README

WordPress

Welcome to the WordPress development repository! Please check out the contributor handbook for information about how to open bug reports, contribute patches, test changes, write documentation, or get involved in any way you can.

 Getting Started
 Credentials

 Getting Started

 Local development

WordPress is a PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript-based project, and uses Node for its JavaScript dependencies. A local development environment is available to quickly get up and running.

You will need a basic understanding of how to use the command line on your computer. This will allow you to set up the local development environment, to start it and stop it when necessary, and to run the tests.

You will need Node and npm installed on your computer. Node is a JavaScript runtime used for developer tooling, and npm is the package manager included with Node. If you have a package manager installed for your operating system, setup can be as straightforward as:

 macOS: brew install node
 Windows: choco install nodejs
 Ubuntu: apt install nodejs npm

If you are not using a package manager, see the Node.js download page for installers and binaries.

Note: WordPress currently only officially supports Node.js 24.x and npm 11.x.

You will also need a container environment such as Docker Desktop installed and running on your computer. The container environment is the virtualization software that powers the local development environment and can be installed just like any other regular application.

Note: WordPress currently only officially supports Docker but several container environments are available and should generally be compatible, such as Colima, OrbStack, Podman Desktop, and Rancher Desktop.

 Windows-specific instructions

For development on Windows, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is recommended. This provides a Linux environment where the general development instructions can be used without modification.

After installing Docker Desktop, enable Docker's WSL integration under Settings  Resources  WSL integration. This only needs to be configured once.

If you use Docker Desktop directly from Windows without WSL, make sure it is using Linux containers. Right-click the Docker icon in the system tray and select Switch to Linux containers.... If that option is not available, or the menu shows Switch to Windows containers..., Docker is already using Linux containers. You can switch between container types later if another project requires Windows containers.

 Development Environment Commands

Ensure your container environment is running before using these commands.

 To start the development environment for the first time

You can get started using the local development environment with these steps:

1. Go to https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop and fork the repository to your own GitHub account. 
1. Then clone the forked repository to your computer using git clone https://github.com//wordpress-develop.git.
1. Navigate into the directory f