wp-updater

The WP Updater scripts allows to updates themes or plugins from external sources such as GitHub. Currently, only GitHub is supported. WP Updater is maintained by Make it WorkPress.

Usage

You can include the WP Updater script in your theme or plugin, and required all the included classes manually or use a PHP autoloader. You can read more about autoloading in the readme of wp-autoload.

Installation

After you have correctly included all WP Updater script files or used an autoloader, the updater can be initialized.

For plugins:

    $updater = MakeitWorkPress\WP_Updater\Boot::instance();
    $updater->add(['type' => 'plugin', 'source' => 'https://github.com/yourname/plugin-on-github']);

And for themes:

    $updater = MakeitWorkPress\WP_Updater\Boot::instance();
    $updater->add(['type' => 'theme', 'source' => 'https://github.com/yourname/theme-on-github']);

There are few things that should be noted: *Because the updater is placed within a theme or plugin itself, it only functions when this given theme or plugin is active. *For plugins, the folder name should be similar as the main file initilizing your plugin. For example, plugin-name/plugin-name.php.

Private repositories

Private GitHub repositories are supported by supplying a read-only access token, such as a fine-grained personal access token with read access to the repository contents. The token may be passed in the source url itself:

    $updater = MakeitWorkPress\WP_Updater\Boot::instance();
    $updater->add(['type' => 'plugin', 'source' => 'https://your-token@github.com/yourname/private-plugin']);

Both https://your-token@github.com/yourname/private-plugin, https://yourname:your-token@github.com/yourname/private-plugin and https://github.com/yourname/private-plugin?access_token=your-token are recognized.

Alternatively, and preferably, the token can be passed separately so it is kept out of the url that is displayed within the admin:

    $updater = MakeitWorkPress\WP_Updater\Boot::instance();
    $updater->add([
        'type'      => 'plugin', 
        'source'    => 'https://github.com/yourname/private-plugin',
        'token'     => 'your-token'
    ]);

The token is added as an Authorization: Bearer header to the request that checks for new versions, as well as to the download of the package itself. It is only ever sent to api.github.com, github.com and codeload.github.com, and only for requests concerning the configured repository. Do not commit tokens to a public repository; read them from wp-config.php or an environment variable instead.

Configurations

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
cache	int	43200	The lifetime in seconds of the transient in which the update check is cached.
request	array	['method' => 'GET']	Custom arguments for the remote request, as accepted by wp_remote_request.
source	string	''	The url of the repository to update from.
token	string	''	An optional read-only access token, used for private repositories.
type	string	'theme'	The type to update, either theme or plugin.

Versions

Updates are resolved from the tags of the repository, so publishing a release (which creates a tag) is enough. Tags are compared with version_compare and an optional v prefix is ignored, meaning that both 1.10.2 and v1.10.2 are read as version 1.10.2.