My Life Lab WordPress Journal

A local WordPress development setup for a personal blog focused on life tips, routines, experiments, study systems, workout tracking, and practical lessons from long-term journaling.

This repository is for local development and deployment preparation for:

https://salimshrestha.com.np/

What Is Included

• WordPress on http://localhost:8080
• phpMyAdmin on http://localhost:8081
• MySQL 8.0 with persistent Docker volumes
• WP-CLI setup scripts
• Astra theme
• Yoast SEO, WP Super Cache, UpdraftPlus, Contact Form 7, and Classic Editor
• Public-safe journal-derived starter posts
• WordPress export XML in exports/wordpress-journal.xml
• Structured documentation in Documentation/

Local Setup

Start the stack:

docker compose up -d

Check containers:

docker compose ps

Open the local site:

http://localhost:8080

Open WordPress admin:

http://localhost:8080/wp-login.php

Open phpMyAdmin:

http://localhost:8081

WordPress Content Setup

Run the base setup script:

docker compose run --rm --user 33:33 -e WP_CLI_CACHE_DIR=/tmp/wp-cli-cache -v "$PWD/scripts:/scripts" wpcli eval-file /scripts/setup-wordpress.php

Import the public-safe journal content:

docker compose run --rm --user 33:33 -e WP_CLI_CACHE_DIR=/tmp/wp-cli-cache -v "$PWD/scripts:/scripts" wpcli eval-file /scripts/import-journal-content.php

Refresh permalinks:

docker compose run --rm --user 33:33 -e WP_CLI_CACHE_DIR=/tmp/wp-cli-cache wpcli rewrite flush

Export

Generate a WordPress XML export:

mkdir -p exports
docker compose run --rm --user 33:33 -e WP_CLI_CACHE_DIR=/tmp/wp-cli-cache -v "$PWD/exports:/exports" wpcli export --dir=/exports --filename_format=wordpress-journal.xml

The export file is written to:

exports/wordpress-journal.xml

Deployment Reminder

Before moving this site to production:

• Do not reuse local admin credentials on the live site.
• Create or rotate the live WordPress admin password before launch.
• Replace local URLs with the live domain using WP-CLI search-replace.
• Enable SSL for https://salimshrestha.com.np/.
• Configure backups before publishing.

See Documentation/deployment/DEPLOY_CHECKLIST.md for the full deployment checklist.

Documentation

All project documentation is organized in:

Documentation/

Start with:

Documentation/README.md

Security Notes

• Keep live credentials out of Git.
• Keep private journal files out of this repository.
• Use the encrypted local document only for private notes or credentials.
• Treat the Docker database passwords as local development defaults only.