Refactor Studio to depend on CLI for import/export by fredrikekelund · Pull Request #3129 · Automattic/studio

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-17T14:41:47Z

Related issues

Fixes STU-1540
Build on Moved import/export event types and schemas to common #3110

How AI was used in this PR

Codex and Claude were used extensively to review the refactor, focusing on the overall implementation and individual aspects, such as error handling.

Proposed Changes

This PR makes Studio depend on the CLI for import/export, rather than maintaining duplicate import/export implementations in both apps/cli and apps/studio.

We achieve this by using the existing event architecture for importers and exporters and forwarding events from the CLI to Studio over IPC, allowing the importers/exporters and the UI state management to remain largely intact.

A few things to note about the change:

Some of the import/export and sync wiring (like displaying error modals or notifications, and calling file cleanup functions) used to be part of the renderer process. This has been moved to the main Electron process.
To support push use cases, I've added two options to the CLI export command: --split-db-dump-by-table, and --include-only. Both options are hidden from the CLI's regular --help output.
Moreover, the export command now supports --mode=content (which is useful for selective pushing when only files are selected, and not the database). We also support .zip and .tar.gz extensions for --mode=db exports (which is useful for selective pushing when the database is selected).
To support Studio's behavior of always starting a server after an import, I've added the --start-server option to the import CLI command.

Testing Instructions

Test full-site exports from Studio
Test database-only exports from Studio
Test full-site pull operations in Studio
Test selective pull operations in Studio
Test full-site push operations in Studio
Test selective push operations in Studio
Test node apps/cli/dist/cli/main.mjs export --path PATH_TO_SITE
Test node apps/cli/dist/cli/main.mjs import --path PATH_TO_SITE

Pre-merge Checklist

Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-20T10:40:44Z

+function handleExportIpc( emitter: ImportExportEventEmitter ) {
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.EXPORT_START, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.EXPORT_START, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_START, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_START, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.WP_CONTENT_EXPORT_START, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.WP_CONTENT_EXPORT_START, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.WP_CONTENT_EXPORT_COMPLETE, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.WP_CONTENT_EXPORT_COMPLETE, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.DATABASE_EXPORT_START, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.DATABASE_EXPORT_START, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.DATABASE_EXPORT_COMPLETE, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.DATABASE_EXPORT_COMPLETE, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_PROGRESS, ( progressData ) => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_PROGRESS, progressData ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_COMPLETE, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.BACKUP_CREATE_COMPLETE, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.CONFIG_EXPORT_START, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.CONFIG_EXPORT_START, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.CONFIG_EXPORT_COMPLETE, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.CONFIG_EXPORT_COMPLETE, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.EXPORT_COMPLETE, () => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.EXPORT_COMPLETE, undefined ] );
+	} );
+	emitter.on( ExportEvents.EXPORT_ERROR, ( error ) => {
+		sendIpcEvent( [ ExportEvents.EXPORT_ERROR, error ] );
+	} );
+}


This obviously repeats a lot of the handleExportEvents implementation, but iterating over ExportEvents in a type-safe way is not trivial. Unless I'm missing some brilliant solution to this, I think the best approach is to just accept the duplication and potentially do a more cohesive refactor in the future.

Same thing for the import command.

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-20T10:45:34Z

This is a good place to start reviewing the implementation. This file defines IPC functions that Electron exposes to the renderer process. It triggers the CLI processes by calling executeExportCliCommand and executeImportCliCommand.

…1540-continued-studio-import-export-refactor

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-20T10:57:28Z

 		"@wordpress/i18n": "^6.9.0",
 		"@wordpress/icons": "^11.4.0",
 		"@wordpress/react-i18n": "^4.41.0",
-		"archiver": "^7.0.1",


archiver was only used by the import/export implementation. I removed the dependency and the associated patch.

…actor

wpmobilebot · 2026-04-20T11:54:38Z

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing c0ddf30 vs trunk

app-size

Metric	trunk	`c0ddf30`	Diff	Change
App Size (Mac)	1492.93 MB	1482.72 MB	10.21 MB	🟢 -0.7%

site-editor

Metric	trunk	`c0ddf30`	Diff	Change
load	1519 ms	1883 ms	+364 ms	🔴 24.0%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	`c0ddf30`	Diff	Change
siteCreation	8114 ms	8146 ms	+32 ms	⚪ 0.0%
siteStartup	4962 ms	4944 ms	18 ms	⚪ 0.0%

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change (<50ms diff)

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-21T06:54:23Z

For the record, I'm looking into the E2E test that's failing on Windows.

…actor

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-21T13:49:49Z

This PR removed the last SQLite version management operations from apps/studio, so I took the opportunity to remove this file, too 👍

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-21T13:51:19Z

+	if ( wasNotRunning && running ) {
+		void captureSiteThumbnail( siteId );
+		await server.getThemeDetails();
+	}


While going over the smoke testing suite, I noticed that thumbnails and theme details were failing to load when I created a new site by importing an archive. I don't believe that was because of my other changes in this PR. In any case, this change fixes that 👍

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-21T13:57:23Z

A good chunk of this file became stale due to my other changes in this PR. I could have asked AI to refactor it, but I don't think that provides us with any real assurances, so I opted to just remove it. That's because these tests relied too heavily on mocks or tested things that are now assured by proper Typescript types.

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-21T14:35:11Z

For clarity, I've run this through multiple rounds of local review, and I've run the import/export and sync smoke tests against this PR.

This PR is definitely ready for review now 👍

bcotrim

Possible regression worth double-checking: cancelling a push/pull doesn't stop the CLI child process.

