📅 Day 26 of 30 · Week 4: Ship & Scale · ⏱ 20 minutes
From User to Builder
On Day 6, you learned what the Abilities API is. Today you’ll design custom abilities for your specific newsroom — turning your unique workflows into capabilities that any AI agent can discover and use.
This is the most technical day in the program. If you’re not a developer, that’s fine — the goal is to design the abilities and hand the specs to your engineering team. If you are a developer, you can build them today.
Step 1: Identify Your Newsroom’s Unique Workflows
Think about what’s specific to your publication. Examples:
- Wire service integration — “Check AP/Reuters for updates on [topic]”
- Correction workflow — “Add a correction notice to [article] and log it”
- Embargo management — “Schedule [post] for publication at exactly [time]”
- Story assignment — “Create a story assignment for [reporter] on [topic]”
- Live blog management — “Add an update to the live blog for [event]”
Step 2: Design the Ability Spec
For each custom ability, define:
Ability: generate_correction_notice
Description: Creates a formatted correction notice for a published article
and appends it to the post content.
Parameters:
- post_id (integer, required): The article to correct
- correction_text (string, required): What was wrong and what's correct
- severity (string, optional): "minor" | "major" | "retraction"
Default: "minor"
Behavior:
1. Adds a styled correction box at the top of the article
2. Includes timestamp and correction category
3. Logs the correction in a custom "corrections" table
4. If severity is "major" or "retraction", notifies the editor-in-chiefStep 3: Use Studio Code to Scaffold
If you’re ready to build, use Studio Code:
Create a WordPress plugin called "Newsroom Abilities" that registers
these custom abilities:
1. generate_correction_notice — adds a formatted correction box to an article
2. create_story_assignment — creates a draft post assigned to a specific author
with a deadline stored in post meta
3. generate_daily_briefing — queries today's published posts, yesterday's
analytics, and upcoming scheduled posts, then returns a structured briefing
Use wp_register_ability() for each. Include proper parameter validation
and capability checks.💡 Tip: Even if you don’t build these today, the specs are valuable. Hand them to your engineering team with the message: “Here’s what we need AI to be able to do — the Abilities API is how to expose it.” That’s a product spec, not a feature request.
✅ Key Takeaway: Custom abilities are how you make AI truly yours. Every publication has unique workflows — the Abilities API lets you expose them to AI agents. Design the spec even if you’re not the one writing the code.