How to Use the WP-CLI to Manage Your WordPress Site

With the different commands available on WP-CLI, there is nothing that cannot be done via the command line. Find below a list of some actions that can be performed using commands.

1. Install and Update WordPress
Downloading and installing WordPress on your site is the most fundamental task you can accomplish with WP-CLI

To download WordPress use this command:

wp core download

To refine the download further to the version you want use this command:

wp core download --locale=en-US

This command will download the English version of WordPress

Proceed to install WordPress using the install command:

wp core install --url=testing.com --title=Example --admin_user=supervisor --admin_password=strongpassword [email protected]

Note: Replace the default values with your credentials.

Test the installation to confirm WordPress has been successfully installed using this command:

wp core version

Update to the latest version using this command:

wp core update

2 . Manage Themes and Plugins

There are different ways to manage themes and plugins using WP-CLI, let’s take a look at some of the basic options

Managing Themes via WP-CLI

To list installed themes use this command:

wp theme list

To list all inactive themes as a CSV list, use this command:

wp theme list --status=inactive --format=csv

To change an active theme to twenty-twenty, use this command:

wp theme activate twenty twenty

To search for themes with Bootstrap support:

wp theme search bootstrap

Using this command, proceed to install and activate:

wp theme install the-bootstrap-blog --activate

To enable a theme using Twenty twenty theme, use this command:

wp theme enable twenty twenty

To update themes use this command:

wp theme update --all

To list all currently installed plugins, use this command:

Managing Plugins via WP-CLI

To install and activate a plugin use this command:

wp plugin install litespeed-cache --activate

Run this command to update plugins:

wp plugin update --all

Note that the –all parameter is used to update all installed plugins.
This can be changed to a specific plugin by replacing –all with the plugin name.

Using the litespeed-cache plugin, disable and uninstall a plugin:

wp plugin deactivate  litespeed-cache –uninstall

To activate any inactive plugin, use this command:

wp plugin activate  litespeed-cache

To find WordPress cache plugins use the following command:

wp plugin search cache

To delete plugins use the wp plugin delete command:

wp plugin delete litespeed-cache

3. Create a Child Theme

By using the scaffold command, you can generate a child theme that includes the functions.php and style.css files. We recommend that you do this if you want to make changes to an existing theme. When you use a child theme, any customization won’t be lost after new software updates.

To do this, you’ll simply need to specify the slug for the new child theme, and for the theme, you’re using as the ‘parent.’ In this example, we are creating a child based on the Twenty Twenty theme, and we’re giving it the slug twenty-twenty-child:

wp scaffold child-theme twenty-twenty-child --parent_theme=twentytwenty

You will get a successful message that the child theme has been created.
and find the child theme in the specified template.

4. Moderate Comments

With WP-CLI, you can quickly create, edit and delete comments making managing comments much easier. There are many comment subcommands you can use, but let’s look at some of the most basic options.

To add a new comment, use this command. This command will add a comment to a post with the post ID of 10, and state the author and contents:

wp comment create --comment_post_ID=10 --comment_content="This is my comment" --comment_author="author-name"

This command will return a table containing the comment ID and author name for all approved comments on the post with an ID of 5:

wp comment list --number=5 --status=approve --fields=ID,comment_author

To delete comments, specify the comment IDs individually, like this:

wp comment delete 46

To delete multiple comments using the force parameter, which permanently deletes comments instead of adding them to the trash bin:

wp comment delete 3 25 46 54 --force

Using WP-CLI commands you can work through your site’s comments

5. Update the WP-CLI

You should always make sure that WP-CLI is updated at all times.

To update WP-CLI run the following command:

wp cli update

If your version is updated, you will get a successful message confirming this, however, if you are running a version that is not updated, you will be prompted to accept the installation, selecting yes will get WP-CLI updated

With a simple interface like WP-CLI you can perform functions unavailable in WordPress, complete multiple tasks using a single command and improve productivity,