Daniel Bachhuber 2:19 pm on April 3, 2017

New co-maintainer, Alain — thanks 2017 sponsors

WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ welcomes its second maintainer, thanks to the support of our 2017 sponsors.

New co-maintainer: Alain Schlesser

First, I’d like to formally welcome Alain Schlesser as WP-CLI’s newest co-maintainer. If you’ve been following the project over the last month, you may have noticed him diving deep into WP-CLI’s internals. We’re excited about the infrastructural improvements coming in the next release, and the new features they’ll enable.

Alain is new to the WordPress community, and brings years of experience developing for other platforms, from hobby game development to large enterprise projects in a government environment.

I’m wildly excited about the opportunity to join Daniel and work on WP-CLI. This project represents a special facet of the WordPress ecosystem and comes with a unique set of requirements and challenges. I can’t wait to explore the possibilities!
— Alain

With Alain joining the project as a co-maintainer, the WP-CLI project is restoring capacity to meet current demands (e.g. support), and ramping up on new feature development and evangelization. We’ve already improved the build time by 33%!

Come say hello to Alain at our new office hours every Tuesday. Office hours start tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4 at 16:00 UTC

Thanks 2017 sponsors

Maintaining an open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project requires a substantial, ongoing commitment of time and energy. WP-CLI is a dependable tool loved by thousands because it’s actively maintained, which is made possible by the generosity of its sponsors.

Premier Sponsors

Individual Sponsors

Aaron Jorbin, Anant Shrivastava, Andy Fragen, Austin Ginder, Barry van Someren, Ben Meredith, Ben Welch-Bolen, Bill Christensen, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Bjørn Johansen, Boone Gorges, Carl Hancock, Chuck Reynolds, Craig Martin, Daniel Hüsken, David Herrera, David McDonald, Doruk Fisek, Drew Linsalata, Dwayne McDaniel, Erik Joling, Full Name, Hidetaka Okamoto, Hugh McGuire, Ian Johnson, Jared Atchison, Jason Conroy, Javi, Javier Arnáez, Jeremiah J Terhark, Joel Gaeddert, John Speed, Jonathan Bossenger, Jonathan Daggerhart, Joost de Valk, Joshua Koenig, Kevin Cristiano, Knight Tan, Matt Gross, Matthew Lawrence, Mike Garrett, Miya0001, Ned Zimmerman, Nicholas Duncan, Nick Cernis, Patrick Garman, Per Søderlind, Pippin Williamson, Rachel Baker, Rahul Bansal, Ralf Hortt, required gmbh, Richard Aber, Rick Wiggins, Robert Mathews, Rocket Lift In., Ross Wintle, Ryan Sullivan, Sean Hayes, Simon Blackbourn, Steph Gray, Tadpole Collective, Tanner, Thiana Kitrilakis, Thorsten Ott, Vlad Olaru, WP Bullet, Yash Chandra

Daniel Bachhuber 5:31 pm on March 22, 2017

RFC: Usage analytics and WP-CLI v2.0.0

There are two issues in the backlog we’d love your input on:

Capture and report anonymized usage statistics (scheduled for v1.3.0) – In addition to the data points listed, what others might be worthwhile to capture? And, are there other aspects to the project we should consider?
WP-CLI 2.0.0 (scheduled for late 2017) – What breaking changes should we consider and why?

Feel free to weigh in as you see fit.

Daniel Bachhuber 1:26 pm on March 17, 2017

New support venue: WordPress.org support forum

Have a question about something related to WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/? There are now two places you can go for general help:

Join the #cli channel in the WordPress.org Slack to chat with whomever might be available at the time. This option is best for quick questions.
Post a new thread in the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations. and tag it with ‘WP-CLI‘ so it’s seen by the community.

Want to help others with their use of WP-CLI? Click “Subscribe to this topic tag” to receive email notifications of new forum discussion:

GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues are meant for tracking enhancements to and bugs of existing commands, not general support. Use the wp-cli/ideas repository to up vote existing ideas or share your own.

Daniel Bachhuber 6:43 pm on February 23, 2017

Planning for Community Summit 2017

In preparation for the 2017 WordPress Community Summit (“CS”) on June 13th-14th before WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe in Paris, France we’ve been asked to provide the following (in summary):

A list of topics for the CS
A list of representatives to attend the CS
One or two contributors who are willing to help with the organization of the CS

This post serves as a request for input for the above three areas. Note that these three requests are detailed further with some clarifying notes on Make/Summit.

