Essential WP-CLI Commands for Hosting Support

WP-CLI is an indispensable tool for managing WordPress installations via the command line. It is significantly faster for bulk operations and is essential for troubleshooting issues when the WordPress dashboard is inaccessible.

Caution

If you are running these commands as the root user, you must append --allow-root to the end of every command.

1. Site URL and Database Management

When migrating a site or changing domains, the first step is updating the core options in the wp_options table.

Check Current URLs

wp option get siteurl
wp option get home

Update Site URLs

wp option update home '[https://newurl.tld](https://newurl.tld)'
wp option update siteurl '[https://newurl.tld](https://newurl.tld)'

2. Global Search and Replace

After updating the URL options, you must run a search and replace on the entire database to fix serialized links in your posts and metadata.

Dry Run (Preview Changes)

Always perform a dry run first to see how many replacements will be made. Use | tail -1 to see a clean summary.

wp search-replace '[https://oldurl.tld](https://oldurl.tld)' '[https://newurl.tld](https://newurl.tld)' --skip-columns=guid --dry-run | tail -1

Execute Replacement

wp search-replace '[https://oldurl.tld](https://oldurl.tld)' '[https://newurl.tld](https://newurl.tld)' --skip-columns=guid | tail -1

3. Bulk Updates and Maintenance

Use these commands to force-update components or repair a site that has corrupted files or plugin conflicts.

Force Updates

wp plugin update --all --force
wp theme update --all --force

Bulk Reinstall (Repair)

This command fetches a fresh copy of every currently installed plugin or theme from the WordPress repository.

# Reinstall all plugins
wp plugin install $(wp plugin list --field=name) --force

# Reinstall all themes
wp theme install $(wp theme list --field=name) --force

4. WP-Cron and Background Tasks

If scheduled events (like backups or publishing) are failing, check the cron event queue.

List Scheduled Events

Using --skip-plugins ensures that a broken plugin doesn’t prevent the command from running.

wp cron event list --skip-plugins

Execute Due Tasks

Manually trigger all events that are currently due to run:

wp cron event run --due-now

5. Core Integrity and Security

Use these commands to verify that the core WordPress files have not been modified or corrupted.

Verify Checksums

wp core verify-checksums

Force Core Reinstall

If checksums fail, you can reinstall WordPress core files without affecting your content or database:

wp core download --version=$(wp core version) --force