StellarWP Coding Standards for PHP CodeSniffer

StellarWP coding standards uses a combination of:

• Generic (part of PHP_CodeSniffer)
• PEAR (part of PHP_CodeSniffer)
• PSR2 (part of PHP_CodeSniffer)
• Squiz (part of PHP_CodeSniffer)
• Zend (part of PHP_CodeSniffer)
• Custom sniffs (a few based on WordPress)

Important

Make sure that the command phpcs is on version 3.4.2+. In order to install it on that specifc version globally you can use:

composer global require "squizlabs/php_codesniffer=3.4.2"

Complete Installation Script

For a full installation of all required components, you can use the following script. This will install all necessary packages globally and configure PHPCS to use them:

#!/bin/bash

# Install PHP_CodeSniffer
composer global require "squizlabs/php_codesniffer=^3.8.0"

# Install required coding standards and dependencies
composer global require "wp-coding-standards/wpcs:^3.0.0"
composer global require "automattic/vipwpcs:^3.0"
composer global require "phpcsstandards/phpcsextra:*"
composer global require "phpcsstandards/phpcsutils:*"
composer global require "stellarwp/coding-standards:*"
composer global require "sirbrillig/phpcs-variable-analysis:*"
composer global require "slevomat/coding-standard:^8.14.0"

# Update PHPCS installed paths to include all standards
phpcs --config-set installed_paths "$(phpcs --config-show | grep installed_paths | awk '{ print $2 }'),${HOME}/.config/composer/vendor/phpcsstandards/phpcsextra,${HOME}/.config/composer/vendor/phpcsstandards/phpcsutils,${HOME}/.config/composer/vendor/wp-coding-standards/wpcs,${HOME}/.composer/vendor/automattic/vipwpcs,${HOME}/.composer/vendor/stellarwp/coding-standards,${HOME}/.composer/vendor/sirbrillig/phpcs-variable-analysis,${HOME}/.composer/vendor/slevomat/coding-standard"

# Verify installation
echo "Installed PHPCS version:"
phpcs --version
echo ""
echo "Installed coding standards:"
phpcs -i

Note

The script assumes your global Composer binaries are in your PATH. Adjust the paths in the script if your Composer global installation directory is different.

Setup on PHPStorm

You can follow this guide the only step you can replace is the one on Installing via Composer by the one above to install the 3.4.2 version instead.

Example Usage via phpcs.xml File

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="StellarWP Coding Standards">
    <rule ref="WordPress-VIP-Go"/>
    <rule ref="WordPress-Docs">
        <exclude-pattern>*/tests/*</exclude-pattern>
    </rule>
    <rule ref="WordPress">
        <exclude name="WordPress.Files.FileName"/>
        <exclude name="Generic.Arrays.DisallowShortArraySyntax"/>
    </rule>
    <rule ref="StellarWP"/>
    
    <!--exclude the rule for violation of direct DB calls as some have no alternative-->
    <rule ref="WordPress.DB.DirectDatabaseQuery">
        <exclude-pattern>src/Test.php</exclude-pattern>
    </rule>
    
    <exclude-pattern>*/tests/_support/_generated/*</exclude-pattern>
    <exclude-pattern>*/vendor/*</exclude-pattern>
</ruleset>