This document introduces WP-CLI, an open-source command line tool for managing WordPress installations. It discusses how WP-CLI allows automating common WordPress tasks simply and efficiently through commands like updating plugins, importing/exporting databases, and generating dummy content and users. The document also provides instructions for installing WP-CLI and outlines many of its core commands and capabilities. It encourages developing custom commands to address site-specific needs and points to resources for learning how to build commands.

1. Make Your Life Easier
With WP-CLI

2. About Me
WordCamp Montreal - August 2014
• Web developer with over
15 years of experience.
• Senior Web Developer at
Carleton University in
Ottawa, Ontario.
• Developing for WordPress
for since 2005.

3. About Carleton
• Over 26,000 students and 4,000 Staff.
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• Over 250 WordPress sites.
• More than a million page views per month.
• Small team who are responsible for the
support, maintenance and training for all
WordPress powered sites on campus.
• WP-CLI, along with other tools helps us do this
with a relatively small team.

4. What is WP-CLI?
A super awesome open-source tool to manage your
WordPress installations.
http://wp-cli.org/!
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5. Why?
Simple and faster then traditional methods
Automate and script common tasks
Efficient (uses WordPress to perform operations)
Extensible (user contributed commands / custom
commands)
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6. What’s Required
SSH access to your WordPress install's directory
PHP 5.3+
WordPress 3.3+
Enough server memory for shell processes to run
WordPress
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7. WordCamp Montreal - August 2014

8. Fear Not!
Read a few simple guides about SSH and learn
basic commands:
How to SSH: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/
ssh-what-and-how--net-25138
Basic Commands: http://www.servermom.org/top-most-
used-common-ssh-commands/56/
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9. Installing WP-CLI
Instructions at: http://wp-cli.org/
Hosts with WP-CLI pre-installed: https://
github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/wiki/List-of-hosting-companies
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10. What Can It Do?
All the things.
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11. Anatomy of a Command
wp generate posts --count=500!
“generate” is the command
“posts” is the subcommand
“count” is a parameter
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12. Global Command Parameters
The following parameters can be passed to any command:
--user = set the current user
--url = set the current URL
--path = set the current path to the WP install
--require = load a file before running the command
--versionprint = WP-CLI version
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13. Manage Core
wp core download!
wp core config --dbname=testing --dbuser=wp!
wp core update!
wp core update-db!
wp core multisite-convert!
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14. Manage Plugins
wp plugin update --all!
wp plugin install bbpress --activate!
wp plugin uninstall hello!
wp plugin delete hello!
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15. Search & Replace
wp search-replace 'http://example.dev' 'http://
example.com' --skip-columns=guid!
wp search-replace 'foo' 'bar' wp_posts
wp_postmeta wp_terms --dry-run!
WP-CLI will correctly handle serialized values, and will
not change primary key values.
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16. Database Import / Export
wp db export mybackup.sql!
wp db import mybackup.sql!
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!

17. Manage Media / Dummy Data
wp media regenerate —yes!
wp generate posts --count=500!
wp generate users --role=contributor!
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!

18. So Much More
A full list of commands is available with full
documentation and examples:
http://wp-cli.org/commands/
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!

19. Custom Commands
Site specific tasks
One-off fixes / Annoying client requests
Commands that don’t currently exist
There is a large list of community commands:
http://wp-cli.org/package-index/
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20. Lets Make a Plugin
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21. Defining a Command
I use sub-commands to keep things organized.
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22. Subcommand
$args: stand-alone arguments
$assoc_args: --arg=value in associative array
wp example example-command Hello World --param=Hello!
$args[0] == ‘Hello’
$args[1] == ‘World’
$assoc_args[‘param’] == ‘Hello’
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23. Example Command
Let’s see some code!
Basics / PHPDoc Guide: https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/
wiki/Commands-Cookbook
WP-CLI API: https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/wiki/API
WP-CLI Example Code: https://github.com/cuweb/wp-cli
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24. Resources
http://wp-cli.org/
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ssh-what-and-how--net-25138
http://www.servermom.org/top-most-used-common-ssh-commands/56/
https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/wiki/List-of-hosting-companies
http://wp-cli.org/commands/
https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/wiki
https://github.com/cuweb/wp-cli
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25. Questions?