README

A zero-configuration scaffolding tool for WordPress built as a WP-CLI package.

Installation

1. Install WP-CLI

2. Install this WP-CLI package:

wp package install wp-forge/wp-cli-forge-command

Usage

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>

Advanced Usage

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.

Documentation

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

Scaffolding Templates

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.

Config Examples

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"
    }
  ]
}