Got a lot of exciting news regarding wp-cli, so let’s get right into it:

The Reach

Besides Dreamhost, it’s used and recommended by the WordPress.com VIP team to all their clients.

Oh, and it’s also used in a Juju Charm for deploying WordPress in the cloud. :D

The --require

An interesting but easily overlooked feature is the new --require global parameter. Say you wrote a custom command called chores for yourself:

WP_CLI::add_command( 'chores', 'My_Chores' );

class My_Chores extends WP_CLI_Command {

	function do_laundry() {
		...
	}
	
	function wash_dishes() {
		...
	}
}

Now, where do you put this code, so that WP-CLI can reach it? You could put it in a plugin, but if you have multiple WP installations, you’d have to install that plugin on each one. You could put it inside one of the WP-CLI directories, but that creates problems when you want to update. Here’s what you could do instead:

wp --require=/path/to/chores.php chores do_laundry

The --require parameter will load that PHP file at just the right time for the command to work as you’d expect.

The Manual

The help system has been improved. When you do wp help core config, an actual man page will show up, with details about each parameter:

wp-cli man-page

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work if you install WP-CLI via the PEAR package, because PEAR doesn’t know how to handle them. :(

The Changelog

Commands:

  • added wp post and wp post-meta
  • added wp user-meta
  • added wp blog create
  • added wp export
  • added wp theme install and wp theme update
  • added wp transient
  • added wp db optimize and wp db repair
  • added wp db create, wp db drop and wp db reset
  • added wp db import
  • added wp core install_network
  • added wp core update_db
  • added --json option to several subcommands
  • added --network option to wp plugin activate
  • fixed wp plugin update

Internals:

  • fixed “out of memory” error
  • misc bugfixes and optimizations

You can also browse the full list of resolved issues.

The Community

Most of the new commands you see in this release were actually implemented by other people.

Here are all the people that have contributed to this release: andreascreten, dwightjack, getsource, johnpbloch, joshstoik1, kidfiction, marcoceppi, mgburns, mwilliamson, roelven, scribu, soulou, tollmanz.

The Future

The first thing I want to tackle next is revamping the install process. I’m also thinking of ditching PEAR entirely; it’s just too limited: no man pages, no command auto-complete etc.

Beyond that, there are a lot of gaps to fill: wp import, wp blog update, wp attachment anyone?