Three things this repository could not do: prove the plugin still works on a
WordPress or WooCommerce released after it, get a fix onto a shop without
someone uploading a zip, and do either of those for the next plugin without
starting over.
ci/ is the test harness. ci/site-test.sh builds a throwaway WordPress +
WooCommerce in containers at any versions you name — including `nightly` and
`beta` — installs exactly the files the release zip will contain, and runs
tests/smoke.php inside it with wp eval-file. Real cart, real coupons, real
WC_Shipping_Rate objects: a mocked cart keeps passing after WooCommerce has
changed underneath it, which is the one failure worth catching here. WP_DEBUG
is on and any notice logged from this plugin's directory fails the build,
because that is the shape an upgrade actually breaks in — nothing fails, a
notice appears, and two releases later it is a fatal.
compat.yml runs that weekly against today's releases, the next WordPress and
the next WooCommerce, the oldest PHP the header promises and the newest PHP.
When it is green it opens a PR bumping "Tested up to" and "WC tested up to" —
only when green, because WooCommerce shows that second value to the shop owner
as an untested-plugin banner, and that banner is what they read before deciding
whether to press update.
includes/class-updater.php is the distribution half. It hooks
update_plugins_{hostname} for the host in the new "Update URI" header and reads
the Gitea release API, so WordPress handles the notice, the download, the
"Enable auto-updates" link and wp plugin update with no further code. Update
URI earns its place twice: since 5.8 a plugin that declares one is never asked
about on wordpress.org, so a .org plugin sharing this slug cannot be pushed
onto a shop running this one. The check sends nothing about the site and
overrides WordPress's default user agent, which carries the site's own URL.
release.yml tags, tests, builds, publishes — then reads the feed back with no
credentials. A private repository and a release with no zip attached both leave
a page that looks perfect to anyone logged in and an update no shop is ever
offered.
Measured before committing, all green: WP 7.1 + WC 11.1 on PHP 8.3 and 7.4,
WP 7.2-alpha on 8.3, and the beta cell falling back to stable on 8.4. No
deprecations from this plugin on any of them.
Three guards are there because the bug they catch is invisible without them:
the annotated tag is re-fetched before its message is read (checkout turns it
into a lightweight tag pointing at the merge commit), the two workflow roots
are kept in sync (.gitea/workflows hides .github/workflows entirely), and every
file the code loads must be in the release zip — which caught class-updater.php
being referenced and uncommitted while every local test passed.
docs/REUSE.md is the port to the next plugin: copy ci/, rewrite five lines.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
6.8 KiB
Testing, releases and automatic updates
Three questions, answered by three things in this repository.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Does it still work on the newest WordPress and WooCommerce? | ci/site-test.sh, run weekly by compat.yml against latest, nightly and beta |
| Can updates be pushed out automatically? | Yes — includes/class-updater.php plus release.yml |
| What happens when I press update in wp-admin? | Nothing surprising, because the release was tested against those versions before it was published |
Running the tests
ci/static.sh # syntax, hygiene, versions, headers — seconds
ci/site-test.sh # a real WordPress + WooCommerce — a few minutes
ci/build-zip.sh # what a shop actually installs
ci/site-test.sh takes three knobs:
WP_VERSION=latest # or nightly, or an exact version like 7.0
WC_VERSION=latest # or beta, or an exact version like 11.1.0
PHP_VERSION=8.3 # any tag of the wordpress:cli image
It builds a throwaway site in Docker containers, installs WordPress and
WooCommerce at those versions, copies in exactly the files the release zip
will contain, activates the plugin, and runs tests/fixtures.php and
tests/smoke.php inside it with wp eval-file.
The tests use a real cart, real coupons and real WC_Shipping_Rate objects.
That is the point. A mocked cart keeps passing after WooCommerce has changed
underneath it, which is the one failure this whole directory exists to catch.
Everything is torn down afterwards — containers, volumes and the network — so running it twice leaves nothing behind.