Feel free to pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me privately in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. if you prefer. I will send a summary of the responses with the Community Summit team on Wednesday, March 1st (as I’ll be offline on Thursday and Friday).

Daniel Bachhuber 8:12 pm on February 8, 2017

Two new commands: doctor and profile

Excited to experiment with a couple new WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ commands? wp doctor and wp profile are now available for everyone to install.

wp doctor lets you diagnose problems within WordPress by running a series of checks for symptoms. It includes an APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. for defining your own diagnosis, as well as writing custom checks.

$ wp @daniel doctor check --all
Running checks  100% [============================================================================================] 0:02 / 0:09
+----------------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| name                       | status  | message                                                            |
+----------------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| core-verify-checksums      | success | WordPress verifies against its checksums.                          |
| file-eval                  | success | All 'php' files passed check for 'eval\(.*base64_decode\(.*'.      |
| autoload-options-size      | success | Autoloaded options size (16.25kb) is less than threshold (900kb).  |
| constant-savequeries-falsy | success | Constant 'SAVEQUERIES' is undefined.                               |
| constant-wp-debug-falsy    | success | Constant 'WP_DEBUG' is defined falsy.                              |
| core-update                | success | WordPress is at the latest version.                                |
| cron-count                 | success | Total number of cron jobs is within normal operating expectations. |
| cron-duplicates            | success | All cron job counts are within normal operating expectations.      |
| option-blog-public         | success | Site is public as expected.                                        |
| plugin-active-count        | success | Number of active plugins (2) is less than threshold (80).          |
| plugin-deactivated         | success | Less than 40 percent of plugins are deactivated.                   |
| plugin-update              | success | Plugins are up to date.                                            |
| theme-update               | warning | 1 theme has an update available.                                   |
+----------------------------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

wp profile quickly identifies what’s slow with WordPress, by giving you visibility into key I/O indicators.

$ wp @daniel profile stage --fields=stage,time,cache_ratio
+------------+---------+-------------+
| stage      | time    | cache_ratio |
+------------+---------+-------------+
| bootstrap  | 0.2643s | 80%         |
| main_query | 0.0186s | 85.71%      |
| template   | 0.0489s | 93.71%      |
+------------+---------+-------------+
| total (3)  | 0.3318s | 86.47%      |
+------------+---------+-------------+

Both packages are in early stages of development — feedback welcome!

Daniel Bachhuber 6:13 pm on February 1, 2017

Version 1.1.0 released

Happy release day!

Today, I’m excited to bring you WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ v1.1.0, chock full of enhancements and bug fixes.

Want to get props in the next release? There are a few projects we’ll be working on:

Creating a new WPorg home for wp-cli.org/commands and wp-cli.org/docs/internal-api [meta#2465]
Splitting internal commands into distinct packages [#3728]
Transforming some ideas into working prototypes.

And, in case you missed it: I’m looking for help maintaining WP-CLI (paid opportunity, commitment of 5-10 hours/week). Know someone who might fit? Email daniel@handbuilt.co or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” ‘danielbachhuber’ on the WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..

Everything in 1.1.0

Command improvements:

