block-runner

Block Runner

The primitive between everything and WordPress blocks.

Block Runner is the layer between generated content and WordPress. AI tools, agents, and design tools spit out HTML, but the block editor only trusts blocks it recognizes, so it freezes everything else into a single "Custom HTML" blob, or breaks the block outright with "Attempt Block Recovery." Block Runner converts that output into real, nested, native Gutenberg blocks (wp:cover > wp:columns > wp:buttons) and proves every result is editor-valid. Built to sit in an agent loop, a content pipeline, or a CI gate, and deliberately a primitive rather than a platform: the blocks it emits are plain, native WordPress, editable in any editor with nothing proprietary to keep installed.

	Generated HTML reaches the editor as…
Today ❌	one frozen Custom HTML blob, or a broken block and "Attempt Block Recovery"
With Block Runner ✅	wp:cover > wp:columns > wp:buttons: real, nested, editable, valid

Quickstart

npm install block-runner          # requires Node 20+

Then just ask your coding agent (Claude Code, Codex):

Use block-runner to convert this hero into a native Gutenberg block.

Or run the CLI yourself:

# native blocks stream to stdout by default; pipe them anywhere
block-runner convert hero.html

# pipe in from an agent, a generator, or curl
generate-page | block-runner convert -

# or write straight to a file
block-runner convert hero.html --out hero.blocks.html

Every run is checked against headless Gutenberg, so what comes back is guaranteed editor-valid, or Block Runner tells you exactly what wasn't and points at the line.

Using this from an AI agent?

If you are the one deciding the structure, don't write HTML and convert it. Describe the structure as an intent tree and pipe it to block-runner assemble — deterministic code builds the markup, so it cannot come out invalid.

There is a guide covering that path, the block mappings, and how to check markup before saving it to a site:

npx block-runner skill              # print the guide — nothing is installed or written
npx block-runner skill --install    # install it as a skill (ask the user first)

Benchmark

Every conversion is scored from 0 to 100 against a fixed suite of design sections with a known ideal block tree, by how faithfully it reproduces the intended wp:* structure and content. The comparison is raw LLMs writing the block markup themselves versus Block Runner pairing the same model (GPT-5.5, Opus) with its validity gate, across simple and complex layouts.

What it does

Two jobs: convert generated HTML into native blocks, and validate that what you ship is editor-valid. Use either half on its own: convert in your agent pipeline, or run the gate as a standalone validator in CI.

Convert: generated HTML → native blocks

• Native blocks, never locked in. Real wp:cover > wp:columns > wp:buttons, properly nested, with real media ids: plain core blocks anyone can edit in any WordPress, not a builder's proprietary block types you have to keep its plugin installed to touch.
• Broad element coverage. Tables, quotes, code, separators, video/audio, <details>, YouTube/Vimeo embeds, and image galleries all map to their native core blocks — not just the hero primitives. What genuinely has no native home (inline SVG icons, definition lists, arbitrary iframes) is preserved as Custom HTML with a warning pointed at the line, never dropped and never crashing the run.
• Any model, any agent. Feed it whatever your LLM, agent, or design tool emits, from any vendor, and drop it into your own pipeline instead of adopting someone else's editor.
• Media resolution. Resolve images to real attachment ids via a map, WP-CLI, or the REST API.
• Styling fidelity, your call. Keep off-theme styles or map them to your theme, up to a ceiling you set.
• Extensible. Built-in rules out of the box; add your own, or hand the hardest layouts to an LLM (experimental).

Validate: prove it's editor-valid

• A seatbelt for generated blocks. Models and builders will cheerfully emit markup that corrupts the editor; every result is held to a gate wired to headless Gutenberg first, so valid means what the editor means, not what a generator hoped.
• Reproducible gate. Same markup, same verdict, every time. Safe to run on every request and in CI.
• Canonicalize. Rewrite near-miss markup into the exact shape the editor expects.
• Never fails silently. When something can't be expressed natively, it says so and points at the exact line.

