Remove PHP-WASM dependencies from Studio #2281

bcotrim · 2025-12-17T20:10:36Z

Related issues

Fixes STU-960
Fixes STU-693

Proposed Changes

Remove PHP-WASM packages (~1.1 GB) from the desktop app's ASAR bundle. The desktop app now uses CLI for all WordPress operations, making these dependencies redundant.

Create local type definitions (common/types/php-versions.ts) to replace @php-wasm/universal imports
Remove WordPress provider abstraction layer (src/lib/wordpress-provider/)
Remove child process entry points from desktop build
Remove getProviderConstants IPC/Redux layer - components import directly from common/constants
Move download utilities from wp-now to src/lib/download-utils.ts
Remove vendor/wp-now/ directory
Move PHP-WASM packages from dependencies to devDependencies (for type checking only)
Keep forge.config.ts ignore patterns to exclude PHP-WASM from bundle

Testing Instructions

npm install
npm start
Create a new site - verify it works
Start/stop sites - verify server operations work
Import/export a site - verify backup/restore works
Run tests: npm test
Build installer: npm run package - verify app.asar is ~295 MB

Pre-merge Checklist

Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-06T13:32:12Z

Let's remove the unzipper dependency from package.json as part of this PR. #2348 removed it from scripts/download-wp-server-files.ts, and the only remaining place it was used was in vendor/wp-now (which we'll remove with this PR).

epeicher

Thanks @bcotrim for this huge reduction in size 🙌

I have done some initial testing, and I have identified that creating a site does not start it for me. Also, when deleting it, an error is displayed, although the deletion completes. Please see a video below.

CleanShot.2026-01-08.at.17.08.23.mp4

Please let me know if you need the logs.

bcotrim · 2026-01-09T10:47:59Z

@epeicher
I couldn't replicate the issue, do you see anything in the Studio logs?
Can you share a bit more detail about your test? (npm start or bundled Studio from npm run package, etc)
Thanks testing and sharing the results!

epeicher · 2026-01-09T11:56:45Z

@epeicher I couldn't replicate the issue, do you see anything in the Studio logs? Can you share a bit more detail about your test? (npm start or bundled Studio from npm run package, etc) Thanks testing and sharing the results!

@bcotrim, I have been investigating more, and I have done the following that fix my issues:

Delete node_modules and cli/node_modules, I have also deleted the dist folder
Run npm install on the root folder to install npm packages
Run cd cli && npm install to install npm packages on the cli folder
On the root folder, run npm start

That fixes all the issues I was having, I am going to do some additional testing, but this looks good so far 🥳

epeicher

Thanks again @bcotrim for these massive changes. I have done a round of testing, and these are my findings.

Create a new site - verify it works - ✅
This works fine, I have identified a minor issue that I am not able to reproduce in trunk but it is not a blocker, and it could be tackled as a follow-up if required. When creating a site, there is a moment where the list of sites displays the new one duplicated, please see screenshot:
Start/stop sites - verify server operations work - ✅
Export a site - verify backup works - ✅
Import a site - verify restore works - ❌
Importing a recently exported backup fails with the error Database import failed - Please find error logs here 3a0e9-pb
Run tests: npm test - ✅
Build installer: npm run package - verify app.asar is ~295 MB - ✅ - 294M Jan 9 13:15 app.asar (in trunk it occupies 1.4G 🤯 )

I have measured the time it takes to create a site (approximately), and I have observed that on my Mac, it takes around 16 seconds on trunk (using npm startand having a few sites) and it takes around 8 seconds on this branch, so this is a great improvement 🙌

All in all, I would like to have another pair of eyes to review the changes, but this is looking great, amazing work.

* Update studio-cli.bat so we can read from stdin * Don't silence chcp warnings

…remove-php-wasm-from-studio # Conflicts: # cli/commands/site/set.ts # cli/commands/site/tests/set.test.ts # cli/lib/run-wp-cli-command.ts # package-lock.json # src/hooks/tests/use-add-site.test.tsx # src/hooks/use-add-site.ts # src/modules/add-site/components/create-site-form.tsx # src/modules/add-site/index.tsx # src/modules/site-settings/edit-site-details.tsx # src/site-server.ts

bcotrim · 2026-01-15T17:54:50Z

@fredrikekelund @epeicher with most (all?) of other on-going changes to the dev/studio-cli-i2 I updated this PR and it should be ready for another review.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T07:34:52Z

#2404 is already huge, so I recommend we land that PR first and then merge this PR directly to trunk.

