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Kana

Kana is a CLI (command line) tool for developing WordPress sites, plugins and themes efficiently.

Why Kana?

I've gone through many different tools to run WordPress locally over the years. All of them are either extremely complex or don't support basic features such as ensuring plugin and theme development can be a first-class experience. I rarely build sites with WordPress and I wanted a tool that will allow me to build the plugins and themes I do work on as efficiently as possible.

System requirements

MacOS

Linux

Docker Desktop for Linux may work but I have not tested it.

Installing Kana

There are a few options for installing Kana. You can use Homebrew (recommended), you can install it from the "releases" page here or you can build it manually.

Install from Homebrew

Installing from Homebrew is the recommended approach on both Mac and Linux as it allows for automatic updates when needed. To install from Homebrew run the following command:

brew install ChrisWiegman/kana/kana

Note that, as there are numerous ways to install Docker, I have chosen, at least for now, to not list it as a dependency when installing via Homebrew. You'll want to make sure Docker is already installed or install it with brew install --cask docker if you're on Mac (see this documentation if you're in Linux).

Download from GitHub releases

Simply download the latest release from our release page and extract the CLI to a location accessible by your system PATH

Note for Mac users I have not signed the download copy so you'll need to manually allow it in your Mac settings if you download it from the releases page. Install it via Homebrew to avoid this step.

Build manually

You will need Go installed locally to build the application.

  1. Clone this repo git clone https://github.com/ChrisWiegman/kana.git
  2. CD into the repo and run make install

Assuming you have Go properly setup with GOBIN in your system path, you should now be able to use Kana. Run kana version to test.

Updating Kana

If you build Kana from source you'll need to manually update Kana with a git pull and then a fresh build.

If you use Homebrew or install Kana from the releases page Kana will automatically check for updates and warn you of a new version. You can then update via homebrew, if that's how you installed it, or by running kana update which will replace the existing binary with the updated version.

Using Kana

At it's most basic you can start a zero-config Kana site by running kana start in your terminal. This will create a new Kana site based on your current directory and open it in your default browser.

Kana relies on Traefik to map real domains to local sites. You can run as many sites as you need and each will be mapped to a subdomain of sites.kana.sh.

Start

kana start will start a kana site based on your current directory and open it in your browser. It will detect if the current directory is a plugin or a theme and start the site as the appropriate type.

To login to the new site use the following:

  • User Name: admin
  • Password: password

Note: these can be changed in the config. Please see below.

Start options

--type Defaults to site for developing a WordPress site. Can set to plugin map the current directory as a plugin within the created site or theme to map the current directory as a theme within the created site.

--xdebug will start Xdebug on the site (see below for usage).

--wpdebug will enable WP_DEBUG on the site.

--scriptdebug will enable SCRIPT_DEBUG on the site.

--environment allows the user to change the WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE constant. Defaults to local. Valid options are local, devlopment, staging and production.

--mailpit will start an instance of Mailpit to allow for email capture and troubleshooting.

--ssl will set the site's default URLs to use SSL.

--name The name flag allows you to run an arbitrary site from anywhere. For example, if you already started and stopped a site from a directory called test you can run kana start --name=test to start that site from anywhere. If you use the name flag on a new site it will create that site without a link to any local folder. This can be handy for testing a plugin or other configuration but not that none of the other start flags will apply.

--multisite Use the multisite flag to setup a WordPress Multisite installation. The optional subdomain and subdirectory flags will allow for either type of installation.

--removedefaultplugins Will remove the default "Hello Dolly" and Akismet plugins when starting the site. Note this will not restore them if they've been manually removed.

--theme Sets the default theme if you do not wish to use the theme bundled with WordPress. Will attempt to download the theme from wordpress.org. Does not work if the site type is set to "theme"

--plugins A comma-separated list of plugins to install when starting the site.

--database By default Kana uses MariaDB for its WordPress database. You can use MySQL or SQLite instead by specifying mysql or sqlite as the database type here.

Trusting the SSL certificate on Mac

On MacOS, Kana will automatically attempt to add its SSL certificate to the MacOS system Keychain the first time you start a site where SSL is the default. You can manually do this without starting a new site using the kana trust-ssl command.

Importing an existing WordPress database

Kana offers a simple way to import an existing WordPress database. Just use the kana db import <your database file> to get started.

If you're coming from a site with a different home address you can specify --replace-domain=<my old site domain> to automatically replace it with the appropriate domain for your dev site.

Example:

kana db import --replace-domain=chriswiegman.com database.sql would import the file database.sql from my current directory and rename the old site address, chriswiegman.com, to the current and correct site address to work in Kana.

Import options

--replace-domain The domain of your source site to replace with the appropriate Kana domain --preserve Prevents Kana from dropping any existing database and overwrites what you have. Warning: this may result in unpredictable issues.

