WordPress Bedrock example

This is a Bedrock setup example for Forest.host. The goal of this repository is to provide a WordPress setup that we can build and deploy on Forest and locally!

Contents

1. Composer & Bedrock
2. How to use this setup?
3. Deploy on Forest.host

Composer & Bedrock

This package uses Composer to install WordPress, plugins and themes. The Bedrock setup helps us making more sense of the environment (configuration, folder setup).

How to use this setup?

Starting a new project

Each project needs it's own repository. We use this repository as a blueprint for that.

1. Fork or copy this repository providing it with the name of the project
2. Edit the file .env.example. In this file you want to change:
   1. WP_HOME - this is the url of the site
   2. Salts - for security dont forget to create and add keys
3. Make other desired changes

Editing

To make changes to this site, meaning plugins, themes and configuration and not content and WordPress admin related stuff, you need to edit this repository. For more visit Bedrock.

1. Clone/pull this repository
2. Make desired changes
3. If composer.json was edited run: composer update
4. Test:
   • Minimal test run: composer install --prefer-dist --no-interaction
   • Full test. Run: composer install --prefer-dist --no-interaction and setup a (local) server to test the site.
5. Push changes (if connected to Forest, this will be build and deployed)

Adding plugins and themes

Plugins and themes are managed by Composer. To add additional plugins and themes, add them to the Composer file. Make sure to check if the plugins/themes exist. You can search for their existence here: https://wpackagist.org/. After adding plugins and themes run: composer update and commit the changes.

Adding pro-plugins

Paid plugins are often not part of the WordPress.org repository. Therefore we need to add the manually. The strategy of this setup is to add them to the repository.

1. Add the plugin folder to either web/app/plugins/ or web/app/mu-plugins/
   • Note that mu-plugins stands for "must use". These plugins cannot be turned off and therefore are always activated. In order to deactivate such a plugin you'll need to remove it from this repository and redeploy.
2. Add a line to .gitignore telling GIT to not ignore this plugin.
   • Say we want to add wordpress-seo. In that case the line in .gitignore will be: !web/app/plugins/wordpress-seo/

Notes on folder structure

Also good to knows:

• Dont add files to / change files in:
  • web/wp
  • web/app/uploads
• Dont change the following files:
  • All files in above directories
  • web/wp-config.php
  • web/index.php

Deploying on Forest.host

On Forest we have to setup a project and environment. An environment is linked to a branch in a repository. Thus we can have a single project (mysite.nl) with 2 branches (master and staging) and 2 environment on Forest (master and staging). Both can have their own configuration. By setting WP_ENV as an environment variable on Forest we can tell Bedrock which configuration to use. The configurations for environments can be found here: config/environments/. So if we set WP_ENV to production on Forest we tell it to load the configuration file: config/environments/production.php.

Now let's get started setting everything up on Forest:

1. Create a project/environment (give it a name and correct branch)
2. We can pick the Bedrock on PHP blueprint as that is fully configured for this setup already
3. In the PHP service tile select this repository
4. Click on Go to edit mode
5. We need to add the following build command to the PHP service:
   • composer install --prefer-dist --no-interaction
6. The deploy path for this project is: /
7. We can now save this by clicking on Create project or Create environment
8. Navigate to variables and add WP_ENV as a variable with the value of the configuration file you want to use. In most cases this will be production.

This repository already includes configuration for a production and staging environment on Forest (see: /config/environments/production.php and staging.php). Here you'll see that the database credentials are provided as environment variables by Forest.

Forest has now linked this environment to this repository's given branch. All we need to do now is deploy! A deploy is triggered by a new commit the repository. Make some nice changes and when you do git push you'll be seeing the build running on Forest!

Adding domains

Before you add a domain to your environment on Forest make sure the domain points to Forest's loadbalancer.

1. Point the domain to 45.135.56.67 (using an A-record or Cname)
2. When the DNS is resolved you can add it to Forest

Deploy!

Always test locally first! At the very least run Composer (composer install) so you know it wont error when building on Forest. At this point we have setup our repository with the projects code and an environment on Forest. GitHub let's Forest know when changes are made to this repository. When Forest spots a change in the branch that is connected it will clone the code from this repository, run the build commands and if there are no errors it will deploy this code. So to trigger a deploy on Forest, all you need to do is: git push origin MY_BRANCH (Where MY_BRANCH is the environment/branch name. So most of the times this will be master, staging, or testing.