Deprecations count as failures
The site test switches on WP_DEBUG and fails the build on any notice logged
from this plugin's directory. That is how a WordPress or PHP upgrade actually
breaks a plugin: nothing fails, a notice appears, and two releases later it is
a fatal. Notices from WordPress core and WooCommerce are ignored — failing on
those would make the build red for something nobody here can fix, and a build
that is always red is a build that gets ignored.
The weekly compatibility run
compat.yml runs the matrix every Monday at 06:00 and on demand:
| WordPress | WooCommerce | PHP | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| latest | latest | 8.3 | today's shop |
| nightly | latest | 8.3 | the next WordPress, weeks early |
| latest | beta | 8.3 | the next WooCommerce, weeks early |
| latest | latest | 7.4 | the floor the plugin header promises |
| latest | latest | 8.4 | where deprecations appear first |
The beta cell falls back to the stable release when there is no open beta, so
it is never silently skipped.
When the whole matrix passes, a second job compares Tested up to: and
WC tested up to: against the current releases and opens a pull request if
they are behind. It runs only after the matrix is green, because those headers
are a claim — WooCommerce shows WC tested up to to the shop owner as an
untested-plugin banner, and that banner is what they read before deciding
whether to press update.
The schedule fires on both forges; the matrix job skips the scheduled run on
Gitea so the single self-hosted runner is not asked to repeat GitHub's work.
workflow_dispatch still works there.
Cutting a release
- Bump
Version:in the plugin header.ci/static.shchecks thatWC_EDM_VERSIONand the readme'sStable tag:agree with it — WordPress compares the update feed against the header and nothing else, so a disagreement means the update is offered again immediately after it is installed, forever. - Add a changelog section to
README.txt. - Merge to
main. - Tag it annotated, because the message is the release notes:
git tag -a v1.4.0 -m "..." git push origin v1.4.0 # origin pushes to GitHub and Gitea both
release.yml then runs the static checks, installs the plugin into a real
WordPress + WooCommerce and runs the full test suite, builds the zip, publishes
the release, and finally reads the feed back anonymously to prove a shop
can actually download it.
Two things in there are guards against bugs that are invisible without them:
- The tag message is re-fetched before it is read.
actions/checkoutfetches every tag correctly and then overwrites the triggering one with the commit SHA, turning an annotated tag into a lightweight one. Reading it then returns the commit message — on a merge commit, "Merge pull request #12 from …". Nothing fails; the release is just published with the wrong text. - The anonymous read-back sends no credentials. The two ways the feed breaks — a private repository and a release with no zip attached — both leave a release page that looks perfectly fine to anyone logged in.
How the automatic updates work
The plugin header carries:
Update URI: https://gitea.nolimit.dk/kw/woocommerce-email-discount-manager
includes/class-updater.php hooks update_plugins_gitea.nolimit.dk, the
filter WordPress fires for plugins whose Update URI points at that host. It
reads /api/v1/repos/kw/<repo>/releases/latest, takes the tag as the version
and the attached .zip as the package, and hands both to WordPress. WordPress
does the version comparison, the download, the unpacking and the rollback.
That means all of this works with no extra code:
- the update notice on Plugins and Dashboard → Updates
- the update now link
- the per-plugin Enable auto-updates link — WordPress builds that from the plugins it has an answer for, which is why the updater answers even when the installed version is already current
wp plugin update woocommerce-email-discount-managerover WP-CLI
Update URI earns its place a second way: since WordPress 5.8, a plugin that
declares one is never asked about on wordpress.org. Without it, a .org
plugin that happened to share this slug could be pushed onto a shop running
this one.
One-time setup
The repository on Gitea must be public, because every shop reads that feed without credentials. Settings → make it public. Nothing in a GPL plugin zip is secret, and the release workflow fails loudly with this exact instruction if it is not done.
If you would rather keep the source private, create a separate public repo that
holds only releases and point Update URI at that instead — the updater
derives everything else from the header, so that is a one-line change.
It reports nothing
The update check sends a plain unauthenticated GET for a file every visitor to
that repository can read. The user agent is overridden on purpose: WordPress's
default one is WordPress/7.1; https://the-shop.example, which would tell the
update host which shops are running this plugin. Nothing else about the site
leaves it, ever.