Automatic WordPress update mechanism with GitHub Updater

Adding a custom update mechanism to your WordPress themes and plugins is very handy. Unfortunately it’s currently quite difficult to do with core WordPress functions. I’ll show you how to use GitHub to add your own custom WordPress theme and plugin update mechanism.

So, how will we do this? First, we create a GitHub repository for our theme or plugin files. Then, we’ll see how to use this and I’ll show you how to version your files. Last, we’ll connect the GitHub repository to the GitHub Updater plugin and see how it works. This is what we’ll be creating:

Create a GitHub repository

The first thing we do, is creating a GitHub repository. Create a GitHub account if you don’t have one. Click New to create a new repository or go to github.com/new.

For the name of the repository, choose the theme or plugin slug. Here, I set the repository to private, something I would recommend if it’s a personal or confidential theme or plugin.

The GitHub Updater plugin assumes that the main branch of your GitHub repository is called master, rather than the more recent main. You are not required to call the branch master, but this simplifies the process. If you want to change the name of your branch, create a file, click on the branch name, click on View all branches and use the little pencil to edit the name of the branch.

Adding the files to the GitHub repository

Now we need to upload our theme or plugin files to the GitHub repository. On the GitHub web version you can’t bulk upload files, so to do that, we’ll need to use the command line or the GitHub desktop app. Obviously, the later one is somewhat more user-friendly, so I’ll use the app for now. Download the GitHub Desktop app

If you don’t have the app installed, please follow the installation procedure. Log in and grant the app access to your GitHub account, so that it can download the content of your repositories.

What the GitHub Desktop app does, is adding a copy of the repository to your computer, so that you can edit it. After you’ve made an update to your code, you can push the changes to the online version.

Now click Fetch origin if it’s not greyed out to make sure we now have the latest version on your computer. Click Show in Finder (perhaps different but similar on Windows/Linux), which opens up your file browser to the folder. The app creates a folder called Documents > GitHub > [repo name] for each repository.

Now place the theme or plugin files in the folder. Here, I’ll use a WordPress theme.

Now, when you open the GitHub desktop app, you’ll see that it has detected the changes.

One of the changes it has detected is the .DS_Store file, which is a hidden file we don’t want in the GitHub repo. To do this, we’ll exclude the file and then we’ll push the new files to the server. Excluding certain files from being uploaded can be done with the .gitignore file. Go to Repository > Repository Settings… > Ignored Files and add the .DS_Store here. Now you’ll see that the .DS_Store file is replaced with a .gitignore file, which is perfect.

Add a summary (when you changed multiple files) and click Commit to [repo name].

Now click Push origin to push the files to the server.

Preparing the repository for the GitHub Updater plugin

Now we need to do a little preparation so that the repository can be used by the GitHub Updater plugin. For this plugin, it is important that

1. we declare the repository name in our style.css or [plugin-name].php;
2. we tag releases;
3. we have the same tag in our style.css or [plugin-name].php.

To do this, open the file with the version number in your favourite text editor. I’ll use Visual Studio Code.

For themes:

/*
Theme Name: THEME NAME
Theme URI: https://ralphjsmit.com/github-updater-mechanism
Author: Ralph J. Smit
Author URI: https://ralphjsmit.com
Description: THEME DESCRIPTION
Version: 0.9.3
Requires at least: 5.0
Tested up to: 5.4
Requires PHP: 7.0
Text Domain: text-domain
*/

For plugins:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: PLUGIN NAME
Plugin URI:  https://ralphjsmit.com/github-updater-mechanism
Author:      Ralph J. Smit
Author URI:  https://ralphjsmit.com/
Description: PLUGIN DESCRIPTION
Version:     0.9.3
Text Domain: text-domain
 */

Now add the following two lines. Replace ‘Theme‘ with ‘Plugin‘ for plugins.

/*
...
GitHub Theme URI: username/theme-or-plugin-slug
GitHub Theme URI: https://github.com/username/theme-or-plugin-slug
*/

Go back to GitHub Desktop. Commit the files and go to History. Here you can add a tag. This tag should be the same as the above version number. I’ll call it 0.9.3 here. Click Push origin to push it to the server.

Getting a GitHub API key

The last thing you need, is a GitHub API key so that the GitHub Updater can get files from private repositories. Follow this link or navigate to the page manually:

1. Click on your profile image at the top right and click Settings.
2. Go to Developer settings > Personal access tokens > Create new token.

Create a token with the following permissions:

1. repo and all the ‘child’ permissions – Full control of private repositories
2. read:packages (write is not needed)

You can give the token a name (called a Note) and then generate it. Make sure to store it somewhere safely.

Now, you’re ready to go!

Using the GitHub Updater plugin

To get updates for specific themes or plugins, you need to install and activate the GitHub Updater plugin. Download the latest version here. Upload and install it on your website.

Now go to Settings > GitHub Updater > Install theme/plugin. Fill out the following fields:

1. Theme/Plugin URI: the URL of the GitHub repository
   https://github.com/username/theme-or-plugin-slug
2. Repository Branch: the branch name (can be master, main or something else)
3. Remote Repository Host: in our case this is GitHub.
4. GitHub Access Token: the API key we just created (only for private repositories)

Click Install Theme/plugin. You can immediately activate it.

Working with the GitHub Updater plugin

Now that everything is configured, how do we use this? Assuming that you make use of the GitHub Desktop app, the working process will look somewhat like this:

1. Open the GitHub Desktop app, select the correct branch and Fetch origin.
2. Make changes to the theme in your text editor.
3. Save changes and commit them. Repeat.
4. Continue to this step when you want to push a new update.
   Update the version number in the style.css or [plugin-name].php.
5. Select the latest commit under ‘History’ and create a tag with the new version number.
6. Push the changes.

Now, the GitHub Updater plugin will detect when there is a new version. It checks this periodically, so this will not be instantly. As far as I know, data from the GitHub API will be cached for twelve hours. This will be sufficient for most (client) websites and doesn’t put any unnecessary strain on the server.

If you need to have this faster, you can manually empty the cache. Doing this makes that the GitHub Updater plugin automatically runs a check. The GitHub Updater plugin also offers a handy RESTful API endpoint. In a next post, I’ll show you how to automate this process with GitHub Actions, so that this goes completely automatic and almost instantly.

Conclusion & next article

As you’ve seen, adding an automatic update mechanism to WordPress themes or plugins is very easy to do. By using GitHub, the tool used by millions of developers and their teams, you can simply create your own update mechanism in the style of the default WordPress core update mechanism.

I’ll soon write an article about automating this process by using GitHub Actions and the GitHub Updater RESTful API endpoint. Stay tuned ✌️