In September 2015 thread "Custom XML Export," Hans instructed  us on how to create custom tags. The example he presented is:

\setupbackend[export=yes]

\definehighlight[this]

\starttext
    \startelement[what]
         \this{that}  \input ward
    \stopelement
\stoptext

When that example is run with the current (2018-06-25) beta or TL18, there is no html body:

    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="document" xmlns="http://www.pragma-ade.com/context/export">

<div class="warning">Rendering can be suboptimal because there is no default/fallback css loaded.</div>

<div>
 <div class="metadata">
 </div>
</div>

        </div>
    </body>
</html>

Further experimentation suggests that \startelement is gobbling the output. (Adding \setupstructure does not change the result.)

What is the proper way to add custom tags?

--
Rik