Sync: Introduce helper function and CPT for Activity Log entries

[coder-karen]

Fixes ACTLOG-57

Proposed changes

Adds a Jetpack Sync helper for creating custom customer-visible Activity Log entries.

• Introduce Automattic\Jetpack\Sync\Activity_Log_Event as the API for creating custom Activity Log events.
• Register a private jp_act_log_event CPT for transporting custom Activity Log event payloads through Sync.
• Store the event payload as JSON in post_content.
• Validate and sanitize event input:
  • required title and content
  • optional source
  • optional severity limited to info, success, warning, or error
• Route valid custom event posts through the existing jetpack_published_post Sync pipeline.
• Allow normal save/delete Sync actions for jp_act_log_event posts so remote/cache DB state stays consistent.
• Reuse the custom event payload validation for direct jp_act_log_event inserts so invalid severity values, empty sanitized content, and malformed payloads are not enqueued through jetpack_published_post.
• Prevent Activity Log event posts from being publicized or included in Jetpack sitemaps.
• Add Sync package tests for validation, sanitization, CPT creation, and enqueue behavior.

Related product discussion/links

• This is part of an RSM project to add custom entries to the Activity Log. See Linear link above for more.

• Requires the matching WPcom Activity Log handling in 215249-ghe-Automattic/wpcom, which translates valid jp_act_log_event posts into custom_event__created entries and prevents malformed payloads from falling through as generic post publish events.

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

No.

Testing instructions

To test, apply this PR on a test site using the Jetpack Beta tester plugin, for the Jetpack plugin (or apply the PR if testing locally).

• Using a code snippets plugin, add the following snippet: 3b2d3-pb/
• Visit yoursite.com/wp-admin/?test_activity_log=1
• You may want to log the args on the WPcom end to confirm they're received and with the right content, eg. under case 'jetpack_published_post': in Jetpack_Sync_Server_Replicator
• Alternatively, apply 215249-ghe-Automattic/wpcom, and ensure your Jetpack site is API sandboxed. Then, follow the same steps as above, and you should be able to view the Activity Log entries

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[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WoA dev site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin (Jetpack or WordPress.com Site Helper), and enable the add/sync-custom-post-types-for-activity-log branch.
• To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack add/sync-custom-post-types-for-activity-log

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack-mu-wpcom-plugin add/sync-custom-post-types-for-activity-log

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[jp-launch-control]

Code Coverage Summary

Coverage changed in 2 files.

File	Coverage	Δ%	Δ Uncovered
projects/packages/sync/src/class-actions.php	178/437 (40.73%)	-0.09%	1 ❤️‍🩹
projects/packages/sync/src/modules/class-posts.php	62/317 (19.56%)	12.53%	-36 💚

1 file is newly checked for coverage.

File	Coverage
projects/packages/sync/src/class-activity-log-event.php	93/111 (83.78%) 💚

Full summary · PHP report · JS report

[fgiannar]

Great work here, Karen! Here are some generic thoughts before manually testing this:

composer.json and global function approach

Thinking about this more, I wonder if it makes sense to expose logging a custom event to the Jetpack Activity Log via a global function. If we introduced a new class, for example, we'd be more inline with the rest of the Sync package functionality plus because the Sync package already classmaps src/, a new class file under projects/packages/sync/src/ should not require a composer.json autoload.files change.

The new class just needs to be referenced from an existing loaded path, e.g. Actions::init() for CPT registration and Modules\Posts for validation.

Responsibilities:

• Activity_Log_Event
  • owns POST_TYPE = 'jp_act_log_event'
  • registers the CPT
  • sanitizes title, content, source, severity
  • builds the JSON payload for post_content
  • validates existing CPT posts before Sync sends them
  • creates the post via wp_insert_post()
• Modules\Posts
  • calls Activity_Log_Event::is_valid_post( $post ) before enqueueing jetpack_published_post
  • otherwise stays focused on Sync behavior

One more thing I'd like to discuss is preventing edits/deletes from being synced for this CPT. I think we should allow the normal save/delete Sync actions through so the remote site and Cache site DB stay consistent. The important boundary is on the Activity Log side: jp_act_log_event saves/deletes should be blacklisted from generic post activities, and only the initial valid jetpack_published_post should create a custom_event__created Activity Log entry.

[coder-karen]

Thinking about this more, I wonder if it makes sense to expose logging a custom event to the Jetpack Activity Log via a global function.

Yes, good call. I used a global function because it’s a familiar WordPress-style API and makes the caller side very simple, but I agree a class fits this package better. It avoids the extra autoload.files handling and gives the Activity Log event code one clear home for the CPT, sanitization, payload creation, and validation.

I think we should allow the normal save/delete Sync actions through so the remote site and Cache site DB stay consistent.

Also agreed on that. I was thinking of the CPT as write-once from an Activity Log perspective, but normal Sync should still keep the remote/cache DB in step like you say.

[fgiannar]

Many thanks for working on this, Karen!

Tested manually and it works as described 👍

Left a few inline comments.

[fgiannar]

Perhaps we could reuse the extra checks from build_payload( $data ) here by adding a check like false !== self::build_payload( $data ) after we decode.
This way posts with invalid severity, scalar content that sanitizes to empty, etc. wii not enqueue through jetpack_published_post

[coder-karen]

Great idea. Added along with other changes in aebafc0

[fgiannar]

I saw we added this comment in 813be65 to make it clear that create should be called after init but perhaps we could attempt to register the post type inside this method to be more defensive?

[coder-karen]

Makes sense! Added in aebafc0

[fgiannar]

LGTM 🚢

Tested with a Jetpack site (local env) but also in my sandboxed Simple site and everything works as expected 👍

[fgiannar]

Apologies I missed this!

[fgiannar]

Sorry it just occurred to me that we need this to be true in order to be able to create custom Activity Log entries via the REST API. Probably also need to add 'rest_base' => 'jp-activity-log-events' or similar