wp-plugin-template

Template repo for WordPress plugin development that uses Composer to manage dependencies (along with package scoping to prevent collisions), a gulp workflow for development, external hosting via AWS, and automated releases through GitHub Actions. Also utilizes the WordPress Plugin Library to help structure plugin classes.

Getting started with this template

1. Replace all the following values with your own namespace (recommended format: Vendor\Namespace)
   • namespace WP_Plugin_Template
   • @package WP_Plugin_Template
   • use WP_Plugin_Template\...

   NOTE: Basically find all instances of "WP_Plugin_Template" and replace with your custom "Vendor\Namespace" value.

2. Update composer.json with your settings, paying special attention to the following keys:
   • name - Adjust to match your namespace, but lower-cased
   • autoload.psr-4 - Adjust to match your namespace
   • extra.imposter.namespace - Adjust to match your namespace (keep the "\Dependencies" tail)
3. Update package.json and reset the version to 1.0.0 (or whatever you want the initial version to be)
4. Update .ci/data/changelog.yml and remove all releases but one, and change the tag_name and name to reflect the version in package.json
5. Update .ci/data/plugin-info.yml with your own information.
6. Update your project/repo's Secrets for use with GitHub Actions:
   • AWS_S3_BUCKET
   • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
   • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
   • AWS_REGION
7. Update the "Release" workflow (./github/workflows/release.yml) environment variables (lines 13-15):
   • PLUGIN_SLUG - Should match slug in plugin-info.yml
   • DOWNLOAD_URI - Should match download_uri in plugin-info.yml
   • DEST_DIR - Should be the relative path of DOWNLOAD_URI, e.g. - https://cdn.ccstatic.com/wordpress-plugins/wp-plugin-template/ would be wordpress-plugins/wp-plugin-template (no leading or trailing slash!)
8. Update phpcs.xml, specifically:
   • minimum_supported_wp_version
   • testVersion
   • text_domain (in WordPress.WP.I18n)
   • minimum_supported_version (in WordPress.WP.DeprecatedFunctions)
   • prefixes (in WordPress.NamingConventions.PrefixAllGlobals)
9. Add or remove any plugin ZIP files dependencies for local development to .ci/plugins
   • These should be "private" plugins that otherwise cannot be found through WP Admin, or the minimum supported version of required plugins
   • Make sure to update the "mappings" or "plugins" config in .wp-env.json to point to the plugins (which will be unzipped into .plugins/)
10. Update this README.md file with your own info!
11. Delete both composer.lock and package-lock.json and then run the following:

    $ composer install
    $ npm install

    NOTE: Make sure to commit the new composer.lock and package-lock.json files that are generated!

12. Follow the Development and Release instructions below!

Installation

To install this plugin:

1. Download the latest release from GitHub (the saved file should be named wp-plugin-template-{version}.zip).
2. Go to the Plugins → Add New screen in the WordPress Admin.
3. Click the Upload button at the top next to the "Add Plugins" title.
4. Upload the zip file downloaded in the first step.
5. Click the Activate Plugin link after installation completes.

Development

This plugin uses @wordpress/env package for local development.

1. Ensure Docker is installed and running.
2. Clone this project to your local machine.

   $ git clone git@github.com:screid123/wp-plugin-template.git

3. Install NPM and Composer dependencies.

   $ npm ci
   $ composer install

4. Start the local development server.

   $ npm start

5. Navigate to http://localhost:8888 in your web browser to see WordPress running with the local WordPress plugin or theme running and activated.
6. The plugin is not active by default! This is on purpose in order to help test any activation hooks. Log into the WordPress Admin (http://localhost:8888/wp-admin/), navigate to the plugins menu and activate the plugin (install and activate any other plugins desired as well).

   NOTE: The default credentials are username: admin password: password.

7. Start the webpack dev server to watch PHP, CSS and JS files for changes, and automatically recompile:

   $ npm run dev

   Press Ctrl + C to stop watching.
8. Stop the local development server when finished.

   $ npm stop

Release

1. Update the package.json version number to the appropriate version (this project adheres to Semantic Versioning).
2. Update the .ci/data/changelog.yml file with the corresponding version and changes. Changelog updates are required for publishing a release.

   NOTE: If the version in package.json does not match a tag_name in changelog.yml, the build will fail.

3. Run the release command to compile all files and generate corresponding markdown files (e.g. - CHANGELOG.md).

   $ npm run release

4. Commit all changed files to your branch.
5. Open a Pull Request for your branch to be merged into the main branch.
6. Upon approval, merge the Pull Request using the "Squash & Merge" option.
7. To release the new version, add a lightweight tag with a semantic version prefixed with v (if a pre-release, add a -rc.X suffix, where X is the release candidate increment):

   $ git checkout main
   $ git pull
   $ git tag v1.0.0 # or "v.1.0.0-rc.1" for a pre-release
   $ git push --tags

   This will kick off the automated release workflow in GitHub Actions which builds the plugin ZIP, publishes a new release with the changelog update, attaches the ZIP as a release artifact, and pushes the ZIP and a manifest.json to the S3 bucket for distribution.

   NOTE: Pre-release assets will not be uploaded to S3 and thus will not prompt for an update in the WordPress Admin.