Allow specifc config files for wp-env

[jonny-bull]

What problem does this address?

Due to WordPress' backwards compatibility and large install base, it's important to make sure PRs work as well on PHP 8.1 as they do 7.4. The same applies to WordPress versions.

While wp-envis a very powerful and useful tool for quickly spinning up WP installs, it only allows for one configuration file: .wp-env.json.

This means anyone wishing to test multiple configurations would need to manually edit the .wp-env.json file to change what wp-env runs. It also prevents CI tooling from automatically picking a configuration to test against.

What is your proposed solution?

Adding a --config [MY-CONFIG-FILE] flag to wp-env start would allow specifying a configuration file.

This could be picked up by CI tooling in order to spin up multiple configurations of WordPress, installed plugins, themes, PHP versions.

[ObliviousHarmony]

It isn't necessarily what you're asking for, but, you can kind of achieve this already. I have a few solutions that might work for you:

• You can use the WP_ENV_ environment variables to override individual configurations. You can use WP_ENV_CORE and WP_ENV_PHP_VERSION in your testing matrix, for instance, and conveniently run tests against different environments. This is a great solution for CI where you'll want the same plugins, configuration, and mapping, but, will want to run against different environments.
• Use .wp-env.override.json files that are dynamically generated. When you run whatever test you're thinking of you could copy the custom .wp-env.json file and rename it, then, you can override whatever configuration you need in it. It's not perfect, but, it can get you mostly to where you want to be without needing to wait on an upstream change.
• Have subfolders in your repository containing different .wp-env.json files. You can map directories using relative paths, so, you'd just need to go up a level (../) and you could reference things in the rest of the repository. It isn't great, but, it's definitely an option!