gCube

A WordPress child theme for Geodineum: a CSS-transformed 3D cube with six navigable faces, layered on the gTemplate parent theme that provides the operational backbone. gCube is the visual-identity layer - geometry, faces, and cube-specific styling - and inherits everything else.

Built by Niels Erik Toren · WordPress child theme of gTemplate; version in style.css

What it is

gCube is a thin child theme. Its parent, gTemplate, owns rendering, the REST API, the CLI, and every service integration; gCube supplies only what makes a site a cube: the six-face geometry, the per-face customizer controls, the cube's PWA manifest and service worker, and its face-content templates. A site runs the chain gCore → gTemplate → gCube.

It is also the reference child theme - the worked example of how to build on gTemplate. It parameterizes the parent entirely through the parent's public hooks, adding no operational code of its own.

Public build surface

gCube is a leaf: it exposes no public hooks or API of its own for other code to build against. What it does is implement a few of gTemplate's documented hooks - content sources, dynamic CSS, and its own customizer sections - which is exactly the pattern to copy when building a new geometry. The parent hook contract those follow is gTemplate/FILTER_REGISTRY.md (the parent repo).

The small surface other components do rely on - the wp gcube viewkey CLI verb, the POST /gcube/v1/sync-face-mapping REST endpoint, and the {site_id}:gnode:face_mapping ValKey key it maintains - is specified in CONTRACT.md.

Internal - everything under inc/ (bootstrap, rendering sync, customizer, assets, analytics) is implementation and may change.

Capabilities

• Six-face 3D cube - a CSS-transformed cube whose faces map to WordPress content, with a glass-face display mode.
• Per-face customization - customizer controls for each face's content, colours, and navigation, rendered to live CSS variables.
• Cube PWA - a cube-specific web app manifest and service worker, served at /manifest.json and /sw.js.
• Face-mapping sync - keeps the {site_id}:gnode:face_mapping key in step with the site's content, exposed as an authenticated REST endpoint.
• Usage analytics - a wp-admin dashboard for cube-face usage.

Contract

The precise integration surface - the CLI verb, the face-mapping REST endpoint and its wire format, the customizer setting schema, and the ValKey keys - is in CONTRACT.md. Agents should prime from CONTRACT.scn.md.

Quick start

The Geodineum installer wires gCore → gTemplate → gCube into a site and activates the theme. Verify it, and exercise its one cube-specific CLI surface:

wp theme list --status=active --path=/var/www/mysite   # gCube active, gtemplate as parent
wp gcube viewkey --path=/var/www/mysite                # the cube-only CLI verb

The cube renders at the site root. To build a different geometry, copy gCube: it shows the whole pattern - a child theme that declares itself purely through gTemplate's public hooks and adds no operational code. gCube's three registrations, verbatim in shape:

// Add the cube's glass-face content source (inc/rendering/content-sources/glass.php)
add_filter('gtemplate_content_sources', function (array $sources): array {
    $sources['glass'] = /* the glass-face provider */ ;
    return $sources;
});

// Emit the customizer's face colours as dynamic CSS (inc/customizer/css-output.php)
add_filter('gtemplate_dynamic_css', function (string $css): string {
    return $css . '/* cube face variables */';
});

// Register the cube's own customizer sections (inc/customizer/register.php)
add_action('gtemplate_register_customizer_sections', 'gcube_customize_register');

The hooks and their expected shapes are in gTemplate/FILTER_REGISTRY.md (the parent repo).

Limits worth knowing

• Not standalone. gCube requires the gTemplate parent and the gCore framework beneath it; activated alone it has no operational backbone.
• Operational CLI lives in the parent. The cube ships one verb (wp gcube viewkey); registration, config, and the rest are wp gtemplate ….
• Chapter-2 surfaces stay inert. gCube inherits gTemplate's translation and AI stubs; those render nothing until their Chapter-2 extension is installed.
• Face-mapping sync requires manage_options. The REST endpoint is authenticated; it is not a public write path.

Collaborate

Contributions are welcome. Open issues and pick up work on the ecosystem board at geodineum.com; issues tagged good-first-issue are a good place to start.

• Fork, branch, and open a pull request against main.
• Any change to a wire contract must update both CONTRACT.md and CONTRACT.scn.md in the same commit.
• A change to a signed extension must be re-signed in the same commit.

Author & support

Built by Niels Erik Toren.

If you want to support the work:

Disclaimer

This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Use of this software is entirely at your own risk. In no event shall the author or contributors be held liable for any damages arising from the use or inability to use this software.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0
• MIT License

at your option.