Generate a hair salon booking plugin
Hair salons have a specific scheduling challenge: services have different durations (a men's cut is 30 min, a full color is 3 hours), each stylist has their own availability, and the receptionist needs a glanceable view on a tablet showing today's plan with gaps.
A dedicated plugin treats this as a two-dimensional scheduling problem (stylist x time) and generates a view specifically for salon reception.
Why generate it instead of installing an existing plugin?
Fresha (formerly Shedul) is free for basic bookings but charges for card processing. Salon Iris and Rosy are full suites at $50-100/month. A generated plugin keeps the data in your WordPress, charges nothing beyond Stripe fees.
Services are a CPT with duration and price. Stylists are a CPT with availability patterns. The booking flow lets the client pick a service, then shows available slots from any stylist (or filter to a specific stylist). A deposit (configurable percentage) is taken via Stripe at booking.
The reception tablet view is the detail that matters: a vertical timeline per stylist for today, color-coded by service, with drag-to-reschedule for when clients arrive late or early.
Example prompt
This is the kind of description that generates this plugin. You can start from it and tweak whatever you need before hitting generate.
Plugin name: Acme Salon
Service CPT: name, duration_min, price, category (cut/color/treatment/styling).
Stylist CPT: name, photo, bio, availability (weekly recurring: e.g., Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00), exceptions (vacation dates).
Client flow:
- Pick service.
- Optionally pick preferred stylist or "any".
- Pick date -> available slots computed from stylist availability + existing bookings.
- Client info (name, email, phone).
- Stripe Payment Element for 30% deposit.
- Booking confirmed, ICS emailed.
Reception tablet view (/reception):
- Today's columns: one per stylist on duty today.
- Vertical timeline 08:00-20:00 with 15-min ticks.
- Booking blocks sized by duration, colored by category.
- Drag a block vertically to reschedule within the same stylist; drag between columns to reassign.
- Tap a block: see client info, mark arrived, mark complete, add tip.
Cancellation: up to 24h before -> deposit auto-refunded.
Admin: daily revenue, tips, stylist utilization.What the generated plugin typically includes
- Service and stylist CPTs with duration and availability
- Slot-finder across multiple stylists
- Stripe deposit at booking
- Reception tablet view with drag-to-reschedule
- Arrived/complete/tip tracking per appointment
- Revenue and utilization reports
Service catalog, deposit percentage, stylist shift patterns, and whether walk-ins are supported are defined in the prompt.
Frequently asked questions
Can clients pick a specific stylist?
Yes by default. They can also pick "any available" and the algorithm will fit them into the most efficient slot.
What about block-booking for color processing time?
Services can declare "processing gap" where the stylist is free during the middle N minutes. The plugin models this so another client can be squeezed in during the gap.