Automattic recently introduced Telex, an experimental tool that blends AI with the WordPress editor to unlock new ways of building. If you haven’t seen it yet, Telex is all about vibe coding: you describe what you want, and it scaffolds the block, plugin, or functionality directly inside the WordPress environment.
I decided to give it a spin.
I love mermaid diagrams as they’re like markdown code for diagrams. LLMs also love mermaid and I like to get these diagrams from my conversations with LLMs to understand better some ideas.
So I thought it would be really useful to have a block that generates diagrams from Mermaid code, making it easy to include them directly in my posts.
This was my conversation with Telex to get such a block:
Me: Create a block that allows me to visualize Mermaid diagrams on the frontend (passing mermaid code on the block editor)
Telex: I’ll create a Mermaid diagram visualization block for you! This block will let you input Mermaid diagram code in the editor and render beautiful diagrams on the frontend using the Mermaid.js library.
Me: I want to see the preview also in the Block editor
Telex: I’ll enhance the block to show a live preview directly in the block editor while maintaining the edit mode functionality. This will give you the best of both worlds – you can see the diagram update in real-time as you type, and still have a dedicated edit mode for focused code editing.
That was it. Just these few prompts. And I got this block that does exactly what was on my mind
From Prompt to Block
With only a couple of instructions, Telex generated a working Gutenberg block that:
- Accepts Mermaid code in the editor.
- Renders the diagram on the frontend using the Mermaid.js library.
- Shows a live preview in the block editor, so you can see the diagram evolve as you type.
Here’s the result after a few refinements:
I can type something like:
sequenceDiagram
participant A as Alice
participant B as Bob
A->>B: Hello Bob, how are you?
B-->>A: Great thanks!
…and immediately see the rendered diagram, both in the editor and on the published page.
In the Block Editor:
In the Frontend:
Why Telex matters for WordPress block development
Normally, creating a block like this would take me a couple of hours: scaffolding, setting up React state management, wiring Mermaid.js, handling preview vs frontend rendering, etc.
With Telex, I got to a working prototype in minutes, with the AI handling all the boilerplate.
This is where Telex feels powerful:
- It lowers the barrier for experimentation.
- It speeds up the boring setup steps.
- It lets developers focus on shaping ideas instead of wiring configs.
As TechCrunch and The Repository recently covered, Telex is still experimental—but the potential is obvious. It’s not here to replace developers, but to amplify us.
For me, the Mermaid block was a great example of how quickly I could go from idea → prompt → working block.
Imagine: instead of spending hours wiring the basics, we can spend that time on polish, UX, and performance. That’s a pretty good trade-off.
I didn’t even look if there was a plugin for a similar block because now with tools like Telex, I can just create my own and customize it according to my specific needs (Spoiler: there’s only one and it was published just 2 months ago)
Final Thoughts
I’ve been in the WordPress world long enough to see many tools come and go, but Telex feels different. It’s genuinely useful and seems like it’s here to stay as a key part of any productive WordPress development stack.
Tools like Claude Code and Cursor have been really helpful in my WordPress development projects, but when it comes to building custom blocks, I’ve found they require much more “shepherding” compared to other stacks.
With Telex, I feel I can quickly shape an MVP and then maybe refine the code using my go-to tools of the moment (Claude Code and Cursor right now).
Although it’s still experimental, Telex already feels like a very promising starting point for my block development workflow. If I can spin up a Mermaid diagram block with just a few prompts at this stage, I’m excited to see what else will be possible in the months ahead.
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