Foundation

Foundation is a StellarWP Composer monorepo for reusable PHP packages intended for libraries and WordPress plugin ecosystems.

Note

This monorepo splits each package out into their own sub-repository, if you only need a specific component you can install only that specific one.

Repositories

• stellarwp/foundation-container
• stellarwp/foundation-pipeline
• stellarwp/foundation-log
• stellarwp/foundation-wpcli
• stellarwp/foundation-cli

Installation

Install the aggregate package when you want the convenient all-in-one Foundation package:

composer require stellarwp/foundation

The aggregate package includes all Foundation components, including the CLI package and vendor/bin/foundation. For lean production WordPress plugin archives, require only the split packages your plugin needs and install stellarwp/foundation-cli as a development dependency.

‍💻 Developer / Contributing Documentation

✅ Development requirements

• PHP 8.3+

🧪 Automated testing

Run all tests:

composer test

Run just the unit test suite:

composer test:unit

Run just the feature test suite:

composer test:feature

Run the Codeception suites with SLIC:

slic run unit
slic run feature
composer test:wpunit

The first time you run the WordPress suite locally, point SLIC at the directory that contains this repository and select the foundation project:

cd ..
slic here
cd foundation
slic use foundation
slic composer install
slic cc build
composer test:wpunit

If dependencies were installed on a different host PHP version and the SLIC container reports Composer platform conflicts, refresh them inside SLIC:

slic composer update --with-all-dependencies

Run slic cc build again after changing Codeception suite configuration or modules. Generated Codeception actor files are written to tests/CodeceptionSupport/ and are intentionally ignored.

The unit and feature SLIC suites run the same tests as composer test:unit and composer test:feature. The wpunit suite runs WordPress-loaded tests through wp-browser.

Generate the test coverage HTML dashboard (XDEBUG required to be enabled on your machine):

composer test:coverage-html

Code Quality

Check your code style:

composer lint

Automatically fix your code style:

composer format

Static analysis:

composer analyze

🥳 Releasing a new version

Before drafting the release, run the monorepo maintenance commands that apply to the release:

Situation	Command	Why
You are planning a major version release, for example 2.0 to 3.0. You should run this so any Foundation packages that depend on each other require the new major line, such as ^3.0. You may also run it for a minor release if one package must require APIs added in that new minor version.	composer monorepo bump-interdependency <constraint>	Updates package-to-package dependency constraints. Use the new minimum Composer constraint, such as ^3.0 or ^1.2.
You have published a minor or major release and dev-main should move to the next development line. For example, after releasing 1.1.0, update internal dependencies to ^1.2 and the branch alias from 1.1.x-dev to 1.2.x-dev. Do not run this before every patch release if the existing alias is still correct.	git fetch --tags, then composer monorepo bump-interdependency <next-dev-constraint> and composer monorepo package-alias	Updates package-to-package dependency constraints for the next development line, then updates each package's extra.branch-alias using the latest local release tag and the format configured in monorepo-builder.php.
Neither of the above changed.	No monorepo maintenance command is needed.	Continue to drafting the release.

After any needed command, commit the updated composer.json files. Then draft a new release on GitHub, following semver closely.

The monorepo split GitHub workflow deploys each project's code to its sub-repository on pushes to main and when release tags are pushed. Publishing a GitHub release creates the release tag and triggers the tagged split.

Adding a new split package is usually a minor semver release because it adds new functionality without breaking existing packages. Use a major release only if the change also breaks an existing public API or package contract.

Monorepo

This uses Symplify's Monorepo Builder. There is a shortcut composer script you can run to access their CLI: composer monorepo list to see the available commands.

Adding a New Package

1. Run the package creation command:

composer run foundation -- package:create <Package>

The package argument can be a new package component such as WPCli, an existing package directory, short package name, or Composer package name, for example Log, foundation-log, or stellarwp/foundation-log.

If the package does not exist yet, the command asks whether to create the local scaffold in src/<Package> and asks for the Composer package name with a default such as stellarwp/foundation-wpcli. The scaffold includes the required composer.json, README.md, .gitattributes, .gitignore, and close-pull-request.yml files. After scaffolding, the command runs composer monorepo merge so the root composer.json includes the new package.

The command runs as a dry run by default. It validates the required split package files, prints the target repository name and description, and shows the GitHub CLI commands it will run.

2. Add source code, tests, and any package-specific dependencies to the new package.

3. Once you've added the specific dependencies your package needs to its composer.json, run composer monorepo merge again and then composer update and commit the changes. This will merge the dependency changes into the root composer.json.

4. Create and configure the read-only split repository:

composer run foundation -- package:create <Package> --apply

The command creates the stellarwp/foundation-<package> repository with the standard [READ ONLY] description and disables issues, wiki, projects, and pull requests. The package's close-pull-request.yml workflow is still included as a fallback guard for read-only split repositories.

Generating WP-CLI Commands

In a consuming WordPress project, install the generator as a development dependency:

composer require --dev stellarwp/foundation-cli

If the generated command will ship with the plugin, install the runtime WP-CLI package as a normal dependency:

composer require stellarwp/foundation-wpcli

Then generate a starter WP-CLI command:

vendor/bin/foundation make:wpcli-command Sync_Products_Command

The command reads the project's PSR-4 Composer autoload namespaces, writes a Snake_Case command class under Cli/Commands inside the selected PSR-4 root, and uses the default WP-CLI command stub from foundation-wpcli.

If your project adds a Composer script such as "foundation": "@php vendor/bin/foundation", you may run the command as composer run foundation -- make:wpcli-command Sync_Products_Command.

stellarwp/foundation-cli is build-time developer tooling when installed as a split package. Do not register StellarWP\Foundation\Cli\CliProvider in a WordPress plugin application, and do not include the CLI split package in production plugin zips. Production split-package installs should normally run with Composer's --no-dev mode so the generator, Symfony Console, and other dev tooling are not packaged.

To customize the generated command stub in a project, create:

foundation/stubs/wpcli/command.stub

Project-level stubs are local scaffolding assets. Add them to the consuming project's production zip exclusions, such as .gitattributes, when they should not be included in release archives.

License

Copyright © 2026 Nexcess Corp.

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later. See LICENSE for details.