How Curiosity Led Me to Hand-Draw the WordPress Database Schema

Back in July 2021, my natural curiosity led me down a path I never explored before. When you set up WordPress, the database comes ready out of the box, but I wanted to dig deeper and understand how everything works behind the scenes.

• Where do things live?
• How are they connected?
• Where are general settings saved?
• Where are the media assets stored?
• How are profiles, users, and passwords recorded?
• How is data from plugins and themes stored when installed?

I was taking a course on rtCamp and came across a resource on Mo Jangda’s 2015 WordCamp Montréal session regarding the database schema, and decided to draw them out by hand. Although I initially considered using a flowchart, but later went with the traditional route and drew it out on paper. That gave me a clearer picture of the structure. If you’re interested, you can also check out the presentation slides.

For me, it wasn’t just an exercise in sketching; but a deep dive into how WordPress stores, organizes, and retrieves its data. While it might sound like something a hardcore developer would do, for me, it was purely driven by a desire to understand what happens when you click ‘Publish’ or save a setting. What really goes on inside those tables? What data is stored where? How does it get queried? And more importantly, how could I leverage that knowledge to become better at what I do?

The experience was eye-opening. I didn’t just memorize what the tables were for or how they were structured. I truly got to understand the purpose of each one: how posts, comments, users, and metadata are linked together in this intricate web.

In Conclusion

As someone who loves breaking things down to their most basic forms, visualizing them on paper gave me a whole new perspective on the WordPress ecosystem. I was no longer just looking at the interface as a user or admin, I had a solid grasp of what was happening underneath, in the database itself.

And to this day, that hand-drawn schema has been a cornerstone in how I approach working with WordPress. Whether it’s troubleshooting, optimizing, or simply understanding where the data “lives,” having this knowledge in my toolkit makes all the difference.

Looking back at that diagram from over two years ago, I’m reminded of how rewarding curiosity can be. It wasn’t about becoming an expert overnight, but it’s about taking small steps toward better understanding. It’s these moments of curiosity that continue to fuel my journey, making me a better learner, a more effective problem-solver, and a more enthusiastic WordPress enthusiast.