Automate Wordpress setups via WP-CLI

1) Setup vanilla Wordpress from scratch

Assumes an existing local database and host.

# root dir is project dir
mkdir -p wordpress
cd wordpress

# download to current folder, see
# https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/core/download/
wp core download --locale=en_GB

# TODO: using the password on the shell is not ideal, see
# https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/config/create/#examples
wp config create --dbname=[name] --dbuser=[user] --dbpass=[pass]

# this will return a user password
wp core install --url=website.local --title="Website title" --admin_user="janitor" --admin_email="foo@bar.local"

# create local wp-cli config for htaccess generation, see
# https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/rewrite/structure/
printf "apache_modules:\n\
  - mod_rewrite\n" >> ../wp-cli.local.yml

# create htaccess
wp rewrite structure '/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/' --hard

TODO: add SQLite example

2) Migrate an existing instance

wp db reset --yes
gunzip [file.sql.gz] --stdout | wp db import -

# reset pw of user `admin` to `test`
wp eval "wp_set_password( 'test', get_user_by( 'login', 'admin' )->ID ); );"

# set local url
# needs http[s]:// protocol and quotes
wp option update siteurl 'http://domain.local'
wp option update home 'http://domain.local'

# flush redirects
wp rewrite flush

3) Update an instance

# update core
wp core update
# update all themes
wp theme update --all
# update all plugins
wp plugin update --all
# update language
wp language core update
wp language plugin --all update
wp language theme --all update
# update db scheme
# otherwise, an admin user will be prompted
wp core update-db

Note: paradoxically, a working wp-config.php is mandatory for WP-CLI to work. You can use the helper command wp config create if you don't want to clone wp-config-sample.php manually.

3.1) Specify version and locale

wp core update --version=5.4 --locale=en_GB

Check locale availability via WP translation platform

4) See also

Globally installing WP-CLI vs keeping a local version

You can

1. move wp-cli.phar to a global wp binary

or

2. keep a local install in you're projects root folder e.g. at /bin/wp-cli.phar

which makes sure each script continues to work on a remote installation.

Downloading core programmatically without WP-CLI

# grab and unpack the latest locale-specific release
curl https://de.wordpress.org/latest-en_GB.tar.gz -o latest-en_GB.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest-en_GB.tar.gz
cd wordpress

5) Further reading

• alternative to downloading core: the Wordpress Skeleton
• applying --allow-root: php - Setting WordPress siteurl using wp-cli with WAMP virtual host - Stack Overflow
• 13 Useful WordPress SQL Queries You Wish You Knew Earlier