WP_Plugin_Releaser

🌍 🇩🇪 Deutsche Version | 🇺🇸 English Version

wp_plugin_releaser is a lightweight Go tool for automated WordPress plugin releases, with full internationalization support, including:

• Automatic version number updates in main PHP file
• Update info management (update_info.json)
• ZIP file creation with configurable exclusion patterns
• Optional automatic SSH upload to update server
• Multi-language support (German/English) with automatic language detection

Internationalization

This tool supports multiple languages:

• English (default)
• German (Deutsch)
• Automatic language detection based on system locale
• Extensible - add more languages by creating JSON files in locales/

Language Override

# Force German output
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 wp_plugin_release /path/to/plugin

# Force English output  
LANG=en_US.UTF-8 wp_plugin_release /path/to/plugin

Features

• Automatic version detection (from plugin comment or class variable)
• Update info management (update_info.json)
• ZIP creation with skip patterns
• SSH upload (key or password based)
• Comprehensive logging with all steps
• Hardware-bound encryption for secure password storage
• Multi-language support with automatic detection
• Plugin-update-checker integration for YahnisElsts

Installation

Binary Download

Download the latest release for your platform: Releases

Go Install

go install github.com/janmz/wp_plugin_release@latest

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/janmz/wp_plugin_release.git
cd wp_plugin_release
make build

Usage

Basic Usage

wp_plugin_release /path/to/plugin

• If no path is specified, the current directory is used
• Expects an update.config file in the working directory

Configuration

update.config Example

{
  "main_php_file": "my-plugin.php",
  "skip_pattern": ["*.psd", "*.bak", "node_modules", ".git"],
  "ssh_host": "example.com",
  "ssh_port": "22", 
  "ssh_dir_base": "/var/www/html/updates",
  "ssh_user": "username",
  "ssh_key_file": "/path/to/key.pem",
  "ssh_password": "password in plain text",
  "ssh_secure_password": "will contain encrypted password after first run"
}

Configuration Fields

Field	Description	Required
main_php_file	Main PHP file of the plugin	✅
skip_pattern	Files/directories to exclude from ZIP	❌
ssh_host	SSH hostname for upload	✅
ssh_port	SSH port (default: 22)	✅
ssh_dir_base	Base directory on server	✅
ssh_user	SSH username	✅
ssh_key_file	Path to SSH private key	❌
ssh_known_hosts	Path to OpenSSH known_hosts file	✅ (or -fetch-hostkey)
ssh_password	SSH password (encrypted after first use)	✅

SSH Host Key Verification (Required)

SSH upload requires host key verification via ssh_known_hosts or the default ~/.ssh/known_hosts. If the file is missing or does not contain the server key, run once with -fetch-hostkey to fetch and append the key:

wp_plugin_release -fetch-hostkey /path/to/plugin

-trustserver is kept as an alias for -fetch-hostkey.

Create a known hosts file manually with:

ssh-keyscan -p 22 your-server.example.com >> known_hosts

Example config:

{
  "ssh_known_hosts": "known_hosts"
}

Security Features

• Hardware-bound encryption: Passwords are encrypted with a key derived from your system's hardware
• Automatic password encryption: Plain text passwords are automatically encrypted after first use
• Secure file handling: Backup files are created before modifications
• SSH key authentication: Supports both key and password authentication

Development

Setup Development Environment

make setup

Build

# Standard build
make build

# Build for all platforms
make build-all

Testing

# Run tests
make test

# Test internationalization
make test-i18n

# Validate translations
make i18n-validate

Internationalization Development

Extract Translation Keys

make i18n-extract

Add New Language

1. Create locales/[lang_code].json (e.g., locales/fr.json)
2. Copy structure from locales/en.json
3. Translate all values
4. Test with LANG=[lang_code] wp_plugin_release --help

Translation File Structure

{
  "app.name": "WordPress Plugin Release Tool",
  "app.version": "Version %s from %s started",
  "error.no_directory": "Directory %s does not exist",
  "log.processing_php": "Processing PHP file: %s"
}

Release Workflow

Automated Release

1. Tag: git tag v1.0.0 → git push origin v1.0.0
2. GitHub Actions builds binaries for Linux/macOS/Windows and creates release with assets

Manual Release

make release

Requirements

Runtime

• No dependencies (static binary)
• Optional: SSH client for uploads

Development Environment

• Go 1.21+
• Make (for build automation)
• Git

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please check CONTRIBUTING.md before creating a pull request.

Translation Contributions

We especially welcome contributions for additional languages:

1. Fork the repository
2. Add your language file in locales/[lang_code].json
3. Test the translation
4. Submit a pull request

License

This software is under a modified MIT license (see LICENSE). You may freely use, modify, and distribute the code, provided you credit the original author Jan Neuhaus and maintain a link to the original repository: https://github.com/janmz/wp_plugin_release.

No warranty is provided.

Support

If you find this project helpful, please support CFI-Kinderhilfe: https://cfi-kinderhilfe.de (Donations go to CFI-Kinderhilfe, not the author.)

Contact

Author: Jan Neuhaus – VAYA Consulting
Repository: https://github.com/janmz/wp_plugin_release

Additional Resources

• Plugin Update Checker by YahnisElsts
• WordPress Plugin Development Handbook

Changelog

v1.1.0 (Current)

• Full internationalization support (German/English)
• Automatic language detection
• Enhanced CI/CD pipeline
• Improved error handling and logging
• Various bug fixes and improvements

v1.0.0

• Initial release
• Basic plugin release functionality
• SSH upload support
• Hardware-bound encryption