processwire-ddev-cli

ProcessWire CLI via ddev

All PHP CLI commands must run through ddev to use the web container's PHP interpreter.

Basic Commands

ddev php script.php          # Run PHP script
ddev php --version           # Check PHP version
ddev exec php script.php     # Execute in web container
ddev ssh                     # Interactive shell

Bootstrapping ProcessWire

Include ./index.php from project root to get the full PW API ($pages, $page, $config, $sanitizer, etc.).

All CLI script files must be placed in ./cli_scripts/.

# Inline one-liner (functions API — no $ escaping needed)
ddev php -r "namespace ProcessWire; include('./index.php'); echo PHP_EOL.'Count: '.pages()->count('template=product');"

# With PW API variables — must escape $ as \$
ddev php -r "namespace ProcessWire; include('./index.php'); echo \$pages->count('template=product');"

# Local variables also need escaping
ddev php -r "namespace ProcessWire; include('./index.php'); foreach(templates() as \$t) echo \$t->name.PHP_EOL;"

# Script file
ddev php cli_scripts/myscript.php

One-liner rules:

• Always use ddev php -r, not ddev exec php -r (exec adds an extra shell layer that can consume backslash escapes)
• Use functions API (pages(), templates(), modules()) to avoid bash $ variable expansion
• When you must use $variables, escape them as \$var
• Prefix output with PHP_EOL to separate from RockMigrations log noise

Reference Files

• CLI scripts and one-liners — conventions, examples, script file patterns
• TracyDebugger — CLI debugging with d(), browser snippets with bd()
• Database queries — direct SQL via database() PDO wrapper, prepared statements
• Mailpit — catch WireMailSmtp mail in DDEV CLI scripts