create category on theme setup

Question

Is possible to create some default categories when a custom theme is activated? I mean, when I activate a custom theme, I want that some predefined category are created, for example news or info, this because using this way I can load the post directly on the template parts of the theme. Otherwise, if I want to add a custom widget plugin, how I can achieve this? I see many website that are using widgets in footer or in other part of the pages, but I've never used them so I don't know thhe correct way to add this feature on my page or post php files that have this structure:

<?php 

if( have_posts() ): while( have_posts() ): the_post();

the_title();

the_content();

endwhile;
endif;

?>

All the markup are added using shortcodes except for the title or sometimes for the post thumbnail.

Answer 1

You can use the after_setup_theme for this eg:

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'custom_add_cat' );

function custom_add_cat() {
    //Create Custom Category
    wp_insert_term(
    'Custom Category', 
    'category', 
    array('slug' => 'custom-category')
    );
}

Read here for more info: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/after_setup_theme/