WP-CLI: Save Time by
Managing WordPress
from the Command Line
WordCamp Montreal, July 4, 2015
!
Shawn Hooper, CTO,Actionable Books
@shawnhooper - shawn@actionablebooks.com

• I’m Shawn Hooper, a web application
developer from Ottawa.
• I’ve been working in WordPress since
2009.
• I love the working from the command
prompt, reminds me of my days running
a BBS (in the days before the Internet)
Hi!

Command Line?!

• A set of command line tools that allows
you to manage WordPress from the
command line.
• http://www.wp-cli.org/
What is WP-CLI ?

• Anyone really, but mostly:
• Developers
• Theme Designers
• Server Administrators
Who is this for?

Don’t Fear The
Command Line

• http://www.wp-cli.org/
• Requires PHP 5.3.2 or later
• Requires WordPress 3.5.2 or later
• A “UNIX-like” environment:
• OSX (Macintosh)
• Linux
• Cygwin (Windows)
What do you need?

• You need to have SSH access to use
WP-CLI. Some shared hosting packages
do not allow SSH access
• PlanetHoster, SiteGround, Pantheon,
BlueHost, GoDaddy, Media Temple,
Windows Azure and more now have
CLI support.
• VPS services like Digital Ocean and
Linode are ideal.
Hosts

• Download it:
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/
wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
• Set permissions:
chmod +x wp-cli.phar
• Move it somewhere useful:
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
Installing WP-CLI

• Does it work? Type:
wp
Installing WP-CLI

Installing WP-CLI

Congratulations!
(that was the hard part)

Great… It’s installed.
So now what….

wp <command> <sub-command> <params>
Running Commands:

<param> — required
[—param] — optional flag
[—param=<value>] — optional w/ value
Running Commands:

• Check current WordPress version, or
see if there are updates available.
• Do the update!
• Install a brand new site
• Convert an existing site to Multisite!
• Verify core checksums
core

• Let’s try setting up a brand new site on
a development server using:
wp core download
wp core config
wp db create
wp core install --prompt
core

• Install, Delete Plugins
• Activate & Deactivate Plugins
• Update Plugins
• Search the repository for plugins
plugin

• Time savers!
wp plugin update — all
wp plugin deactivate — all
plugin

The “db” command interacts with
the MySQL database.
!
wp db export backup.sql
wp db import backup.sql
wp db cli
db

• Safe Search & Replace, including
serialized arrays!
• Supports --dry-run
search-replace

Generate Test Content !
wp post generate --count=500
post

Regenerate Thumbnails
!
wp media regenerate —yes
media

Start an underscores theme!
!
wp scaffold _s mytheme
scaffold

… or a child theme
!
wp scaffold child-theme mychild
—parent_theme=twentyfourteen
scaffold

… or a custom post type
!
wp scaffold post-type mycpt —
theme
scaffold

Download & Activate a Theme
from WordPress.org
!
wp theme install simone —activate
theme

wp user generate
wp user import-csv
Create Users

wp term list
wp term create
wp term generate
Taxonomies

Executes PHP code
* after loading the WordPress Core *
eval & eval-file

Add any functionality you want
that isn’t already included in the
WP-CLI core.
https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/
wiki/List-of-community-commands
Community
Commands

You can either write them as a
plugin, or include it using the
—require parameter
on the command line.
Community
Commands

Thank you!
!
E-Mail:
shawn@actionablebooks.com
!
!
Twitter: @shawnhooper
WordPress Slack: shooper