wp cache *:
- Explicitly sets default cache group as ‘default’ to replicate WordPress’ behavior [#3714]
wp cache type:
- Detects W3 Total Cache object cache [#3637]
wp (comment|post|user) list:
- Magically parses CSV values for any argument with double underscore [#3726, #3744]
wp core config:
- Introduces --force parameter for overwriting existing wp-config.php file [#3706]
wp core is-installed:
- Prevents error notice from wp_guess_url() when coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. isn’t installed [#3711]
wp core language install:
- Passes $wp_version through to translations_api() so that WordPress reports the correct language download file [#3748]
wp core update:
- Supports --version=(nightly|trunk), which will download the latest nightly build [#3645]
wp core update-db:
- Updates wpmu_upgrade_site option for all networks, not just current, to ensure the admin notice is dismissed [#3659]
wp db *:
- Runs help at the same point as the command, to enable wp help db import to be run when WordPress has been downloaded, a wp-config.php has been created, but WordPress hasn’t yet been installed [#3780]
wp db cli:
- Makes it possible to pass arguments through to the mysql executable [#3745]
wp db export:
- Appends a random hash to generated SQL file to help mitigate database files from being accessible at predictable URLs [#3765]
wp media regenerate:
- Support generating thumbnails for ‘application/pdf’ for WordPress 4.7+ [#3768]
wp plugin install:
- Correctly installs ZIPs uploaded to the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ release page for a project [#3776]
- Displays error message when a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party cannot be installed due to write permissions [#3764]
wp scaffold plugin:
- Ignores multisite.xml.dist in scaffolded .distignore [#3677]
wp scaffold plugin-tests:
- Opts-in to container-based infrastructure on Travis [#3739]
- Supports PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. 7.1 and PHPUnit 5.7 when scaffolding .travis.yml [#3758]
- Updates GitLab template to run WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. tests [#3772]
wp scaffold (plugin-tests|theme-tests):
- Validates plugin/theme slug to prevent you from scaffolding tests into an unexpected directory [#3666]
wp scaffold _s:
- Validates theme slug earlier to provide a more understandable error [#3724]
wp search-replace:
- Supports passing regex modifiers [#3639]
- Only skips replacement when array is a reference to an existing array [#3708, #3713]
wp server:
- Sets the path global parameter as docroot [#3700]
wp site create:
- Replicates core logic for creating $newdomain and $path to form proper path then global $base isn’t ‘/’ [#3688]
wp site option list:
- Adds --site_id=<id> filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. [#3769]
wp theme install:
- Uses httpHTTP HTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. cacher when automatically installing a parent theme [#3689]
wp theme mod get:
- Introduces --field=<field> argument for fetching a particular field [#3644]

Framework enhancements:

Updates Composer-based dependencies to latest [#3638, #3676, #3678, #3698, #3720, #3786]
Ensures passed positionals take precedent over defaults defined in wp-cli.yml [#3648]
WP_CLI::runcommand() correctly persists current process’ environment variables [#3683, #3730]
Removes backslashes from display of path when destination folder already exists [#3691]
Globalizes wp-config.php variables to local scope too, enabling WordPress to properly change $table_prefix in multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. [#3695]
Adds global parameters to bash completion [#3697]
Permits dots to be used in aliases [#3705]
Introduce a Behat step for replacing a string in a file [#3712]

Contributors to this release (pull requests, documentation, and package authors): amq, bgeihsgt, danielbachhuber, edpittol, ernilambar, greatislander, inderpreet99, louisremi, lwh, metodiew, migueldemoura, miya0001, mmcev106, nikschavan, ntwb, nylen, ocean90, ramoonus, rosswintle, szepeviktor, trepmal, westonruter

You can browse the full list of resolved issues on Github.

Daniel Bachhuber 11:54 pm on January 26, 2017

New home for WP-CLI docs

WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/’s long-form documentation has a new shiny home: make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook

Want to suggest an edit?

Click on the “Edit” next to the title to submit your changes via pull request workflow. The documents are tracked in a GitHub repo for easy collaboration. Just like with code changes, documentation contributors receive credit in every WP-CLI release.

Have five minutes to make the documentation better?

Read through the handbook and open an issue with ideas on how we can improve or expand upon our documentation.

Happy scripting!

Daniel Bachhuber 11:58 pm on January 18, 2017

What do you wish you had a WP-CLI command for?

At the heart of it, WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ commands enable you to do anything you want with WordPress, faster. Performing some task at the command line almost always yields some (often huge) amount of efficiency gain over the alternative.

For instance, consider the following (from #2523):

Using the theme list command without url parameter shows if a theme is enabled for the network and active in the default site.

If you pass the url of a site of the network, this command shows if a theme is active in that site.

But i can’t find a way to list which themes are inactive in every site of the network so i can safely disable and delete them, and i’d love to have this feature

Without WP-CLI, you’d need to:

Find an intern.
Prepare a spreadsheet of all sites and themes.
Have the intern go through each site to log the active theme on your spreadsheet.
Evaluate the spreadsheet to determine with themes can safely be deleted.

With WP-CLI, you can simply run wp find-unused-themes. Pretty much infinity time savings.

So, what do you wish you had a WP-CLI command for?

Now you have a place to request them. Head over to the new wp-cli/ideas GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repo and file issues to your heart’s content.

There’s no such thing as a bad idea. We’ll implement the best, and maintain them as canonical WP-CLI community packages.

But wait, how will you pick which ideas to build?

That’s a great question — I’d love your input on how to decide.

