A zero-configuration scaffolding tool for WordPress built as a WP-CLI package.
-
Install this WP-CLI package:
wp package install wp-forge/wp-cli-forge-command
From your project root, run the init
command to set up a project-level configuration file.
*Technically, this step is optional. However, it helps to eliminate some prompts as you run make commands.
wp forge init
Run the make
command to scaffold a new entity such as a plugin, theme, etc.
wp forge make <name>
Clone a Git repository containing scaffolding templates so they will be locally available to the tool.
wp forge clone <repository_url>
When cloning a repository, you can optionally provide a name. This allows you to utilize multiple repositories containing scaffolding templates from various sources. If you do not set a name, the system will use the name "default" automatically.
wp forge clone <repository_url> --as=<name>
To scaffold using a template from a named repository, just prefix the entity name with your custom namespace.
For example, if you set the name to be company
, and you wanted to scaffold a wp-plugin
, then you would run this
command:
wp forge make company:wp-plugin
This will ensure that the repository containing the company
templates will be checked for the wp-plugin
scaffolding.
In the event that you have multiple template sources configured and the requested template cannot be found under the
requested namespace, the tool will ask you if you want to check the other template sources for that template.
You can also use a path to leverage templates found nested in other folders.
wp forge make company:github-actions/lint-php
The above command would look in the ~/.wp-cli/templates/company
folder for the template in
the github-actions/lint-php
directory.
All commands are self-documented by the tool. Simply type an available command followed by the --help
flag for more
details.
Get high-level documentation on available commands:
wp forge --help
Get documentation for a specific command:
wp forge config --help
In order to use this tool, you must first have a Git repository where you will host your scaffolding templates.
Let's get started!
Step 1: Create a new Git repository.
Step 2: Create a folder in the repository for each thing you will want to scaffold. The name of the folder is the name you will use with the
make
command.
Examples of things you might want to scaffold:
- WordPress plugins
- WordPress themes
- WordPress sites
- Custom post types
- GitHub actions
- Other custom code you use frequently
Step 3: Make sure you have a
config.json
file in the template folder. This will tell the CLI what to do with your template.
A simple config.json
file might look like this:
{
"directives": [
{
"action": "copy",
"from": "lint-php.yml",
"to": ".github/workflows/lint-php.yml",
"relativeTo": "projectRoot"
}
]
}
This would copy the lint-php.yml
file from the template folder to the .github/workflows/lint-php.yml
file relative
to the project root. You can provide multiple copy directives to copy not only files, but also entire directories. If
you want the path to be relative to the current directory where the CLI tool is being run, then just leave off
the relativeTo
property or set its value to workingDir
.
It is very common that you will want to replace placeholders in your templates. To facilitate this, you must first collect the required information from the user.
You can add a prompts
section to trigger these data requests in the CLI:
{
"prompts": [
{
"message": "What is your first name?",
"name": "first_name",
"type": "input"
},
{
"message": "What country are you in?",
"name": "country",
"type": "input",
"default": "United States"
},
{
"message": "What is your favorite ice cream?",
"name": "ice_cream",
"type": "radio",
"options": [
"Chocolate",
"Vanilla",
"Strawberry"
]
},
{
"message": "Select one or more taxonomies",
"name": "taxonomies",
"type": "checkboxes",
"options": [
"Categories",
"Tags"
]
}
]
}
With these prompts defined, you can now use the name
field as a Mustache placeholder in
any template file. You can also reference the name of any property from the project configuration file in your templates
without needing to prompt the user.
You can have a template leverage other templates by using the runCommand
directive and calling the make
command:
{
"directives": [
{
"action": "runCommand",
"command": "wp forge make github-actions/lint-js"
},
{
"action": "runCommand",
"command": "wp forge make github-actions/lint-php"
},
{
"action": "runCommand",
"command": "wp forge make github-actions/lint-yml"
}
]
}