wp-cli/wp-cli-tests

WP-CLI testing framework

Quick links: Using | Contributing | Support

Using

To make use of the WP-CLI testing framework, you need to complete the following steps from within the package you want to add them to:

Add the testing framework as a development requirement:
```
composer require --dev wp-cli/wp-cli-tests
```

Add the required test scripts to the composer.json file:

"scripts": {
    "behat": "run-behat-tests",
    "behat-rerun": "rerun-behat-tests",
    "lint": "run-linter-tests",
    "lint-gherkin": "run-gherkin-lint-tests",
    "phpcs": "run-phpcs-tests",
    "phpcbf": "run-phpcbf-cleanup",
    "phpstan": "run-phpstan-tests",
    "phpunit": "run-php-unit-tests",
    "prepare-tests": "install-package-tests",
    "test": [
        "@lint",
        "@lint-gherkin",
        "@phpcs",
        "@phpstan",
        "@phpunit",
        "@behat"
    ]
}

You can of course remove the ones you don't need.

Optionally add a modified process timeout to the composer.json file to make sure scripts can run until their work is completed:
```
"config": {
    "process-timeout": 1800
},
```
The timeout is expressed in seconds.
Optionally add a behat.yml file to the package root with the following content:
```
default:
  suites:
    default:
      contexts:
        - WP_CLI\Tests\Context\FeatureContext
      paths:
        - features
```
This will make sure that the automated Behat system works across all platforms. This is needed on Windows.

Optionally add a phpcs.xml.dist file to the package root to enable code style and best practice checks using PHP_CodeSniffer.

Example of a minimal custom ruleset based on the defaults set in the WP-CLI testing framework:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="WP-CLI-PROJECT-NAME">
<description>Custom ruleset for WP-CLI PROJECT NAME</description>

    <!-- What to scan. -->
    <file>.</file>

    <!-- Show progress. -->
    <arg value="p"/>

    <!-- Strip the filepaths down to the relevant bit. -->
    <arg name="basepath" value="./"/>

    <!-- Check up to 8 files simultaneously. -->
    <arg name="parallel" value="8"/>

    <!-- For help understanding the `testVersion` configuration setting:
         https://github.com/PHPCompatibility/PHPCompatibility#sniffing-your-code-for-compatibility-with-specific-php-versions -->
    <config name="testVersion" value="5.4-"/>

    <!-- Rules: Include the base ruleset for WP-CLI projects. -->
    <rule ref="WP_CLI_CS"/>

</ruleset>

All other PHPCS configuration options are, of course, available. The PHP snippets embedded in your feature files are checked along with the rest of the package. See Checking the code style of the PHP blocks in feature files below.

Optionally add a phpstan-feature-files.neon.dist file to the package root to also run PHPStan over the PHP snippets embedded in your feature files. See Analysing the PHP blocks in feature files below.
Update your composer dependencies and regenerate your autoloader and binary folders:
```
composer update
```

You are now ready to use the testing framework from within your package.

Launching the tests

You can use the following commands to control the tests:

composer prepare-tests - Set up the database that is needed for running the functional tests. This is only needed once.
composer test - Run all test suites.
composer lint - Run only the linting test suite.
composer lint-gherkin - Run only the Gherkin linter over the feature files.
composer phpcs - Run only the code sniffer test suite.
composer phpcbf - Run only the code sniffer cleanup.
composer phpstan - Run only the static analysis.
composer phpunit - Run only the unit test suite.
composer behat - Run only the functional test suite.

Analysing the PHP blocks in feature files

Feature files embed PHP snippets in docstrings, which none of the static analysis tools normally look at:

Given a wp-content/mu-plugins/test-harness.php file:
  """
  <?php
  WP_CLI::add_command( 'test-harness', 'Test_Harness' );
  """

Adding a phpstan-feature-files.neon.dist file to the package root makes composer phpstan analyse those snippets as well. The blocks are extracted into standalone PHP files that are padded so their line numbers match the feature file, which is what allows errors to be reported against the feature file itself:

 features/command.feature
  438    Parameter #1 $message of static method WP_CLI::log() expects string, int<0, max> given.
         🪪  argument.type

The defaults in phpstan/feature-files.neon are applied first, so the file only needs to hold what it wants to change. An empty file is enough to run with the defaults, and a level of its own looks like this:

parameters:
	level: 4

Do note that snippets in feature files are fixtures, not production code, and that they run inside a WordPress installation the analysis knows nothing about. Expect to have to ignore errors that are not actually wrong, such as functions a scenario deliberately leaves undefined.

