fueter	435	elinor.fueter
Marta Stothers	436	marta.stothers
James Murray	438	james.murray
Caitlin Bartlett	439	caitlin.bartlett

When a session context is active (e.g., after /session-summary), the skill infers the correct forum and group IDs from the program. Otherwise, the user provides them.

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Related

• Community Forums and Groups
• Session Summary Guidelines
• Claude Code Skills Index