Repro: inflate a site's wp-content/uploads/ to a decent size, push, then hit Cancel mid-backup. UI shows "Cancelled" instantly, but ps | grep 'main.mjs export' shows the child still running and $TMPDIR/com.wordpress.studio//site_.tar.gz keeps growing until the CLI finishes on its own.

Can you replicate this issue?

…actor

fredrikekelund · 2026-04-22T07:31:00Z

Good catch, @bcotrim. I've pushed a fix that kills the CLI child process when a push operation is aborted 👍

…actor

bcotrim

LGTM 👍
Couldn't find any regressions during my tests.

Added a minor comment, but it's not something I would consider a blocker.

bcotrim · 2026-04-23T10:22:48Z

+	'No suitable backup handler found for the provided backup file',
+];
+
+function isExpectedImportError( error: unknown ): boolean {


Did you consider adding error codes to the payload? The substring matches in isExpectedImportError and the 'Error: absolute path: /' check are locale-fragile and library-fragile. If any parsing is necessary, the CLI should own it and send a structured code over IPC.

That's a good point. This logic was there before, too, though. I'd consider this a good follow-up

Conflicts in apps/studio/src/hooks/use-import-export.tsx and the deletion of its test file: trunk's #3129 refactored the hook to depend on the CLI for import/export, removing Sentry, useSiteDetails, error formatting, and the BackupArchiveInfo path. Took trunk's simpler structure and re-applied the logout cleanup block (useAuth + useRootSelector + useRef-based pre-logout pull-active snapshot driving the setImportState/setExportState reset). Dropped the isError flag on ImportProgressState and the matching pullImportFailed workaround in sync-connected-sites.tsx: trunk's pull thunk now propagates importSite errors via pullStates.failed, so the "dismiss button stuck disabled" bug those addressed is no longer reachable. Accepted trunk's deletion of use-import-export.test.tsx as part of the legacy-test cleanup.

fredrikekelund added 12 commits April 16, 2026 09:17

Moved import/export event types and schemas to common

b21e9d6

Rename some stuff

20c8b24

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-studio-depends-on-cli-import-export

4d15b52

Union types with tuples instead of object schemas

8d11952

First working export implementation

f096801

First working import implementation

553847f

Continued import/export implementation

7d11c8e

Clean up legacy tests

ff15ccd

Error handling

8457852

Tweaks based on review

02deadf

Tweak

3ac21f2

Don't bubble importSite and exportSite errors in renderer

d9242d1

fredrikekelund requested a review from a team April 17, 2026 14:41

fredrikekelund self-assigned this Apr 17, 2026

cbravobernal mentioned this pull request Apr 17, 2026

Experiment: UI for linking external plugins and themes #3128

Draft

8 tasks

fredrikekelund added 10 commits April 20, 2026 08:30

Address review comments

a03d737

Address review comments

9bf7570

Fix tests

b63aecc

Minor fixes

7886039

Prevent error modals from displaying twice

b2e6ac3

Cleaner contract between ipc-handlers and execute-command

e188ae0

Fix full export

163839b

Address review comments

372a48c

Tweaks

a36d35c

Address review comments

96be5bb

fredrikekelund commented Apr 20, 2026

View reviewed changes

fredrikekelund added 2 commits April 20, 2026 12:49

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-studio-depends-on-cli-import-export

689219b

Merge branch 'stu-1540-studio-depends-on-cli-import-export' into stu-…

7a9cdeb

…1540-continued-studio-import-export-refactor

fredrikekelund commented Apr 20, 2026

View reviewed changes

Base automatically changed from stu-1540-studio-depends-on-cli-import-export to trunk April 20, 2026 11:14

fredrikekelund added 2 commits April 20, 2026 13:30

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-continued-studio-import-export-ref…

4643df6

…actor

Cleanup

126ef61

Attempt to fix E2E test

ed1e4b2

fredrikekelund added 7 commits April 21, 2026 10:11

Emit site event after starting server in import command

095d68d

Debug Windows E2E test

a356342

Remove sqlite-versions.ts

ee87a3d

Fixing

063c9c7

Remove debugging

38d1bcb

Tweaks

e385973

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-continued-studio-import-export-ref…

1dee5aa

…actor

fredrikekelund commented Apr 21, 2026

View reviewed changes

fredrikekelund added 2 commits April 21, 2026 16:00

Move newly added test file

04d6867

Undo unrelated change

ee3604c

bcotrim reviewed Apr 21, 2026

View reviewed changes

fredrikekelund added 2 commits April 22, 2026 09:27

Kill export child process when aborting push

9977688

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-continued-studio-import-export-ref…

4290f9d

…actor

fredrikekelund mentioned this pull request Apr 22, 2026

Read bundled CLI dependencies directly from wp-files #3125

Merged

5 tasks

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-1540-continued-studio-import-export-ref…

c0ddf30

…actor

bcotrim approved these changes Apr 23, 2026

View reviewed changes

fredrikekelund merged commit 9d0add3 into trunk Apr 23, 2026
14 checks passed

fredrikekelund deleted the stu-1540-continued-studio-import-export-refactor branch April 23, 2026 10:36

ivan-ottinger mentioned this pull request Apr 23, 2026

Add .deployignore support to Site Sync #2955

Merged

1 task

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wpmobilebot commented Apr 20, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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📊 Performance Test Results

app-size

site-editor

site-startup

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fredrikekelund commented Apr 21, 2026

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fredrikekelund commented Apr 17, 2026 •

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