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Reusable Elements

Reusable Elements are short text snippets that you store once and reference everywhere via a [re:KEY] shortcode. Edit the snippet in one place — phone number, support email, copyright line, address, repeated CTA copy — and every section that references it picks up the new value automatically. This guide shows you how to set them up, where they work, and the patterns they're designed for.

What Reusable Elements Are​

Most sites end up repeating the same short piece of text in many places: the support phone number on the Contact page AND in the footer AND in the announcement bar; the office address on About AND Contact AND the cookie banner; the copyright year on every page footer. When that text changes — a new phone number, a new office, a new year — you end up hunting through every page to update it. Miss one, and your site shows two phone numbers depending on which page a visitor lands on.

Reusable Elements solve this by giving each snippet a stable handle. Type [re:phone_number] into any section's content field and Promptless WP swaps in the current value at render time. Update the snippet once and every reference re-resolves on the next page load.

Compare to the alternative — building a custom Gutenberg block, or a "global blocks" feature, or hand-rolled shortcode plugins. Reusable Elements are deliberately simpler: short text, no HTML, fast lookups, one editor screen.

When Reusable Elements Are the Right Tool​

Perfect for:

  • Contact information: phone number, email address, mailing address
  • Brand boilerplate: copyright lines, trademark notes, company name (when used in body copy)
  • Repeated CTA copy: "Get started for free", "Schedule a consultation", "Call us today"
  • Hours of operation: "Mon-Fri 9am-5pm PT" used in headers, footers, and contact sections
  • Legal disclaimers: short compliance notes that appear on multiple pages
  • Multi-location service businesses: per-location address and phone for sites that maintain pages per branch
  • Regulated industries: healthcare disclaimers, financial disclosures, that appear in many places

Not the right tool for:

  • Full sections of content — if you want to reuse an entire Hero or Features layout across pages, use the editor's Copy / Paste sections feature instead
  • Rich HTML — Reusable Elements strip HTML at save time. They're meant for short plain-text snippets. For HTML-rich content use a section.
  • Long-form content — there's a 5,000-character cap per element. Anything approaching that is probably better as a section.

Creating Your First Element​

Reusable Elements have a dedicated admin screen accessible from the main WordPress menu under Promptless → Reusable Elements. The screen lists every snippet on your site with its key, its human-readable name, and a preview of its current value.

Three Fields Per Element​

Key

The shortcode handle. Use lowercase letters, digits, and underscores only — no spaces, no hyphens, no punctuation. This is what you type into a section's content field to reference the snippet. Pick something descriptive but compact: phone_number, support_email, office_address, copyright_year.

The key is permanent once saved. If you rename the key later, every section that referenced the old key stops resolving until you update those references too. So pick the right handle the first time.

Name

The human-readable label for the admin UI. Doesn't appear on the frontend — it's just so you can find the snippet later when your list grows. Keep it conversational: "Main support phone", "Primary office address", "2026 copyright line".

Value

The actual text that gets substituted in. Plain text only — HTML tags are stripped at save time. Newlines are allowed, so multi-line addresses or short paragraphs work fine. The cap is 5,000 characters, which is far beyond what a snippet is designed for; if you're approaching it, you're using the wrong tool.

Site Cap​

A site can hold up to 100 elements. Hitting the cap is rare unless you're using Reusable Elements as a content management system, which they're not designed for. If you're getting close to 100, the structural answer is "convert some of those to actual sections" rather than "raise the cap".

Referencing Elements Anywhere​

Once a snippet is saved, type its shortcode into any section content field where the rich text editor accepts shortcodes:

  • Section header: heading, eyebrow heading, body content
  • Section footer: outro content, button labels
  • Per-item content: Features card content, Stats descriptions, FAQ answers, Steps step content, Checklist item descriptions
  • Custom CSS preludes (for styling that includes brand strings)

Format is always [re:KEY] — square brackets, lowercase re, colon, the snippet's key. So if you saved a snippet with key phone_number, type [re:phone_number] and on the rendered page it appears as the snippet's current value.

Multiple snippets in one field work fine: a contact footer with Reach us at [re:phone_number] or [re:support_email] resolves both at render time.

Editing and Propagation​

When you edit a snippet's value and save:

  • The element store's cache is invalidated immediately, so the next page load anywhere on the site picks up the new value.
  • Any caching plugin you're using (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, hosting-level caches) may delay this by its cache TTL. If you need the change to appear right away, purge those caches after editing.
  • The shortcode reference in each section stays the same — the rendered output is what changes.

This is the durable advantage over "find and replace" workflows: you never have to remember which sections reference the snippet, because they all reference the SAME source of truth.

Working with the Promptless Connector​

AI-driven page-building workflows can create, update, and reference Reusable Elements via the connector's REST API:

  • List — the connector's preflight response surfaces every existing snippet key so the AI doesn't accidentally invent a duplicate
  • Create / update — the AI can save a new snippet during a deploy (e.g., "save the brand phone as a reusable element") and reference it from the section content it's generating
  • Reference — when the AI generates section content, it can use [re:KEY] shortcodes for brand-canonical values instead of writing the phone number / email / etc. inline

This is the workflow you want for multi-location service businesses or any site where the AI is generating content across many pages: the AI populates real snippets once, then references them everywhere, so the rendered site always shows the same phone / address / copyright year.

Industry-Specific Patterns​

Multi-location service businesses

A plumbing company with three offices wants per-location pages that share most content but differ on phone / address / hours. Create three snippets per location: phone_phoenix, phone_tucson, phone_flagstaff, plus matching address_* and hours_* triplets. Reference the right triplet on each location page. When the Tucson phone number changes, you update one snippet and the Tucson page picks it up — the Phoenix and Flagstaff pages aren't touched.

Regulated industries

Healthcare, finance, and legal sites often have short compliance disclaimers that must appear on every page (or every page of a category). Create a hipaa_notice or not_legal_advice snippet and drop the shortcode into a footer-style section that you include on every page. When compliance updates the wording, you update one snippet and every page is current.

Agencies + multi-tenant sites

Agencies that ship many similar sites for clients can use Reusable Elements as the per-client customization layer. Build a template page deck once with snippet references for everything client-specific (company_name, tagline, phone, email, hours); when a new client comes on, populate their snippets and the entire site picks up the brand without page-by-page edits.

Limits and Gotchas​

  • Plain text only. HTML is stripped at save time. If you need HTML, use a section instead.
  • 5,000-character cap per element. Soft limit for "this is a snippet, not a section".
  • 100 elements per site. Soft limit for "this is a snippets system, not a CMS".
  • Lowercase keys. Phone_Number is rejected — must be phone_number. Same for digits and underscores only; spaces, hyphens, dots, and other punctuation are rejected. This keeps the shortcode parser predictable.
  • Renaming a key breaks references. The shortcode references the key. Change the key and every section that referenced the old key stops resolving until you update those references. Better: create a new snippet with the new key, update references in bulk via the page editor, then delete the old snippet.
  • Cache plugins may delay propagation. Edit a snippet, then purge any caching layer if you need the change to appear instantly.
  • Shortcodes don't render inside <title> tags. WordPress's wp_title filter doesn't run shortcodes for browser tab titles. Use Reusable Elements for body content, not page titles.

Where to Find Reusable Elements​

In WordPress Admin, navigate to Promptless → Reusable Elements. The list view shows every snippet on your site with its key, name, and a preview of the current value. Add new snippets, edit existing ones, or delete snippets you no longer reference.

For sites that connect Promptless to an AI workflow, the connector's preflight response includes the full list of existing keys so the AI can reference them without an extra round trip. See the connector documentation for details on AI-driven snippet management.