WordPress Contributor Toolkit

Appearance

Running the site ​

Once the setup wizard is complete, the site view shows a Start dev server button. This starts a local WordPress that serves the code in your site's build/ directory, so you can see your changes running.

The site view with Start dev server and Review & submit changes

Start and stop ​

Click Start dev server. The button cycles through three states:

  • Start dev server — nothing is running.
  • Starting dev server... — the server is booting. A "Dev server is starting…" line below the button shows the elapsed time.
  • Stop dev server — the server is up. The button shows a red dot; clicking it stops the server.

When the server is ready, its URL appears below the button, for example http://127.0.0.1:<port>/. Click it to open the site in your default browser.

The button is disabled while a trunk update is running, and a trunk update is blocked while the server runs — the two would fight over the same files.

Logging in ​

Every site uses the same credentials, shown next to the URL:

  • Username: admin
  • Password: password

Append /wp-admin/ to the site URL to reach the dashboard.

What the dev server actually runs ​

The dev server is not a stub — it is WordPress Playground running your checkout:

  • The app spawns the Playground CLI (@wp-playground/cli) in server mode, with your site's build/ directory mounted as the WordPress root. PHP runs as WebAssembly inside the bundled Node.js runtime, so no PHP install is needed.
  • The database is SQLite, stored inside the Playground instance. This covers most core contribution work; if a ticket specifically needs MySQL behaviour, this environment cannot reproduce it.
  • Alongside the server, the app runs the core build watcher, so edits under src/ are rebuilt into build/ while the server is up. A page reload then shows the change.
  • The server binds to the loopback interface only. It is reachable from your machine, not from the rest of your network.
  • Outgoing mail is captured locally instead of being sent — see Mail.

Open Adminer ​

While the server is running, an Open Adminer button appears next to Stop dev server. It opens Adminer, a database browser, against the site's SQLite database — useful for inspecting what a code change wrote. See Database for details.

The button disappears when the server stops, because there is no database to connect to.

Where the output goes ​

Everything the server and the watcher print streams into the site's terminal panel, which is also where startup errors land. See Terminal and Logs and debugging.