An ignore matches against the extracted file rather than the feature file it came from. Those files are named <feature file>_L<first line>_E<last line>.php, with the feature file relative to the features directory, so ignoring an error for a whole feature file takes a pattern:

parameters:
	ignoreErrors:
		-
			identifier: function.notFound
			path: */shutdown-handler.feature_L*.php

Since the blocks are analysed in more than one run (see below), an ignore that no run matches is not reported. A pattern that matches nothing at all therefore goes unnoticed, so it is worth checking that the error it targets is really gone.

Two kinds of blocks are left out of the analysis, and are listed at the end of the run:

Blocks that are not standalone PHP, such as snippets holding a placeholder that Behat substitutes (get_the_title( {POST_ID} )) or code that is deliberately broken to test error handling. PHPStan stops analysing altogether when a single file fails to parse, so these have to be skipped.
Docstrings that neither belong to a step creating a .php file nor open with <?php, since those are not necessarily PHP at all. The second rule covers PHP files that are not named *.php, such as the .maintenance file of a WordPress installation.

Blocks that declare the same class or function as another block are analysed separately from each other, so that PHPStan does not resolve a name to the wrong block's declaration.

Checking the code style of the PHP blocks in feature files

composer phpcs also checks the PHP snippets that feature files embed in docstrings, and composer phpcbf fixes them in place. No configuration is needed, and like the analysis above the blocks are padded so that findings are reported against the feature file itself:

FILE: features/command.feature
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOUND 1 ERROR AFFECTING 1 LINE
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 438 | ERROR | [x] Expected 1 space after IF keyword; 0 found
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Only a docstring belonging to a step that creates a .php file is checked:

Given a wp-content/mu-plugins/test-harness.php file:
  """
  <?php
  WP_CLI::add_command( 'test-harness', 'Test_Harness' );
  """

Unlike the analysis above, a docstring that merely opens with <?php does not count. Those are routinely an expectation about the contents of a file rather than a file, and reformatting one would make it stop matching what it is checked against.

The defaults leave out the sniffs that look at a block as if it were a file of its own, along with those that ask of a fixture what is only worth asking of production code. They live in phpcs/feature-files.sh and are shared by the check and the fixer, so that the two cannot disagree over which sniff applies. A package replaces them wholesale by adding a phpcs-feature-files.xml (or phpcs-feature-files.xml.dist) ruleset to its root:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="WP-CLI-PROJECT-NAME-feature-files">
    <arg name="warning-severity" value="0"/>

    <rule ref="WP_CLI_CS">
        <exclude name="Generic.Files.InlineHTML"/>
        <exclude name="Squiz.Commenting.FileComment"/>
    </rule>
</ruleset>

The blocks are left alone when a run is narrowed down to a path, as in composer phpcs -- src/, since such an argument is about the files of the package itself.

Controlling what to test

To send one or more arguments to one of the test tools, prepend the argument(s) with a double dash. As an example, here's how to run the functional tests for a specific feature file only:

composer behat -- features/cli-info.feature

Prepending with the double dash is needed because the arguments would otherwise be sent to Composer itself, not the tool that Composer executes.

The same mechanism works for narrowing a run down further, or for bailing out early:

# A single scenario, identified by the line it starts on.
composer behat -- features/cli-info.feature:12

# Every scenario carrying a given tag.
composer behat -- --tags=@require-wp-5.0

# Stop at the first failing scenario instead of running the whole suite.
composer behat -- --stop-on-failure

# Re-run only the scenarios that failed the last time.
composer behat-rerun

Linting the feature files

composer lint-gherkin checks features/ with gherkin-lint-plus, against the .gherkin-lintrc ruleset shipped with this package. A project that needs different rules can override it by committing its own .gherkin-lintrc.

The linter is a Node package, so it is run through npx and needs Node.js 20 or later. Where npx is not available the check reports that it is skipping, rather than failing a suite that is otherwise entirely PHP. Its version is pinned in this package's package.json, which exists only to hold that pin.

Controlling the amount of output

Two environment variables make the test tools less chatty. Both are unset by default, which leaves the output exactly as it has always been.

NO_COLOR (the no-color.org convention) turns off the ANSI color codes in the output of every runner. Set this when capturing output to a file or a pipe, where the escape sequences are noise.
WP_CLI_TEST_QUIET switches the reporters to their most compact form: PHP_CodeSniffer reports one file:line:col line per violation with no progress ticker, PHPStan reports one file:line:message line per error with no progress bar and no result table. This covers the analysis of the PHP files themselves; the checks over the PHP blocks embedded in feature files keep their own reports, which are rewritten to point back at the feature file a block came from. Behat's own output is already minimal, so it is unaffected.

