Local Environment: Auto-activate plugin or theme when running for the first time

[danielbachhuber]

When running wp-now for the first time in a plugin or theme directory, it would be nice if the codebase was automatically activated.

However, we don't want to re-activate on server start if the user already deactivated the plugin or theme.

Done is:

• Running wp-now for the first time auto-activates the plugin or theme.

[dmsnell]

In my fork I created an auto-mount of mu-plugins for this purpose
8c8e29f07

it's different than auto-activating a plugin, but I thought it was in a less surprising way that keeps control in the hands of the person using the tool - it's a behavior already there in WordPress and not a new surprise inside the Playground

[danielbachhuber]

Makes sense. We automatically log the user in, though, so I think it's reasonable that auto-activating the plugin could be seen as a sensible default.

[dmsnell]

there's at least one difference to consider: auto-activating carries side-effects. the activation hook never runs for mu-plugins. in some cases it would be helpful to activate the plugin because of this; in other cases it could clobber something on the site.

it is pretty easy to run an activation hook manually via mu-plugins

just wanted to note this here as a possible good idea with unanticipated consequences.

[danielbachhuber]

auto-activating carries side-effects. the activation hook never runs for mu-plugins. in some cases it would be helpful to activate the plugin because of this; in other cases it could clobber something on the site.

Ah, good point.

[danielbachhuber]

I wonder if it would make sense to add WP-CLI support first (WordPress/playground-tools#25), and then handle theme auto-activation with WP-CLI...

[adamziel]

@danielbachhuber you can already auto-activate plugins using the activatePlugin function from the @wp-playground/blueprints package:

wordpress-playground/packages/playground/blueprints/src/lib/steps/activate-plugin.ts

Lines 4 to 19 in eeb6b06

	export interface ActivatePluginStep {
	step: 'activatePlugin';
	plugin: string;
	}
	/**
	* Activates a WordPress plugin in the Playground.
	*
	* @param playground The playground client.
	* @param plugin The plugin slug.
	*/
	export const activatePlugin: StepHandler<ActivatePluginStep> = async (
	playground,
	{ plugin },
	progress
	) => {

In general, I'd like to keep adding these utilities to Blueprints even if they overlap with what's already implemented wp-cli. This is because wp-cli is 5MB and I want to avoid loading it in most Playground installations on the web. cc @sejas

[danielbachhuber]

@adamziel Cool, works for me 👍

[sejas]

• wp now: activate plugin and theme the first time #351