The end goal for the WP-CLI package index is to be a directory of well-maintained, canonical features. Packages will be considered community projects shepherded by one or more maintainers, instead of the domain of a specific author. There’s a two-fold benefit in taking this approach:

You (as a WP-CLI package author) will feel less burdened in maintaining your package, because you have supporting resources to help you out.
You (as a WP-CLI user) will have greater confidence in using the packages in the package index because you know there’s a small community of maintainers around each of them.

But, we need to work out how we get from 0 to 1 (idea to initial implementation), and then 1 to n (ongoing development and maintenance).

But wait, who’s “we”?

That’s a great question too.

I’m now actively looking for someone to help me run with this vision. They’ll focus on facilitating great community packages: soliciting and vetting ideas, establishing best practices and standards, and supporting package maintainers. The best candidate sweats the little details, and commitment is already a part of their track record.

In the near future, we’ll be looking for people to maintain packages in the directory. Our goal is for maintainership to be a rewarding, enjoyable experience — and for maintainers to extend the same to contributors.

Know anyone who might fit either of these roles? I’d love to hear from you. Email daniel@handbuilt.co or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” ‘danielbachhuber’ on the WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..

Daniel Bachhuber 12:36 am on January 3, 2017

Let’s do this!

As announced last week, WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ is now an official WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ project. I consider this the best possible outcome of my efforts trying to identify sustainability for the project over the last year. Frankly, it’s hard to communicate how relieved I am.

But wait, what does that actually mean?

Most of the details are still to be worked out. On a high-level, these are the big changes:

The website will be migrated to some part of wordpress.org, shape and form TBD.
Development will continue on GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, and could possibly move to github.com/wordpress/wp-cli (see below).
At the end of the day, I am no longer solely responsible for the project. If I were to be hit by a bus, there’s a more recognizable continuation plan for someone else to step in. Eventually, I hope to onboard a couple more maintainers who regularly invest significant time in the project.

The decision to make WP-CLI an official WordPress project also means there’s a clear path forward for me to invest more of my own time into the WP-CLI roadmap. Concurrent with the transition process over the next couple of months, I want to move forward the conversation of how we realize a future where WP-CLI is the fastest way to do anything with WordPress. If that’s something you’re interested in, stay tuned!

Migrating the website

In order to successfully and completely migrate the wp-cli.org website to wordpress.org (and WordPress), it’s important to understand its current form:

wp-cli.org is a Jekyll-based website hosted on Github / Github Pages.
Much of the reference documentation is generated by a series of WP-CLI commands from the WP-CLI codebase. These commands take structured data about the codebase and transform it into a series of Markdown files served by Jekyll. This documentation is typically regenerated for every major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality..
The rest of the documentation is a series of user-editable files. It would be nice to be able to replicate the pull request workflow for editing the docs, because it’s a good source of contributions.
The WP-CLI package index (wp-cli.org/package-index) is built from a separate Github repository. It uses Satis to build the HTML and JSON representations of the package index. Satis is running on one of my personal servers.

These are the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functions needing to be replicated on WordPress.org. Ideally, the work done would be the foundation of where I’d love to see the WP-CLI website go in the future:

Produce command pages for the packages listed in the package index.
Proxy Github APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. requests for new WP-CLI versions (from 3426).
Display download / installation counts for each package.
Display number of Github stars for each package.
Highlight packages in the index that are regularly updated, have multiple maintainers, or reflect some other quality we hold to be important.
Create distribution releases for packages in the package index to speed up installation (from 2566).
Run test suite for each package on a weekly basis (from 3197).
Validate packages submitted to the package index (from 3177).

Migrating the Github repo

Fortunately, Github makes it easy to transfer repositories between organizations. Before we make the switch, we need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on these core functions:

Travis is used to run the test suite. Travis also commits a build artifact to the builds repo.
WP-CLI’s update check uses the Github releases API. If Github doesn’t transform the request URI for migrated repos, then users will experience a cryptic error. Now that I write this, this dependency might be a large-ish problem.
Similarly, some users have build systems dependent on a consistent URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org pattern for the release Phar file. See the releases page for examples.

It’s also worth noting there will be more WP-CLI repositories in the future. Each new feature will be developed as an independent package. In fact, existing features (e.g. search-replace) are going to be split out into separate packages too. We’ll need an organizational structure that can accommodate this growth (let it be github.com/wordpress/wp-search-replace-command or github.com/wp-cli-packages/search-replace-command).

Anything I’ve missed? Have a question about something I didn’t cover? Hit me up with a comment!

cc @pento