Running CLI Commands

You can run any command on the web server container using the composer server exec command. You need to prepend the command with the options delimiter --.

For example to run a composer installed binary like phpcs run:

composer server exec -- vendor/bin/phpcs

Or to show all environment variables:

composer server exec -- printenv

Shell sessions

You can also start a shell session on the web server container using the composer server shell command. This will start an interactive shell session on the web server container.

Running as root

You will normally be logged in as the www-data user, but you can run the shell as the root user by passing the --root option. You may want to do this to test modifications to the PHP container eg. installing PHP libraries or other packages or to carry out any other tasks that require sudo privileges such as making directories outside the app directory

composer server shell --root

note: The --root option is only available when running the shell session on local server. Any changes you make to the container will not be carried over to the Altis environment.

## WP CLI

Local Server provides special support for [WP CLI](https://wp-cli.org/) commands via the `composer server cli --` command. Prepend
all your commends with `composer server cli --` and drop the proceeding `wp`. For example, to list all posts:

```sh
composer server cli -- post list

To install a new language file and activate it:

composer server cli -- language core install fr_FR

CLI commands via Local Server also support piping for more complex shell commands.

Importing a database backup

To import a database backup with local server, you will need to have a database backup file in a location that is accessible from the project root.

composer server cli -- db import database.sql

Note: For privacy reasons any database backups that are version controlled should have any personally identifiable information removed and extra care should be taken to avoid committing database backup files containing personal data.

Default Site URL

Altis supports specifying a default site URL that can be different from the root URL of the local environment. This is particularly useful in scenarios where the default site resides at a subpath rather than the root of the local URL. By configuring this option, users can ensure WP-CLI commands operate on the correct site by default.

You can define the default site URL in your project’s composer.json file under the extra.altis.modules.local-server.default-site-url property. Here’s an example:

{
    "extra": {
        "altis": {
            "modules": {
                "local-server": {
                    "default-site-url": "my-site.altis.dev/en/"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Note: By setting default-site-url, the default site URL will only be overridden for WP-CLI commands. It does not affect other components or tools in your environment.