NO_COLOR also covers the Gherkin linter, which colors its report unconditionally and has no plain output format of its own.

NO_COLOR=1 WP_CLI_TEST_QUIET=1 composer phpstan

This is worth setting permanently in environments that read the output back rather than display it, such as an AI coding agent's shell:

export NO_COLOR=1
export WP_CLI_TEST_QUIET=1

Controlling the test environment

WordPress Version

You can run the tests against a specific version of WordPress by setting the WP_VERSION environment variable.

This variable understands any numeric version, as well as the special terms latest and trunk.

Note: This only applies to the Behat functional tests. All other tests never load WordPress.

Here's how to run your tests against the latest trunk version of WordPress:

WP_VERSION=trunk composer behat

Resolving latest, or a X.Y version without a patch number, needs the WordPress versions data, which is fetched once and cached in the system temp directory for a day. Repeated runs do not repeat the request, and a run without connectivity falls back to the last known copy. WP_CLI_TEST_WP_VERSION_CACHE_TTL sets the lifetime of that cache in seconds; 0 fetches it every time.

WordPress Archive

Instead of downloading WordPress from WordPress.org, you can run the tests against an arbitrary WordPress ZIP archive by setting the WP_CLI_TEST_CORE_ZIP environment variable. It accepts either a path to a local archive or an HTTP(S) URL.

This is useful to test against a WordPress build that has not been released, such as the ZIP file produced by the WordPress core build process.

WP_CLI_TEST_CORE_ZIP=~/Downloads/wordpress.zip composer behat

The archive may contain WordPress at its root, or wrapped in a single folder — both wordpress/ (as used by WordPress.org releases) and build/ (as used by some WordPress core build artifacts) work. Archives are extracted once and then cached, keyed by their contents.

WP_VERSION still determines which version-specific tags (@require-wp-6.4, @less-than-wp-6.4) are filtered out, since the version of a development build cannot be compared meaningfully. It defaults to trunk when an archive is set, which runs every scenario. Set it explicitly when the archive holds a specific release:

WP_VERSION=6.4.2 WP_CLI_TEST_CORE_ZIP=~/Downloads/wordpress-6.4.2.zip composer behat

Note that steps requesting an explicit version, such as Given a WP 6.4.2 installation, keep downloading that version from WordPress.org and ignore the archive.

Environment-specific scenarios

Some scenarios can only run in certain environments. Tagging them makes the test framework filter them out everywhere else, rather than having them fail for reasons unrelated to what they test.

@require-wp-stable — the scenario needs a version of WordPress that WordPress.org knows about, such as one verifying an installation against the published checksums. It is skipped when WP_CLI_TEST_CORE_ZIP is set, and when WP_VERSION is trunk or nightly.
@require-mysql-socket — the scenario connects to the database through a socket. It is skipped when there is none, which is the case when the database server runs in a container and is only reachable over TCP. Set WP_CLI_TEST_DBSOCKET to point at the socket if it lives somewhere unusual.

WP-CLI Binary

You can run the tests against a specific WP-CLI binary, instead of using the one that has been built in your project's vendor/bin folder.

This can be useful to run your tests against a specific Phar version of WP_CLI.

To do this, you can set the WP_CLI_BIN_DIR environment variable to point to a folder that contains an executable wp binary. Note: the binary has to be named wp to be properly recognized.

As an example, here's how to run your tests against a specific Phar version you've downloaded.

# Prepare the binary you've downloaded into the ~/wp-cli folder first.
mv ~/wp-cli/wp-cli-1.2.0.phar ~/wp-cli/wp
chmod +x ~/wp-cli/wp

WP_CLI_BIN_DIR=~/wp-cli composer behat

Setting up the tests in Travis CI

Basic rules for setting up the test framework with Travis CI:

composer prepare-tests needs to be called once per environment.
linting and sniffing is a static analysis, so it shouldn't depend on any specific environment. You should do this only once, as a separate stage, instead of per environment.
composer behat || composer behat-rerun causes the Behat tests to run in their entirety first, and in case their were failed scenarios, a second run is done with only the failed scenarios. This usually gets around intermittent issues like timeouts or similar.

Here's a basic setup of how you can configure Travis CI to work with the test framework (extract):

install:
  - composer install
  - composer prepare-tests

script:
  - composer phpunit
  - composer behat || composer behat-rerun

jobs:
  include:
    - stage: sniff
      script:
        - composer lint
        - composer phpcs
      env: BUILD=sniff
    - stage: test
      php: 7.2
      env: WP_VERSION=latest
    - stage: test
      php: 7.2
      env: WP_VERSION=3.7.11
    - stage: test
      php: 7.2
      env: WP_VERSION=trunk

WP-CLI version

You can point the tests to a specific version of WP-CLI through the WP_CLI_BIN_DIR constant:

WP_CLI_BIN_DIR=~/my-custom-wp-cli/bin composer behat

WordPress version

If you want to run the feature tests against a specific WordPress version, you can use the WP_VERSION constant:

WP_VERSION=4.2 composer behat

The WP_VERSION constant also understands the latest and trunk as valid version targets.

