WordPress Conditional Tags Earliest Hook

When using conditional tags in WordPress, if you hook in too early the conditional tags don’t work because WordPress hasn’t determined their values yet.

The earliest hook for conditional tags

Hook wp

Example Hook Function to wp

add_action( 'wp', 'function_that_uses_is_front_page' );

Examples of conditional tags

• is_home() main blog page
• is_front_page() front of the site is displayed
• is_admin()
• is_admin_bar_showing()
• is_single() single Post (or attachment, or custom Post Type) page is being displayed. (False for Pages)
• is_post_type_archive()
• comments_open()
• is_page()
• is_category()
• is_tag()
• is_tax()
• has_term()
• is_author()
• is_archive() any type of Archive page is being displayed. Category, Tag, Author and Date based pages are all types of Archives.
• is_search()
• is_404()
• is_paged()
• is_attachment()
• is_singular() true for any is_single(), is_page(), or is_attachment().
• is_main_query() true when the current query (such as within the loop) is the “main” query.

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.