Why Block Runner

Content pours out of AI and agents faster than anyone can hand-build it, but "a block the editor actually accepts" is a brutally exact bar. To land one valid block, every one of these has to be right:

• Markup is validated against what the block's save() would output. Attribute order, class names, whitespace, a stray self-closing slash: one mismatch and the editor throws "This block contains unexpected or invalid content" and offers Attempt Block Recovery.
• Attributes live in a typed HTML-comment schema (<!-- wp:cover {"dimRatio":50,...} -->), order-sensitive, with defaults that must or must not appear depending on the block.
• Nesting is enforced. wp:columns accepts only wp:column, wp:buttons only wp:button, wp:cover wraps a specific inner container. Put the wrong child inside and the block is invalid.
• Each block expects its exact generated classes (wp-block-cover, wp-element-button, has-background-dim, wp-image-1234). Miss one and it breaks or renders wrong.
• Images need a real attachment ID, not just a URL, so you also have to resolve and import media into the library and thread the id through the markup.
• Colors, spacing, and fonts have to map to your theme presets (var:preset|spacing|40, has-accent-color), not raw hex and pixels, or the result is off-brand or rejected outright.
• Blocks carry deprecations. Markup that validated against last year's save() may not validate against this year's.
• Anything it can't place collapses into one frozen "Custom HTML" blob, and the structure, nesting, and editability are gone.

Get any of it wrong and you ship invalid blocks, broken layouts, or one giant uneditable blob. Block Runner gets all of it right: it turns whatever your agents and tools generate into real, nested, editable blocks with resolved media, then proves every result against headless Gutenberg before it reaches the editor.

Any content in. Real blocks out.

CLI

Command	What it does
convert	Authored HTML to native blocks. The only path that carries CSS.
assemble	An intent tree — JSON describing which blocks and how they nest — to native blocks, built with createBlock so the result cannot be invalid.
validate	Check block markup against headless Gutenberg.
fix	Canonicalize near-miss block markup.
context	Read a WordPress site into a site.context.json manifest (read-only).
skill	Print or install the agent guide.

block-runner convert hero.html                    # blocks to stdout
block-runner assemble intent.json                 # structure in, blocks out
block-runner validate "content/**/*.html" --json
block-runner fix post-content.html --out post-content.fixed.html

Read from stdin with -:

cat hero.html | block-runner convert -

Flags

All commands:

Flag	Description
--config <path>	Use a specific config file (otherwise auto-loaded from the working directory).
--json	Emit a machine-readable JSON report instead of text or markup.
--strict	Exit 1 on strict warnings (unresolved media, fallback blocks).
--explain	Include rule attribution and near-misses in the report.

convert and fix also take --out <path> to write the result to a file instead of stdout.

convert adds styling flags:

Flag	Description
--styling <level>	Styling ceiling: strict, relaxed (default), open. See Styling fidelity.
--css-out <path>	Write the sidecar CSS emitted by --styling open to a file.

convert adds media-resolution flags:

Flag	Description
--resolver <kind>	Media resolver: noop, map, wpcli, rest.
--wp-url <url>	WordPress URL for wpcli or rest resolution.
--wp-user <user>	WordPress username for rest resolution.
--wp-app-password-env <name>	Env var holding a WordPress application password.

Exit codes

• 0: clean
• 1: problems found
• 2: usage or I/O error
• 3: headless Gutenberg boot failure

Run it anywhere

It's a Node CLI, so it drops into whatever you already use: your shell, a pre-commit hook, GitHub Actions, or any other CI (GitLab, CircleCI, and friends all run Node). And it's model-agnostic: it works on the output of any model, from any vendor.

pre-commit (add to .pre-commit-config.yaml):

- repo: https://github.com/humanmade/block-runner
  rev: v0.1.0
  hooks:
    - id: block-runner
      args: ['content/**/*.html']   # glob of files that contain block markup

