local-flywheel-wp-testing

A Claude Code skill for testing and verifying WordPress plugins/themes against a Local by Flywheel site from an external shell — specifically when wp-cli can't reach the database.

The problem it solves

Local runs each site's MySQL on a per-site Unix socket that only Local's own PHP environment is wired to. The site serves fine over HTTP, but wp-cli from your normal shell often fails with Error establishing a database connection (because DB_HOST is localhost), and newer PHP versions spam Deprecated: notices that corrupt wp-cli output.

This skill captures the reliable workaround: drive Local's bundled mysql client over the site's socket, plus the gotchas (serialized meta, ?page_id redirects, the changing run-id, cleanup discipline, seed-via-SQL/verify-via-HTTP).

Install

Drop this folder into your Claude Code skills directory so Claude can load it on demand:

git clone https://github.com/shaksphere/local-flywheel-wp-testing.git \
  ~/.claude/skills/local-flywheel-wp-testing

Claude Code discovers skills under ~/.claude/skills/ (user scope) or a project's .claude/skills/. Once present, it activates automatically when a task matches the skill's description (e.g. "seed test data on my Local site", or when wp-cli reports a DB connection error).

What's inside

• SKILL.md — the trigger description and the full procedure.

License

MIT. Contributed from lessons learned building Open Builder with Claude Code.