Rebuilding Site Navigation and Category Architecture

How we restructured a flat category system into a series hierarchy, rebuilt the site navigation from scratch, and learned that menu, categories, templates, and pages are one coordinated system — not four separate things.

The Problem

The site had grown organically. Categories were flat: “The Mirror”, “The Experiment”, “Process”, “Backstory”, “The Coordinator”, “Team Meetings” — plus junk categories “6” and “8” from testing. The menu had two dropdowns that overlapped. No hierarchy. No front door.

The Vision

Wicked Evolutions The Mirror Experiment ▾ How We Built This About Team ├── The Mirror ├── Backstory ├── Process ├── The Coordinator ├── Mastery of Time └── Team Meetings

One parent category. All articles as children. Series as sub-categories. One dropdown in the menu.

PHASE 1 Category Restructure

#1 taxonomies-update-term WP Abilities

mcp__wordpress__taxonomies-update-term → term 8

name: “The Experiment” → “The Mirror Experiment”
slug: the-mirror-experiment

#2 taxonomies-create-term WP Abilities

mcp__wordpress__taxonomies-create-term → category

name: “How We Built This” (ID 15)
parent: 8 (The Mirror Experiment)
description: “Step-by-step build documentation showing every tool call, every decision.”

#3-7 wp term update × 5 SSH

Bash (SSH) → wp term update category {id} –parent=8

re-parented: The Mirror (5), The Coordinator (10), Team Meetings (13), Process (7), Backstory (6) → all become children of The Mirror Experiment (8)

#8 wp term delete × 2 SSH

Bash (SSH) → wp term delete category 11 12

Deleted: “6” and “8” test categories (junk from testing)

PHASE 2 Menu Rebuild

#9 Write header.html SSH

Bash (SSH) → Write new parts/header.html

structure: Site Title (left) + The Mirror Experiment ▾ (dropdown: 6 series) + How We Built This + About + Team

The key markup: wp:navigation-submenu for the dropdown. The parent link goes to the intro page. The children go to category archives. The dropdown both links AND navigates.

<!-- wp:navigation-submenu {"label":"The Mirror Experiment","url":"/the-mirror-experiment/"} -->
    <!-- wp:navigation-link {"label":"The Mirror","url":"/category/..."} /-->
    <!-- wp:navigation-link {"label":"Backstory","url":"/category/..."} /-->
    ...
<!-- /wp:navigation-submenu -->

The System View

This is what makes site architecture different from page building. We changed four things simultaneously:

Layer	Change	Tool
Data	Categories restructured into parent/child hierarchy	Abilities + SSH
Templates	category.html renders series pages automatically	SSH
Navigation	header.html rebuilt with new dropdown structure	SSH
Content	Mirror Experiment intro page with series grid	Abilities

These aren’t independent. The menu links to category archives that only work because the template exists. The template uses term descriptions that only exist because we set them. Change one layer without the others and the site breaks.

What We Learned

Site architecture is a system, not a checklist. Categories, templates, navigation, and pages are interdependent. Plan all four before changing any one.
WordPress abilities have gaps for structural changes. Batch term re-parenting, template file writes, and header template edits all required SSH. These are the product roadmap.
wp:navigation-submenu is powerful. A single block creates a menu item that both links (click the parent) and drops down (hover for children).
Chronological order matters for series. The dropdown lists series in the order they started, not alphabetically. This tells a story.

Gaps Documented

Gap	What’s Missing	Workaround
Batch term re-parent	No ability to update multiple terms’ parents	SSH + WP-CLI
Template file write	No ability to write to theme template files	SSH
Header template edit	No ability to modify template parts	SSH
Content slug update	content-update doesn’t accept slug param	SSH + WP-CLI

These gaps ARE the product roadmap. Each one is a future ability.

HOW WE BUILT THIS — Series

Building the AI Team Page
The AIM Page
Series Pages That Build Themselves
When Team Cards Became Author Pages
Syncing 52 Articles to Their Authors
Rebuilding Site Navigation ← you are here

How We Built This #6 — 10 tool calls, 4 gaps documented, 1 system-level architecture change across 4 layers.