wp dist-archive

Create a distribution archive based on a project’s .distignore file.

In this article

This command runs on the before_wp_load hook, just before the WP load process begins. For a plugin in a directory ‘wp-content/plugins/hello-world’, this command creates a distribution archive ‘wp-content/plugins/hello-world.zip’. You can specify files or directories you’d like to exclude from the archive with a .distignore file in your project repository:
.distignore
.editorconfig
.git
.gitignore
.travis.yml
circle.yml
Use one distribution archive command for many projects, instead of a bash script in each project.

Installing

Use the wp dist-archive command by installing the command’s package:

wp package install wp-cli/dist-archive-command

Once the package is successfully installed, the wp dist-archive command will appear in the list of available commands.

Options

<path>
Path to the project that includes a .distignore file.
[<target>]
Path and optional file name for the distribution archive. If only a path is provided, the file name defaults to the project directory name plus the version, if discoverable. Also, if only a path is given, the directory that it points to has to already exist for the command to function correctly.
[--create-target-dir]
Automatically create the target directory as needed.
[--plugin-dirname=<plugin-slug>]
Set the archive extract directory name. Defaults to project directory name.
[--format=<format>]
Choose the format for the archive.

default: zip
options:
– zip
– targz

[--filename-format=<filename-format>]
Use a custom format for archive filename. Available substitutions: {name}, {version}. This is ignored if the <target> parameter is provided or the version cannot be determined.

default: “{name}.{version}”

Global Parameters

These global parameters have the same behavior across all commands and affect how WP-CLI interacts with WordPress.
Argument Description
--path=<path> Path to the WordPress files.
--url=<url> Pretend request came from given URL. In multisite, this argument is how the target site is specified.
--ssh=[<scheme>:][<user>@]<host\|container>[:<port>][<path>] Perform operation against a remote server over SSH (or a container using scheme of “docker”, “docker-compose”, “docker-compose-run”, “vagrant”).
--http=<http> Perform operation against a remote WordPress installation over HTTP.
--user=<id\|login\|email> Set the WordPress user.
--skip-plugins[=<plugins>] Skip loading all plugins, or a comma-separated list of plugins. Note: mu-plugins are still loaded.
--skip-themes[=<themes>] Skip loading all themes, or a comma-separated list of themes.
--skip-packages Skip loading all installed packages.
--require=<path> Load PHP file before running the command (may be used more than once).
--exec=<php-code> Execute PHP code before running the command (may be used more than once).
--context=<context> Load WordPress in a given context.
--[no-]color Whether to colorize the output.
--debug[=<group>] Show all PHP errors and add verbosity to WP-CLI output. Built-in groups include: bootstrap, commandfactory, and help.
--prompt[=<assoc>] Prompt the user to enter values for all command arguments, or a subset specified as comma-separated values.
--quiet Suppress informational messages.

Command documentation is regenerated at every release. To add or update an example, please submit a pull request against the corresponding part of the codebase.