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Foundations set: full CPT architecture live

Published on June 21, 2025

Last updated on June 6, 2026

This week marks a major milestone: almost all primary Custom Post Types (CPTs) are now active and structured.

Each CPT is still in its early phase, but the core relationships are working. These building blocks will power a much richer system of cross-linking and semantic navigation across the entire site.

Note: The only major CPT missing is Quotes, but the Lyrics CPT could take a few weeks or more to migrate. Once that’s done, Quotes will be easy.

Active CPTs

  • Books — cited sources with quotes, covers, and links to chapters.
  • Profiles — authors, philosophers, and referenced people.
  • Artists — musicians connected to featured songs.
  • Lyrics — standalone lyric excerpts tied to songs, artists, and chapters.
  • Movies — referenced film works.
  • Concepts (Lexicon) — definitions and recurring symbolic terms.

System clarification: When is a lyric its own thing?

A clear boundary has been established:

  • Featured song lyrics that drive a chapter’s core are not stored separately — they live inside the chapter.
  • All other lyrics are treated as independent CPT entries (reused across multiple contexts).

This separation allows reusable lyrics to appear in artist profiles and a new centralized “Lyric Quotes” directory — while preserving narrative, embedded ones inside chapters.

Rendering lyric blocks

A breakthrough this week: lyric CPTs can now render full Cover Block HTML inside the frontend — not just raw text. This opens the door to eventually replacing static lyric blocks in chapters with structured, centrally managed versions. The visual design is still being refined, but this is a key technical unlock.

Next steps for lyrics:

  • Shrink and standardize Cover Block layouts (especially mobile readability and image balance).
  • Strip leftover formatting/code from plugin residues.
  • Decide whether original chapter lyrics will be replaced or duplicated.

Theme CSS refactor underway

To support long-term consistency and load performance:

  • All custom CSS is being migrated from the WordPress Customizer into a proper style.css file in the child theme.
  • CSS is now being reorganized with section headers, comments, and dead code removed.
  • Image styling (especially for artist portraits and lyric backgrounds) is being evaluated for mobile/desktop responsiveness.

Status overview

✅ Completed:

  • CPTs created: Books, Profiles, Artists, Concepts, Lyrics, Movies.
  • Cover Block rendering enabled for lyric CPTs.
  • CPT-specific pages and relationship fields functional.
  • Custom CSS moved to child theme for better control.

🔧 In progress:

  • Standardize Cover Block sizing, layout, and cleanup.
  • Image positioning and mobile styling adjustments.
  • Begin migrating reusable chapter lyrics into lyric CPTs.

This sets the stage for future dynamic views across the site: artists showing all lyrics, books pulling all quotes, and definitions aggregating references — all connected by relationships, not repetition.