Pressready

The problem

Upgrading PHP or WordPress on a site with dozens of third-party plugins is a gamble. There is no way to know what breaks until it breaks — in production. Pressready changes that.

How it works

One scan, two engines. Pressready runs PHPCompatibility and its own WordPress sniff in a single PHP_CodeSniffer pass.

The dataset is regenerable against any wordpress-develop checkout: php bin/gen-wp-deprecations.php --src=/path/to/wordpress-develop/src --out=data/wp-deprecations.json. Re-run each WordPress release to refresh for free.

Severity model

Every finding is classified into one tier. The verdict and --fail-on key on true fatals only, so the report never cries wolf.

Install

Pressready is a Composer dev tool. It registers the Pressready PHPCS standard automatically via dealerdirect/phpcodesniffer-composer-installer.

PHP 8.2–8.4 detection needs the pre-release PHPCompatibility 10 engine, so your project must allow dev stability (it still prefers stable everywhere else) and allow the PHPCS installer plugins.

# Configure your project once
composer config minimum-stability dev
composer config prefer-stable true
composer config --no-plugins allow-plugins.dealerdirect/phpcodesniffer-composer-installer true
composer config --no-plugins allow-plugins.phpcsstandards/phpcsutils true

# Add to your project as a dev dependency
composer require --dev itzmekhokan/pressready

# Verify the standards registered
vendor/bin/phpcs -i   # lists "Pressready" and "PHPCompatibilityWP"

Requires PHP 7.4+. Uses PHPCompatibility 10.x (pre-release, pinned) for PHP 8.x removal data — will be unpinned when it ships stable.

Quick start

Run the standalone CLI directly after composer install.

# Both axes — the headline question.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --path=wp-content

# One axis at a time.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --path=.
vendor/bin/pressready --wp=6.9  --path=.

# Delta: only what newly breaks upgrading FROM 6.4 TO 6.9.
vendor/bin/pressready --wp=6.9 --since=6.4 --path=.

# CI gate: fail the build only on real fatals.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --fail-on=fatal --path=.

# Machine-readable output.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --format=json --path=.

# GitHub PR inline annotations.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --format=github --path=.

# SARIF for code-scanning dashboards (GitHub Advanced Security).
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --format=sarif --path=. > pressready.sarif

# A PHP upgrade path — everything that breaks across 8.1 → 8.4.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.1-8.4 --path=.

# Hide the deprecation tail; show only fatals and risky changes.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --ignore-on=deprecated --path=.

--format: grouped (default) · table · summary · json · sarif · github
--fail-on: fatal · risky · deprecated  ·  --ignore-on: hide findings at/below a level (the inverse)

Large stacks & performance

Built to scan a full enterprise wp-content — hundreds of plugins, tens of thousands of files — without crawling.

# Parallel is ON by default (auto-detects CPU cores).
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --path=wp-content --parallel=8

# Cache results — re-scans only reprocess changed files.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --path=wp-content --cache

# The 10 worst components, or just one.
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --path=wp-content --top=10
vendor/bin/pressready --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --path=wp-content --only=woocommerce

Un-fixable / generated code is skipped by default (vendor, node_modules, build, dist, *.min.php, tests). Add your own with --ignore=<patterns> or turn the built-ins off with --no-default-ignore. Repeated identical findings collapse into one line with an (×N) count.

Config file

Commit shared defaults to a .pressready.json in your project root — CLI flags always win.

{
  "php": "8.4",
  "wp": "6.9",
  "fail-on": "fatal",
  "ignore": ["*/cache/*", "*/languages/*"],
  "top": 20
}

WP-CLI — wp pressready scan

Same engine, run from the WordPress root. Defaults to the site's wp-content. Runs before WordPress boots — no database required.

Register the command

Add to your project's wp-cli.yml:

require:
  - vendor/itzmekhokan/pressready/wp-cli.php

Or pass --require inline:

wp --require=vendor/itzmekhokan/pressready/wp-cli.php pressready scan --php=8.4 --wp=6.9

Usage

# Scan with both axes — the main question.
wp pressready scan --php=8.4 --wp=6.9

# Scan a specific directory instead of the default wp-content.
wp pressready scan wp-content/plugins --php=8.4

# WordPress axis only, JSON output.
wp pressready scan --wp=6.9 --format=json

# CI gate: exit non-zero when fatals are present.
wp pressready scan --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 --fail-on=fatal

# Delta: only what newly deprecates upgrading from 6.4.
wp pressready scan --wp=6.9 --since=6.4

# Table format (default), summary, CSV, or count.
wp pressready scan --php=8.4 --format=table
wp pressready scan --php=8.4 --format=summary
wp pressready scan --php=8.4 --format=csv

Baseline & CI

Adopt Pressready on a legacy site without drowning in pre-existing findings — snapshot today's known issues, then fail CI only on new ones.

# Snapshot existing findings.
vendor/bin/pressready \
  --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --generate-baseline

# From now on, fail only on NEW findings.
vendor/bin/pressready \
  --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
  --baseline --fail-on=fatal

- name: Pressready scan
  run: |
    php bin/pressready \
      --php=8.4 --wp=6.9 \
      --baseline \
      --fail-on=fatal \
      --format=github \
      --path=wp-content

Findings are keyed by path → signature (sniff code + message with line numbers neutralised), so the baseline survives line shifts and reordering. --baseline=<file> / --generate-baseline=<file> accept a custom path.

Per-finding suppression

Uses native PHPCS inline comments — no custom syntax to learn.

// Suppress everything on this line.
create_function( '$x', 'return $x;' ); // phpcs:ignore

// Suppress a specific sniff.
get_postdata( 1 ); // phpcs:ignore Pressready.WordPress.Deprecated.DeprecatedFunction

Roadmap

The core scanning engine and WP-CLI integration are complete and production-ready.