Adding and using WP-CLI in a docker-compose setup

For most of my WordPress projects I use my own Alcedo WordPress workflow. With some extra scripts, creating a new site is as easy as running 'create site.c7'in the terminal. This sets up a full WordPress install with local domains and certificates.

But, in this case i’m using a different setup in which I use the default wordpress:php8.0 docker image. As i’m using the standard setup, I also wanted to use the default wordpress:cli docker image.

How does that work?

As they say, an image says more then a thousands words. But, since text in images can’t be copied, I’ll copy/paste the two services below:

  wp:
    container_name: ${NAME}-wp
    depends_on:
      - db
    image: wordpress:php8.0
    user: 1000:1000
    volumes:
      - ./app/www/content/plugins:/var/www/html/wp-content/plugins
      - ./app/www/content/mu-plugins:/var/www/html/wp-content/mu-plugins
      - ./app/www/content/themes:/var/www/html/wp-content/themes
      - uploads:/var/www/html/wp-content/uploads:rw
      - wordpress:/var/www/html
    ports:
      - "8000:80"
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: ${NAME}-db:3306
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: ${DB_USER}
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: ${DB_NAME}
      WORDPRESS_DEBUG: 1
      VIRTUAL_HOST: "${SITE_DOMAIN}" # Used for nginx-proxy
      VIRTUAL_PORT: 80 # Used for nginx-proxy
      LETSENCRYPT_HOST: "${SITE_DOMAIN}" # Used for nginx-proxy
      WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA: |
        /* Multisite */
        define( 'MULTISITE', true );
        define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true );
        define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'sitec7' );
        define( 'PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/' );
        define( 'SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
        define( 'BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
    expose:
      - "80"
  
  wpcli:
    container_name: ${NAME}-cli
    depends_on:
      - wp
    image: wordpress:cli
    user: 1000:1000
    command: tail -f /dev/null
    volumes:
      - wordpress:/var/www/html
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: ${NAME}-db:3306
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: ${DB_USER}
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: ${DB_NAME}
    profiles:
      - dev

As you see, both images use the same volume and environment setup. This allows you to run commands like:

docker exec site-cli wp --info

and

docker exec site-cli wp search-replace "test" "test1" --dry-run

Want to make it even easier? Set an alias for docker exec site-cli wp so that you can run something like sitewp --info. In my own development environment, my folders are named the same as my container. When you change directory, and the directory has an .env file, an alias is set for wp and links to the correct container.

Happy developing!