Exporting your Kana database

You can also export the database file your Kana site is using with kana db export. By default it will save the file in your default site directory but you can specify a relative path to the file where you would like to export your database if you wish.

Note Currently importang and exporting databases only works with MariaDB databases. I am working on bringing this functionality to MySQL and hope to have it available with MySQL soon. I do not anticipate bringing this to SQLite for a while.

Stop

kana stop will stop the current site and, if no other sites are running, will shut down shared containers like Traefik as well.

List

kana list will list all sites known by Kana and their current running status. Any site listed can then be addressed with the name flag in other commands.

Destroy

kana destroy will stop and destroy the current site. This is different than stop in that stop will leave the database and files it creates alone so you can start it again later. Once destroyed a site is irrecoverable.

By default Kana will prompt you to confirm any site you wish to destroy. You can bypass the prompt by adding the --force flag to the destroy command.

Open

kana open will open the site in your default browser

kana open -a will open the WordPress Dashboard. This will also login the "admin" user unless the automaticLogin setting is set to false.

By default Kana will open the appropriate WordPress site. To open the database or Mailpit simply append the appropriate flag to the open command ie kana open --database.

Note that by default Kana will open the database in phpMyAdmin. You can also tell Kana to open the database in TablePlus instead by setting the databaseClient configuration setting to tableplus.

Currently pphpMyAdmin and TablePlus are the only two clients I've configured. If you would like to use a different client, please open an issue and I'd be happy to take a look.

Note Opening the Database directly with Kana doesn't work for SQLite databases. To open a SQLite database directly navigate to <your-site-folder>/wp-content/database/.ht.sqlite and open the file directly.

wp-cli

kana wp <WP-CLI COMMAND> will execute a wp-cli command on your site. For example kana wp plugin list will list all the plugins on the site and their associated statuses

Configuring Kana

The above commands will get an individual site up and running but there are a few more options to consider that can be changed for a given site or globally

Global Config

Kana has a handful of options that apply to all new sites created with the app. You can adjust these with the config command as noted below:

kana config will list all changeable defaults for a new site. Currently these include the following:

  • activate true - if the project site is set to theme or plugin this will activate the project on first load
  • adminEmail [email protected] - the admin email address for the default admin account
  • adminPassword password - the default password used to login to WordPress
  • adminUser admin - the default username used to login to WordPress
  • automaticLogin true - will automatically login the "admin" user when accessing the WordPress dashboard
  • database mariadb - Specify the database server for WordPress, currently either mariadb, mysql or sqlite
  • databaseClient phpmyadmin - the default database client for accessing the database directly (currently phpmyadmin and tableplus are supported)
  • databaseVersion 11 - the default database version used for sites. 11 is chosen for the default MariaDB database. You will need to update this if you switch to MySQL.
  • environment local - the default usage of the environment start flag
  • mailpit false - the default usage of the mailpit start flag
  • multisite none - set to either subdirectory or subdomain to create the site as the appropriate type of Multisite installation.
  • php 8.2 - the default PHP version used for new sites (see [https://hub.docker.com/_/wordpress] for all supported versions)
  • removeDefaultPlugins false - removes the default "Hello Dolly" and Akismet plugins when starting a new site. Note this will not restore them if they've already been removed.
  • scriptDebug false - the default usage of the scriptDebug wp-config item
  • ssl false - the default usage of the ssl start flag
  • theme - the default theme to be installed from wordpress.org and activated with new sites
  • type site - the type of the Kana site you're starting. Current options are "site" "plugin" and "theme"
  • updateInterval 1 - the number of days Kana will wait between checking for updated Docker images and other updates. Set this to 0 to disable the check for newer images altogether (Kana will only download missing images)
  • wpdebug false - the default usage of the wpdebug start flag
  • xdebug false - the default usage of the xdebug start flag

You can get or set any of the above options using a similar syntax to GIT's config. For example:

kana config adminEmail will print the value of the admin.email setting kana config adminEmail [email protected] will change the value of the admin.email setting to "[email protected]".

The above syntax will allow you to change the defaults for any of the options listed

Site Config

In addition to the global config, certain items above can be overridden for any given site. For a site without a name flag (as seen in the start command), simply create a .kana.json file in the current directory. You can populate it with the following options:

  • activate true - if the project site is set to theme or plugin this will activate the project on first load
  • adminEmail [email protected] - the admin email address for the default admin account
  • adminPassword password - the default password used to login to WordPress
  • adminUser admin - the default username used to login to WordPress
  • automaticLogin true - will automatically login the "admin" user when accessing the WordPress dashboard
  • database mariadb - Specify the database server for WordPress, currently either mariadb, mysql or sqlite
  • databaseClient phpmyadmin - the default database client for accessing the database directly (currently phpmyadmin and tableplus are supported)
  • databaseVersion 11 - the default database version used for sites. 11 is chosen for the default MariaDB database. You will need to update this if you switch to MySQL.
  • environment local - the default usage of the environment start flag
  • mailpit false - the default usage of the mailpit start flag
  • multisite none - set to either subdirectory or subdomain to create the site as the appropriate type of Multisite installation.
  • php 8.2 - the default PHP version used for new sites (see [https://hub.docker.com/_/wordpress] for all supported versions)
  • plugins [] - an array of plugins to install and activate when starting the new site. These are slugs from the Plugins section of WordPress.org.
  • removeDefaultPlugins false - removes the default "Hello Dolly" and Akismet plugins when starting a new site. Note this will not restore them if they've already been removed.
  • scriptDebug false - the default usage of the scriptDebug start flag
  • ssl false - the default usage of the ssl start flag
  • theme - the default theme to be installed from wordpress.org and activated with the site
  • type site - the type of the Kana site you're starting. Current options are "site" "plugin" and "theme"
  • wpdebug false - the default usage of the wpdebug start flag
  • xdebug false - the default usage of the xdebug start flag

Export a sites Kana config automatically

kana export will create a .kana.json configuration file in your current folder exporting the configuration of the current site including PHP version, active plugins and associated options as shown above

Accessing the database directly

Currently there are two methods to access the database directly. First you can access the database via phpMyAdmin or TablePlus by running kana open --database for the site in question.

Note that by default Kana will open the database in phpMyAdmin. You can also tell Kana to open the database in TablePlus instead by setting the databaseClient configuration setting to tableplus.

You can also access the database directly by viewing the database port with docker ps and using the database port and the following configuration in the app of your choice:

  • Database host: kana_your site name_database
  • Database name: wordpress
  • Database user: wordpress
  • Database password: wordpress

Verify you're using Kana

You can verify you're in a Kana environment by verifying the IS_KANA_ENVIRONMENT env variable. Here's an example:

if ( getenv( 'IS_KANA_ENVIRONMENT' ) === true ) {
    // We're on a Kana environment
}

Using Xdebug

You can setup Xdebug when starting a site in Kana using the --xdebug flag with the start command or by setting the xdebug setting globally or at the site level.

Once a site is running you can see if Xdebug is running by using the kana xdebug command which will return on if Xdebug is running or off if it is not.

To start or stop Xdebug on a running site use xdebug on or xdebug off as appropriate. The output of this command will be either on or off to indicate the status of Xdebug when the command is complete.

Currently Kana only supports step debugging in xdebug. To use this with VSCode create a .vscode/launch.json file with the following:

    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Listen for XDebug",
            "type": "php",
            "request": "launch",
            "port": 9003,
            "log": true,
            "pathMappings": {
                "/var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/<MY KANA FOLDER NAME>/": "${workspaceFolder}",
                "/var/www/html/": "${workspaceFolder}/wordpress",
            }
        }
    ]
}

To trigger step debugging you'll also need the appropriate extension for your browser:

Flushing cache and transients

Two wp-cli commands I find myself using regularly when working on WordPress are wp transient delete --all and wp cache flush. I use them so often that it seemed like a good idea to make them easier to access with Kana. As a result I've added the kana flush command which will call both on the specified site.

Viewing the Kana changelog

It's always good to know what's changed before updating. You can use kana changelog to take to Kana's releases on GitHub where you can view the current changes and look for anything you might want to wait on.

This project is under active development

Note that I am using this project for my own work and it is under active development. Some of the things I'm currently working on include:

  • Better site management commands
  • Much more clear prompts and messages on the commands themselves
  • Writing a lot more tests (it's a personal project, I start where I can)
  • A proper website for all this documentation (I already bought a domain, after all)
  • Bugfixes and other tweaks as I find them necessary for my own use
  • Better integration with tools like VSCode and others

Completely Uninstalling Kana

I hate apps that leave leftovers on your machine. When stopping a site all Docker resources except the images will be removed. To remove the app completely beyond that you'll want to delete the following:

  1. Delete the application from your $GOBIN or system path (or run brew uninstall kana if installed via homebrew)
  2. Delete the ~/.config/kana folder which contains all site and app configuration
  3. (Mac only) Delete the Kana Development CA certificate from the System keychain in the Keychain Access app
  4. If installed via homebrew run brew untap ChrisWiegman/kana to remove the Homebrew tap

You can also safely remove any new images added however it is not a requirement. Many other apps might share those images leading to your system simply needing to download them again.

Using Kana in other projects

While Kana cannot easily be used as a package itself, you can import the binary itself into your project. If you do so, consider using the output-json flag on all commands. This will convert all output to JSON format to make consumption easier when the Kana application is embedded elsewhere.

Why do this? This will make it easier for me to work with Kana in a small toolbar app I'm building as well as with a Visual Studio Code extension I have planned which will allow me to see what is going on with Kana and control it beyond the terminal.