WordPress, the ubiquitous content management system (CMS), has evolved over the years to meet the dynamic needs of website developers and administrators. One such evolution is the Bedrock installation, a modern WordPress stack that aims to enhance security, maintainability, and overall development experience. In this guide, we will walk you through the process of converting a regular WordPress installation into a Bedrock installation.

Understanding Bedrock

Bedrock is not a standalone CMS but rather a more structured way to organize your WordPress project. Developed by the team at Roots, it introduces a modular approach to WordPress development by incorporating Composer, a dependency manager for PHP. Bedrock’s key features include:

• Dependency Management with Composer: Allows for the easy inclusion and management of plugins and themes and facilitates version control and dependency resolution.
• Environment Configuration: Uses the dotenv PHP library for environment-specific configuration. Keep separates configuration details into a .env file.
• Improved Directory Structure: Organizes core files in a way that promotes clean, modular development. Also introduces a seprate web folder for publicly accessible files.
• Security Enhancements: Implements secure practices such as not exposing the wp-config.php file to the web. Encourages the use of secure salts and keys for encryption.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the conversion process, ensure you have the following in place:

• Backup: Always backup your WordPress site before making significant changes. This ensures you can revert to the original state if any issues arise.
• Composer: Install Composer on your machine if you haven’t already. You can find instructions on the official Composer website.

Conversion Steps

Create a Bedrock Project: Open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to create the Bedrock project. Run the following command to create a new Bedrock project.

composer create-project roots/bedrock your-project-name

Move WordPress Files: Copy your existing WordPress files of wp-content to apps folder and place them in relevenet folders. Move your existing wp-content directory into the Bedrock project, so it becomes web/app/themes for themes and web/app/plugins for plugins.

Configure Environment: Move the contents of your existing wp-config.php file into the .env file within the Bedrock project and customize the .env file with your database credentials and other settings.

Install Dependencies: In the Bedrock project directory, run composer install to install the dependencies specified in the composer.json file.

Test Your Site: Visit your site and test its functionality. Ensure that everything works as expected.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully converted your traditional WordPress installation into a Bedrock-powered project. By embracing Bedrock, you’ve opened the door to a more modular, maintainable, and secure WordPress development experience. As you continue working with Bedrock, explore its additional features and integrations to further optimize your workflow and enhance your website’s performance. Happy coding!