I'm reviewing this PR now 👍

fredrikekelund

Overall, this LGTM 👍 Nice work, @bcotrim!

The one thing we should look into before merging is the function for checking the current WP-CLI version. We'll need a different approach there.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T07:57:30Z

common/lib/extract-zip.ts

Could we use this function in scripts/download-node-binary.mjs, too?

In the future, we might consider also targeting src/lib/import-export/import/handlers/backup-handler-zip.ts, but that's for another PR.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:01:16Z

cli/commands/site/set.ts

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:09:36Z

common/types/blueprint.ts

Why can't we import these directly from @wp-playground/blueprints?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:18:05Z

scripts/download-node-binary.ts

Can we use the extractZip function from common here?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:32:36Z

src/lib/server-files-paths.ts

+/**
+ * Get a temporary path for tests
+ */
+function getTmpPath( subfolder: string ): string {
+	return path.join( os.tmpdir(), `studio-tests-${ subfolder }` );
+}
+
+/**
+ * Get the base path for server files (WordPress versions, SQLite, etc.)
+ */
+function getBasePath(): string {
+	if ( process.env.NODE_ENV === 'test' ) {
+		return getTmpPath( 'server-files' );
+	}
+	return getServerFilesPath();
+}


The big reason for having this extra layer on top of src/storage/paths is that we add getTmpPath, right? How necessary is that?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:33:55Z

src/lib/wordpress-server-types.ts

+	};
+	start( siteId?: string ): Promise< void >;
+	stop(): Promise< void >;
+	runPhp( data: { code: string; [ key: string ]: unknown } ): Promise< string >;


Suggested change

runPhp( data: { code: string; [ key: string ]: unknown } ): Promise< string >;

Can't we just remove the runPhp method now?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:34:28Z

src/lib/wordpress-server-types.ts

Given that we now have just a single class implementing this interface, I'm wondering if we really need it..?

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T08:40:58Z

src/lib/wordpress-setup.ts

Looking forward to the day when we've consolidated this type of functionality in the CLI…

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T09:06:55Z

src/setup-wp-server-files.ts

+async function getWPCliVersionFromInstallation(): Promise< string > {
+	return new Promise( ( resolve ) => {
+		const [ emitter ] = executeCliCommand( [ 'wp', '--path', getWpCliFolderPath(), '--version' ], {
+			output: 'capture',
+		} );
+
+		emitter.on( 'success', ( { result } ) => {
+			const stdout = result?.stdout || '';
+			if ( stdout.startsWith( 'WP-CLI ' ) ) {
+				const version = stdout.split( ' ' )[ 1 ];
+				resolve( version ? `v${ version }` : '' );
+			} else {
+				resolve( '' );
+			}
+		} );
+
+		emitter.on( 'failure', () => resolve( '' ) );
+		emitter.on( 'error', () => resolve( '' ) );
+	} );
+}


This won't work. The --path argument is parsed by the Studio CLI and must point to a site directory.

Off the top of my head, the best way to resolve this might be to add a hidden --no-path option to the wp command. Thoughts, @bcotrim?

wojtekn · 2026-01-16T09:50:35Z

@bcotrim "Size reduction:" is a bit misleading as it compares cleanup with the cli-i2 branch.

1.6.8 is ~1.8 GB, so there is no reduction when compared to base brach.

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T10:56:50Z

there is no reduction when compared to base brach.

This was our original goal. The fact that we've added a new bundled node runtime since @bcotrim opened this PR will impact the installer size, and we expect it to be slightly larger than 1.6.8.

But yeah, even if the PR description might lead one to believe that this change reduces the installer filesize, we are really just keeping it in check 👍

wojtekn · 2026-01-16T11:04:49Z

@fredrikekelund, it's okay. I just wanted to clarify this to ensure the reader doesn't think this cleanup provides size reduction for the app.

fredrikekelund

LGTM 👍 There are still a couple of comments from my previous review that I'd love to discuss, but they're no blockers.

