BuddyPress ability reference

Finding hidden groups, and other BuddyPress listing defaults

wppilot/buddypress-list-groups leaves hidden groups out unless show_hidden: true is sent. An agent asked about every group on the site, or about one it knows is hidden, has to ask for them explicitly, and a summary built without that flag will quietly under-count. The listing can also filter by a single status (public, private or hidden), search names with up to 200 characters, and sort by active, newest, alphabetical or popular. It returns 20 groups per page by default and at most 100.

Each group row includes member_count and last_activity, which is usually enough to answer questions such as which groups have gone quiet, without reading any member data. When a question does need people, wppilot/buddypress-get-group returns the administrator and moderator ids, and wppilot/buddypress-get-member turns each id into a display name and profile link.

What BuddyPress group fields accept, and how they are stored

wppilot/buddypress-edit-group needs at least one field besides group_id. It re-sends the full group to groups_create_group() with the current values for anything left out, and always keeps the original creator and creation date, so an edit never transfers ownership.

• name: required on create, 1 to 200 characters, plain text after sanitising. An edit that would blank it returns buddypress_group_name_required.
• description: up to 50,000 characters, filtered as post content, so safe HTML such as links and emphasis is kept. Reads return it with tags stripped, so a read-back looks plainer than what was stored.
• slug: optional, up to 200 characters, normalised the way WordPress normalises post slugs. Leave it out unless the site owner wants a particular URL.
• status: public, private or hidden. A create without it makes a public group, so private communities must ask for private explicitly.
• creator_id: an existing user, defaulting to the connected account. An unknown id returns buddypress_member_not_found, and the creator becomes the first administrator.
• parent_id and enable_forum: a parent must be an existing group other than the group itself. The forum flag is stored on the group; this module does not create or manage forum content, so check on the site that a forum actually appears.

Confirmation and undo for BuddyPress group changes

wppilot/buddypress-check-setup reports manage_community as true for anyone with manage_options or BuddyPress's bp_moderate capability, but the calls themselves go through GoBuildWP's own permission check, which wants manage_options. A community moderator who is not a site administrator therefore sees the flag set and still cannot run these calls; connect with an administrator account instead. Under the Read Only safety profile only the five reads load. wppilot/buddypress-create-group is an ordinary write, so the confirmation gate does not stop it; its instructions still tell the agent to state the privacy status and the creator before creating. Edit and delete are annotated destructive and need confirm: true, or a person's approval when the site requires human confirmation.

None of the three writes can be reversed with wppilot/rollback-change, because groups live in BuddyPress's own bp_groups tables, which the change ledger records as irreversible. An unwanted create is undone by deleting the new group. An edit is undone by sending the earlier values back, which is why the agent should read the group immediately before editing and keep that output. A delete cannot be undone at all from GoBuildWP: memberships, invitations and group meta go with it, so take a database backup first if the group might be wanted again.

BuddyPress refusals and what each one means

The module has no calls for adding or removing members, promoting moderators, sending invitations, member types, friendships, activity, private messages or xProfile fields. Those stay in BuddyPress's own screens. A request to try on staging: create a private Volunteers group with our coordinator as creator. Afterwards, open the group as the coordinator to confirm they are its administrator, then log out and check that the group page does not show its content to visitors.

• buddypress_groups_inactive: the Groups component is switched off in BuddyPress's settings. Every group call, including the reads, returns it.
• buddypress_group_not_found and buddypress_parent_group_not_found: the id, or the parent id, does not match a group.
• buddypress_invalid_parent_group: the edit tried to make a group its own parent.
• buddypress_group_create_failed and buddypress_group_update_failed: BuddyPress itself refused the save, which is often a plugin hooked into group saving. Nothing was changed.
• buddypress_group_delete_failed and buddypress_group_delete_verification_failed: the delete was refused, or the group could still be loaded afterwards. Read the group before trying again.