Custom WordPress build with plugins

[eliot-akira]

I'd like to create a custom build of wp.data with pre-installed plugins. I got pretty close to achieving it, but for some reason the admin screen shows no plugins. Here's what I did:

• Edit wasm-build/wordpress-data/prepare-wordpress.sh to download, unzip, and move a plugin folder into ./wordpress/wp-content/plugins/
• Run npm run build:wp && npm run publish:wp:web

I confirmed that the plugin's static assets were copied to dist-web/wp-content/plugins. I looked in the built file dist-web/wp.js, and the plugin's file paths are included from /preload/wordpress/wp-content/plugins - so I assume the files were successfullly included in wp.data. But somehow the WordPress instance in the browser is not recognizing it.

Any idea or hint would be greatly appreciated.

[eliot-akira]

Using the postMessage function created in app.mjs, I was able to run PHP code via the web worker for debugging.

window.wpWorker = { postMessage }

From the browser console, I could see the contents of the virtual file system.

const { stdout } = await wpWorker.postMessage({
  type: 'run_php',
  code: `<?php
    echo json_encode(
      scandir(__DIR__.'/wp-content/plugins/'),
      JSON_PRETTY_PRINT
    );
  `
})
console.log(stdout)

And the pre-installed plugin does exist there.

(As a tangent, it's probably better to copy it into mu-plugins to be activated by default.)

So, that confirms the build script is successfully including the plugin files in wp.data. That narrows down the cause of the issue somewhat - but still mysterious why the WordPress instance isn't seeing the plugin.

[eliot-akira]

Solved. I added the following line in prepare-wordpress.sh to create a file at mu-plugins/index.php which loads specific plugins.

echo "<?php
require_once ABSPATH.'wp-content/mu-plugins/plugin-name/plugin-name.php';
" > wordpress/wp-content/mu-plugins/index.php

[adamziel]

Let's add that to first iteration of technical docs, cross-linking with #12