Introduction to StoreEngine Development
StoreEngine is a table-backed eCommerce engine for WordPress — a full commerce platform built by Kodezen that powers payments, memberships, affiliates, subscriptions, and sales from a single plugin. These docs are the developer reference for extending, integrating with, and building on top of it.
This page orients you: what StoreEngine is from a developer's perspective, who the documentation is for, and what you can build.
What StoreEngine is
StoreEngine ships in two plugins:
- StoreEngine (free) — the core engine and the majority of commerce features, distributed on WordPress.org.
- StoreEngine Pro — a companion plugin that requires the free plugin and adds advanced, licensed features.
Unlike classic WordPress commerce plugins that store everything in wp_posts and wp_postmeta, StoreEngine uses custom database tables (prefixed wp_storeengine_*) for high-volume, relational data such as orders, order items, carts, subscriptions, and payment tokens. Products and coupons remain custom post types (storeengine_product, storeengine_coupon), so they benefit from the familiar WordPress editing experience, while transactional data lives in a schema built for scale.
Orders and subscriptions are not custom post types. They live in the storeengine_orders table and are discriminated by a type column. Query and manipulate them through the domain classes and models, not WP_Query. See Data & Objects.
Almost everything in StoreEngine — including core commerce features and payment gateways — ships as a toggleable addon. This keeps the runtime lean (only what a store enables is loaded) and gives developers a first-class extension surface. See the Architecture Overview.
At a glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Current version | 2.2.0 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4+ |
| Requires WordPress | 6.5+ |
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Text domain | storeengine |
| Root namespace | StoreEngine\ (PSR-4) |
| Author | Kodezen |
| Pro plugin namespace | StoreEnginePro\ |
| REST namespace | storeengine/v1 |
Who these docs are for
These docs assume you are a developer comfortable with PHP, WordPress plugin development, and the WordPress hook system. They are written for people who want to:
- Build addons that add features to StoreEngine.
- Integrate external systems through the REST API (
storeengine/v1). - Register custom payment gateways or shipping/courier providers.
- Override storefront templates from a theme.
- Hook into the commerce lifecycle with StoreEngine's actions and filters.
- Read and write orders, products, and other domain objects programmatically.
If you are a store owner looking for setup and configuration help, the product documentation at storeengine.pro is a better starting point.
What you can build
- Addons — self-contained feature packages that register their own namespace, database schema, admin UI, and hooks. This is the primary way to extend StoreEngine. See Building Addons.
- REST integrations — headless storefronts, mobile apps, POS clients, and server-to-server automation against the
storeengine/v1API. See REST API. - Payment gateways — plug new processors into the checkout flow via the gateway framework. See Payment Gateways.
- Template overrides — customize storefront markup by copying templates into
yourtheme/storeengine/. See Templates. - Hook extensions — react to and modify behavior through
storeengine/…actions and filters. See Hooks. - WP-CLI automation — script store operations. See WP-CLI.
Where to go next
| If you want to… | Start here |
|---|---|
| Understand how the pieces fit together | Architecture Overview |
| Set up a local build | Development Environment |
| Learn the codebase layout | Plugin Structure |
| Understand the free/Pro split | Free vs Pro |
| Build your first addon | Building Addons |
| Call the API | REST API |
| Work with orders and products | Data & Objects |
New to the codebase? Read the four Getting Started pages in order, then jump into Building Addons — the addon framework is the concept that ties the whole plugin together.