The most important WP-CLI commands — a cheat sheet

WP-CLI has hundreds of commands, but in practice the same handful come back again and again. Here’s a cheat sheet to save. Run them all from your WordPress root after you’ve SSH’d in.

Core

wp core version                 # which WP version am I running?
wp core update                  # update WordPress core
wp core update-db               # run database updates afterwards
wp core verify-checksums        # are the core files untouched? (malware check)

Plugins & themes

wp plugin list --update=available
wp plugin update --all
wp theme update --all
wp plugin deactivate --all       # quick debugging: turn everything off

Database

wp db export backup.sql          # back up the database
wp db import backup.sql          # restore it
wp search-replace 'old' 'new' --dry-run
wp db optimize                   # clean up and optimize tables

Users

Locked out? This resets an admin password in seconds — invaluable when you can’t get into wp-admin.

wp user list
wp user create anna anna@example.com --role=administrator
wp user update admin --user_pass='a-new-strong-password'

Cache, transients & maintenance

wp cache flush                   # empty the object cache
wp transient delete --all        # clear all transients
wp rewrite flush                 # rebuild permalink rules
wp maintenance-mode activate     # put the site in maintenance mode

Config & debugging

wp config get table_prefix
wp config set WP_DEBUG true --raw    # turn on debug mode
wp cron event list                  # do scheduled jobs look odd?
wp option get siteurl

Tip: add --help after any command (wp plugin --help) to see every flag. And wp --info shows your environment when something misbehaves.

The full WP-CLI series

• Terminal basics: getting around with cd and ls
• SSH into your server and run search-replace
• Update plugins with WP-CLI
• Update your theme with WP-CLI
• The most important WP-CLI commands

Rather not do it yourself? At Kepler, WP-CLI and SSH access are part of Managed WordPress — we keep core, themes and plugins updated for you. And you can always SSH into your own cloud server and run the commands above whenever you like.