Most podcast plugins want to run your whole life. You install one to add an episode to your site, and suddenly there are three new database tables, a storefront, an import-from-Spotify wizard, a page builder you didn’t ask for, and a monthly bill. You wanted WordPress to publish a valid podcast feed. You got a platform.
I kept hitting this. I’m a WordPress developer. When I want to host a podcast, I don’t need a marketplace or a dashboard with charts. I need WordPress to do four things correctly: a clean post type for episodes, a feed that actually validates, schema that search engines understand, and the Open Graph bits so a shared link shows the audio. That’s the whole job. It turns out almost nothing just does that job and then gets out of the way.
So I’m building Declamatio.
The name is Latin for declamation, the old art of formal, eloquent public speech. Yes, it’s a nerd joke. I’m at peace with that.
Here’s what it does. It adds a Podcast Episode post type, so your episodes are just WordPress content — you can theme them, include them in your backups, and query them the same way you would any other post. It generates an RSS feed with the iTunes and Podcast 2.0 namespaces, and that feed passes Cast Feed Validator. It outputs PodcastSeries and PodcastEpisode JSON-LD schema. It adds the Open Graph audio tags. And it gives you a Show Settings screen for the things every feed needs: cover art, show title, author, owner email, description.
Now the part I care about most. Every field defaults to empty. Declamatio will never invent a show name for you, never guess your author, never ship placeholder copy that ends up live because someone forgot to change it. You supply your show’s identity through the settings screen or through filters, and until you do, it stays blank. The plugin has firm opinions about structure — a correct feed is a correct feed — and stays out of your content entirely. That’s your call, and it should be.
A quick honest note: there is nothing to download yet. Declamatio is in active development. It’s a rebuild of my older thisismyurl-podcast plugin, taken apart and put back together properly. No release date, because I’d rather ship it right than ship it Tuesday.
If you want to watch it come together, or poke at the code and tell me where I’ve gone wrong, it’s on GitHub: https://github.com/thisismyurl/declamatio
Come back soon. I’m working on it.