Get Term Being Edited on term.php WordPress Admin Page

The function below can be used for getting the WP_Term object for the term that’s currently being edited on the term.php page in the WordPress admin. Just make sure that when you call this, the global $taxnow variable has been set. Using WP’s admin_init hook, or anything that fires after that point will work.

/**
 * Get the term currently being edited on the edit.php screen
 * in the WordPress admin.
 *
 * @return WP_Term|null The term object or null on failure.
 */
function km_get_term_being_edited() {
	global $taxnow;

	if ( ! $taxnow || empty( $_GET['tag_ID'] ) ) {
		return null;
	}

	$term_id = absint( $_GET['tag_ID'] );
	$term    = get_term( $term_id, $taxnow );

	return $term instanceof WP_Term ? $term : null;
}

Example Usage

function km_do_something_when_term_12_is_being_edited() {

	$term = km_get_term_being_edited();

	if ( ! $term || 12 !== $term->term_id ) {
		return;
	}

	// Put code here that should only run when the term with an
	// ID of 12 is being edited.
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'km_do_something_when_term_12_is_being_edited' );