The database credentials

By default, the tests are run in a database named wp_cli_test with the user also named wp_cli_test with password password1. This should be set up via the composer prepare-tests command.

The following environment variables can be set to override the default database credentials.

WP_CLI_TEST_DBHOST is the host to use and can include a port, i.e "127.0.0.1:33060" (defaults to "localhost")
WP_CLI_TEST_DBROOTUSER is the user that has permission to administer databases and users (defaults to "root").
WP_CLI_TEST_DBROOTPASS is the password to use for the above user (defaults to an empty password).
WP_CLI_TEST_DBNAME is the database that the tests run under (defaults to "wp_cli_test").
WP_CLI_TEST_DBUSER is the user that the tests run under (defaults to "wp_cli_test").
WP_CLI_TEST_DBPASS is the password to use for the above user (defaults to "password1").
WP_CLI_TEST_DBTYPE is the database engine type to use, i.e. "sqlite" for running tests on SQLite instead of MySQL (defaults to "mysql").
WP_CLI_TEST_OBJECT_CACHE is the persistent object cache backend to use. Only supports "sqlite".

Environment variables can be set for the whole session via the following syntax: export WP_CLI_TEST_DBNAME=custom_db.

They can also be set for a single execution by prepending them before the Behat command: WP_CLI_TEST_DBNAME=custom_db composer behat.

Contributing

We appreciate you taking the initiative to contribute to this project.

Contributing isn’t limited to just code. We encourage you to contribute in the way that best fits your abilities, by writing tutorials, giving a demo at your local meetup, helping other users with their support questions, or revising our documentation.

For a more thorough introduction, check out WP-CLI's guide to contributing. This package follows those policy and guidelines.

Reporting a bug

Think you’ve found a bug? We’d love for you to help us get it fixed.

Before you create a new issue, you should search existing issues to see if there’s an existing resolution to it, or if it’s already been fixed in a newer version.

Once you’ve done a bit of searching and discovered there isn’t an open or fixed issue for your bug, please create a new issue. Include as much detail as you can, and clear steps to reproduce if possible. For more guidance, review our bug report documentation.

Creating a pull request

Want to contribute a new feature? Please first open a new issue to discuss whether the feature is a good fit for the project.

Once you've decided to commit the time to seeing your pull request through, please follow our guidelines for creating a pull request to make sure it's a pleasant experience. See "Setting up" for details specific to working on this package locally.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Support

GitHub issues aren't for general support questions. For support resources and next steps, see the WP-CLI Support page: https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/support/

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
.readme-partials		.readme-partials
WP_CLI_CS		WP_CLI_CS
bin		bin
features		features
phpcs		phpcs
phpstan		phpstan
src		src
tests		tests
utils		utils
.actrc		.actrc
.distignore		.distignore
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gherkin-lintrc		.gherkin-lintrc
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
.typos.toml		.typos.toml
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
behat.yml		behat.yml
codecov.yml		codecov.yml
composer.json		composer.json
extension.neon		extension.neon
package.json		package.json
phpcs.xml.dist		phpcs.xml.dist
phpstan-feature-files.neon.dist		phpstan-feature-files.neon.dist
phpstan.neon.dist		phpstan.neon.dist
phpunit.xml.dist		phpunit.xml.dist

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wp-cli/wp-cli-tests

Using

Launching the tests

Analysing the PHP blocks in feature files

Checking the code style of the PHP blocks in feature files

Controlling what to test

Linting the feature files

Controlling the amount of output

Controlling the test environment

WordPress Version

WordPress Archive

Environment-specific scenarios

WP-CLI Binary

Setting up the tests in Travis CI

WP-CLI version

WordPress version

The database credentials

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wp-cli/wp-cli-tests

Using

Launching the tests

Analysing the PHP blocks in feature files

Checking the code style of the PHP blocks in feature files

Controlling what to test

Linting the feature files

Controlling the amount of output

Controlling the test environment

WordPress Version

WordPress Archive

Environment-specific scenarios

WP-CLI Binary

Setting up the tests in Travis CI

WP-CLI version

WordPress version

The database credentials

Contributing

Reporting a bug

Creating a pull request

License

Support

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