Let's move ahead with landing this

fredrikekelund · 2026-01-16T13:45:38Z

For the record, the reason I made the --studio-no-path change in 78015d0 was that TS complained locally about overriding the path option type (despite CI passing for some unclear reason 🤔)

bcotrim · 2026-01-16T15:10:53Z

@bcotrim "Size reduction:" is a bit misleading as it compares cleanup with the cli-i2 branch.

1.6.8 is ~1.8 GB, so there is no reduction when compared to base brach.

Thanks for pointing it out! I Removed it, since it no longer makes sense

wpmobilebot · 2026-01-16T15:26:57Z

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing 7111f6a vs trunk

site-editor

Metric	trunk	`7111f6a`	Diff	Change
load	2899.00 ms	2895.00 ms	-4.00 ms	🟢 -0.1%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	`7111f6a`	Diff	Change
siteCreation	7075.00 ms	7075.00 ms	0.00 ms	⚪ 0.0%
siteStartup	3947.00 ms	3942.00 ms	-5.00 ms	🟢 -0.1%

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change

remove php-wasm from Studio

2f07699

bcotrim self-assigned this Dec 17, 2025

bcotrim changed the title ~~remove php-wasm from Studio~~ Remove PHP-WASM dependencies from Studio Dec 18, 2025

remove php-wasm and wp-playground code from Studio

76ebd94

bcotrim requested review from a team and fredrikekelund December 18, 2025 09:32

bcotrim added 6 commits December 18, 2025 09:48

move PHP-WASM packages to devDependencies

9444ed3

remove unnecessary PHP-WASM ignore patterns from forge config

49d15d5

remove PHP-WASM references from Jest config

07bc3c9

update documentation for PHP-WASM removal

68552af

merge trunk, keep PHP-WASM removal

f00dea0

remove outdated playground-cli-workflow design doc

92ffd24

bcotrim marked this pull request as ready for review December 18, 2025 10:33

trigger ci e2e

e21e57a

bcotrim changed the base branch from trunk to dev/studio-cli-i2 December 18, 2025 15:06

fredrikekelund mentioned this pull request Jan 6, 2026

Bump the wp-playground-php-wasm group across 1 directory with 17 updates #2297

Closed

bcotrim added 3 commits January 7, 2026 12:16

merge dev/studio-cli-i2, keep PHP-WASM removal

270ab29

replace unzipper with yauzl for zip extraction

faf7407

fix lint and unit tests

fa9ce7b

epeicher reviewed Jan 8, 2026

View reviewed changes

epeicher reviewed Jan 9, 2026

View reviewed changes

bcotrim and others added 3 commits January 9, 2026 14:38

Consolidate studio site set-* commands into single command (#2355)

ae79eee

Studio CLI: Add support for xdebug beta flag (#2316)

47dce34

CLI: Update studio-cli.bat so we can read from stdin (#2304)

141f102

* Update studio-cli.bat so we can read from stdin * Don't silence chcp warnings

fredrikekelund mentioned this pull request Jan 15, 2026

Refactor site watchers into unified _watch CLI command #2380

Merged

1 task

bcotrim added 2 commits January 15, 2026 16:30

Fix lint issues after merge with dev/studio-cli-i2

eb23db8

bcotrim added 2 commits January 15, 2026 17:13

Fix DEFAULT_WORDPRESS_VERSION reference in edit-site-details

cfaa5d8

fix unit tests

f2ea007

fredrikekelund reviewed Jan 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Base automatically changed from dev/studio-cli-i2 to trunk January 16, 2026 10:35

bcotrim and others added 3 commits January 16, 2026 11:28

Merge trunk into stu-960-remove-php-wasm-from-studio

d9d3db6

pr feedback

3629839

--studio-no-path to appease TS

78015d0

fredrikekelund approved these changes Jan 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

Merge branch 'trunk' into stu-960-remove-php-wasm-from-studio

7111f6a

bcotrim merged commit 307691d into trunk Jan 16, 2026
9 checks passed

bcotrim deleted the stu-960-remove-php-wasm-from-studio branch January 16, 2026 15:41

Remove PHP-WASM dependencies from Studio #2281

Remove PHP-WASM dependencies from Studio #2281

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📊 Performance Test Results

site-editor

site-startup

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bcotrim commented Dec 17, 2025 •

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