WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations. You can update plugins, set up multisite installs, create posts and much more.

Minimum Requirements

You'll need PHP 5.3.2 or later.

All WP-CLI commands are guaranteed to work with WordPress 3.4 or later. Some commands, like wp core update, might work with older versions as well.

Installing

Just execute the following command:

curl http://wp-cli.org/installer.sh | bash

This will allow you to run ~/.composer/bin/wp.

If you get a using non-default PHP CLI: message, you should save that path in your .bash_profile file:

export WP_CLI_PHP=/path/found/during/install

If you want to be able to type just wp, add the following lines to your .bash_profile file:

# Composer scripts
PATH=$HOME/.composer/bin:$PATH

# WP-CLI completions
source $HOME/.composer/vendor/wp-cli/wp-cli/utils/wp-completion.bash

Finally, reload the file:

source ~/.bash_profile

Updating

If you installed WP-CLI using the method above, you can also easily update it:

cd ~/.composer
php composer.phar update

Also see Alternative Install Methods.

Using

Go into a WordPress root folder:

cd /var/www/wp/

Typing wp should show you output similar to this:

Available commands:
    wp blog create|delete
    wp cache add|decr|delete|flush|get|incr|replace|set|type
    wp comment create|delete|trash|untrash|spam|unspam|approve|unapprove|count|status|last
    wp core download|config|is-installed|install|install-network|version|update|update-db
    wp db create|drop|reset|optimize|repair|connect|cli|query|export|import
    wp eval-file
    ...

See 'wp help &lt;command&gt;' for more information on a specific command.

Let's try to install the Hello Dolly plugin from wordpress.org:

wp plugin install hello-dolly

Output:

Installing Hello Dolly (1.5)

Downloading install package from http://downloads.WordPress.org/plugin/hello-dolly.1.5.zip ...
Unpacking the package ...
Installing the plugin ...
Plugin installed successfully.

Multisite

On a multisite installation, you need to pass a --url parameter, so that wp-cli knows which site it's supposed to be operating on:

wp theme status --url=localhost/wp/test

If you have a subdomain installation, it would look like this:

wp theme status --url=test.example.com

If you're usually working on the same site most of the time, you can create a wp-cli.yml file in the root directory:

url: test.example.com

Then, you can call wp without the --url parameter again:

wp theme status

Adding commands

Adding commands to wp-cli is very easy. You can even add them from within your own plugin. You can find more information about adding commands in the Commands Cookbook on our Wiki.

Please share the commands you make, issue a pull request to get them included in wp-cli by default.

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