Developer Guide
BuddyPress Friend & Follow Suggestions exposes a collection of WordPress actions and filters that let you customize how suggestions are generated, scored, displayed, and emailed — without touching core plugin files.
This guide covers:
- Actions reference — hook into key moments in the suggestion lifecycle
- Filters reference — override values at every stage of the pipeline
- Template overrides — swap the layout templates from your theme
- Integration notes — BuddyBoss, BP Follow, and theme compatibility
There are no REST API endpoints, WP-CLI commands, or custom database tables introduced by this plugin beyond those created on activation.
Quick orientation
Section titled “Quick orientation”The plugin’s main class file is buddypress-friend-follow-suggestion.php. The engine runs in two layers:
- Score calculation —
Buddypress_Friend_Follow_Suggestion_Public::buddypress_friend_follow_compatibility_score()computes a 0–100 integer for any user pair based on xProfile field overlap. - Suggestion assembly —
bffs_get_suggestion_members()(inincludes/buddypress-friend-follow-suggestions-functions.php) builds the final sorted list, applies exclusions, and writes to a transient cache.
All public functions and their hooks are namespaced under the bffs_ or bp_suggestions_ prefixes.