Local development

Podman for WordPress: rootless containers and Compose files without the Docker daemon Docker runs a daemon as root, and anyone who can talk to it effectively has root on the machine. Podman runs containers without a central daemon and, by default, without root: the containers run as processes of the user who started them. It…

Debug WordPress with wp-env, Xdebug and PhpStorm @wordpress/env (wp-env) starts a complete WordPress development environment in Docker with one command, with the current plugin or theme mounted inside. It also has Xdebug built in: one flag enables it, and PhpStorm (or VS Code) can then stop at breakpoints in your plugin, step through the code…

wp-env: a local WordPress for plugin and block development in one command For developing a plugin or a block, a full local stack is often more than needed. @wordpress/env (wp-env) is the tool the WordPress project uses itself: one .wp-env.json in the plugin folder, one command, and Docker runs WordPress with the plugin mounted, a…

A WordPress debugging setup per environment Debug settings are toggled in wp-config.php by hand, forgotten on, and then a production site shows notices to visitors or fills a public debug.log. A small setup decides everything from the environment type: on local and staging, full logging into a private file and visible errors where useful; on…

Docker Compose for local WordPress development with Nginx and PHP-FPM When every developer in a team has a different local setup (XAMPP, Valet, a VM), the same theme behaves differently on every machine, and a new developer spends half a day on installation. A compose.yaml in the project repository describes the whole stack (Nginx, PHP-FPM…

Git worktrees: a hotfix without leaving your feature branch A Git repository can have more than one working folder. git worktree add checks out another branch into a second folder that shares the same repository: the same history, the same remotes, no second clone. You can fix a bug on main in one folder while…

WP-CLI aliases and shell functions for local development WP-CLI can run commands against other installations over SSH: wp @production plugin list lists the plugins on the live server, wp @staging db export makes a dump on staging. With aliases for every environment and two or three shell functions, pulling a fresh copy of the live…

Master WP-CLI commands for search-replace, database export, plugin updates, thumbnail regeneration and cron management.

Permanently add a private key to SSH I think we have all been in a situation where we have to use an SSH key instead of the usual login and password. I remember being surprised that after a system reboot I had to add the key again with ssh-add before I could connect to the…