GitHub Actions (or any CI) validate blocks on every push:

- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
  with: { node-version: 22 }
- run: npx block-runner validate "content/**/*.html" --strict

Library

import { canonicalize, convert, validate } from 'block-runner';

const validation = await validate(markup);
const fixed = await canonicalize(markup);
const converted = await convert(html, { resolver: 'noop' });

Media Resolution

A <img src="hero.jpg"> in generated HTML is just a URL, but WordPress image and cover blocks want a real media-library attachment with an ID (wp-image-1234). Media resolution is how Block Runner connects the two: matching or importing each image into the library and threading the right id into the block. Choose how it does that:

• noop: leave URLs as-is and warn when an ID is missing (good for a dry run).
• map: look up IDs and URLs from a JSON map you provide.
• wpcli: find or import media with wp media list and wp media import.
• rest: find or import via the WordPress REST API, with credentials supplied explicitly.

Remote sideloading is off by default. Under --strict, unresolved media (and fallback blocks) cause exit code 1.

Configuration

Block Runner auto-loads block-runner.config.{mjs,js,json} from the working directory, so most runs need no flags; the config sets the media resolver, tokens, and rules. Pass --config <path> only to point at a config elsewhere.

block-runner.config.mjs:

export default {
  strict: false,
  media: {
    resolver: 'map',
    mapFile: './media-map.json',
  },
  tokens: {
    colors: {
      dark: 'contrast',
      light: 'base',
      accent: 'accent',
    },
    fonts: {
      heading: 'display',
      body: 'body',
    },
    spacing: ['20', '30', '40', '50', '60'],
  },
};

Styling fidelity

Design HTML often carries custom CSS (and sometimes JavaScript) that doesn't match the target theme. The styling level controls how much of it Block Runner keeps. The levels run from safest (cleanest, most editable blocks) to most faithful (keeps the original look, but less editable):

Level	What it does
strict	Map to the theme only. Off-theme styles are dropped. Cleanest, fully on-brand, fully editable.
relaxed	Keep exact off-theme values on the block (custom color, size, spacing). Still native and fully editable.
open	Also keep CSS no block can express, by putting a class on the block and emitting that CSS as a stylesheet you ship alongside. Look preserved, structure still editable.
source	Keep the original markup as a Custom HTML block. Exact, but not editable. Last resort.

You set one ceiling. Per block, Block Runner uses the strictest level that still captures the design, and never goes past your ceiling. Configure it in block-runner.config.mjs, or per run with --styling:

export default { styling: 'relaxed' }; // the default

Styling is read from inline style attributes and from single-class <style> rules (.hero { … }). An inline style outranks a class rule, matching CSS. Every declaration is accounted for: mapped onto the block, recognised as consumed by the structure, or reported with the input line and the rule that authored it — nothing is dropped silently.

open emits a stylesheet, so it needs somewhere to put it. --styling open requires either --css-out <path> or --json (where it arrives as sidecarCss) and is an error otherwise — a level that quietly discarded the CSS it promised to keep would be worse than not offering it.

Custom JavaScript is never inlined. A behavior maps to a native interactive block, comes from a block plugin, or is dropped, and every drop or escalation is reported.

Status: strict, relaxed and open are implemented. source is not built yet and is rejected rather than silently downgraded — though the converter already falls back to a Custom HTML block for structure it cannot convert.

Running the benchmark

A conversion benchmark lives under benchmarks/: it measures how faithfully real generator output (Impeccable, Codex, Claude, and more) converts to native blocks, across swappable converters (the built-in rules, plus experimental LLM translators run via their CLIs).

npm run bench          # score the suite; write benchmarks/presentation/review.html + benchmarks/presentation/scoreboard.html
npm run bench:record   # also append a provenance-tagged run to benchmarks/results.jsonl

Runs are recorded with engine / model / effort / suiteHash, so older engines stay backtestable against the current suite (scripts/backtest.sh). See benchmarks/README.md for adding producers and engines.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.