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Term Management

When to Use

Use UI for manual term creation. Use Drush or code for bulk operations or programmatic term management.

Decision

Situation Choose Why
Manual term creation (< 20 terms) UI at /admin/structure/taxonomy Simple, visual, no code needed
One-off term operations Drush php:eval Quick command-line access
Bulk operations (> 100 terms) Batch API or queue workers Prevents timeouts and memory issues
Hierarchical term creation Programmatic with parent field Set parent array for child terms

Pattern

Via UI: 1. Navigate to /admin/structure/taxonomy 2. Click vocabulary name 3. Click "Add term" 4. Fill fields: Name (required), Description, Parent, Weight 5. Save

Via Drush: 

# Create term
drush php:eval '$term = \Drupal\taxonomy\Entity\Term::create(["vid" => "tags", "name" => "Drupal"]); $term->save();'

# Delete term
drush php:eval '\Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage("taxonomy_term")->load(123)->delete();'

Programmatic creation: 

use Drupal\taxonomy\Entity\Term;

$term = Term::create([
  'vid' => 'tags',
  'name' => 'Drupal 11',
  'description' => [
    'value' => 'Articles about Drupal 11',
    'format' => 'basic_html',
  ],
  'weight' => 10,
  'parent' => [0], // 0 = root, or array of parent tids
]);
$term->save();

Bulk operations: 

// Create multiple terms
$terms_data = ['PHP', 'JavaScript', 'CSS', 'HTML'];
foreach ($terms_data as $name) {
  Term::create(['vid' => 'technologies', 'name' => $name])->save();
}

// Update existing terms
$term_storage = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('taxonomy_term');
$terms = $term_storage->loadByProperties(['vid' => 'tags']);
foreach ($terms as $term) {
  $term->setWeight(0)->save();
}

Common Mistakes

  • Wrong: Creating terms in wrong vocabulary → Right: Always verify vid matches intended vocabulary
  • Wrong: Not setting parent field correctly → Right: Parent must be array: ['parent' => [0]] for root, ['parent' => [$tid]] for child
  • Wrong: Using save() in loops without batch API → Right: Use Batch API or queue workers for >100 terms
  • Wrong: Forgetting to set description format → Right: Must specify: ['value' => '...', 'format' => 'basic_html']
  • Wrong: Deleting vocabulary without handling orphaned term references → Right: Orphaned references cause errors; clean up first

See Also