WP-Ops/dev-panel.vincentdevelopment.ca/htdocs

WordOps Dev Panel

A lightweight internal control panel for managing WordOps WordPress sites without forcing developers onto the CLI.

What this does

• Lists WordOps sites (hides the dev-panel site itself)
• Create / delete sites via WordOps
• Optional bootstrap step after site creation (wp-dev-bootstrap.sh)
• User auth + roles:
  • admin can see/manage all sites + manage users
  • dev can only see/manage sites they created
• SQLite-backed storage (no external DB required)
• Password change modal + logout under a username dropdown
• Streaming output for long-running bootstrap (WordOps output may still arrive in chunks)

Requirements

Server

• WordOps installed and working (/usr/local/bin/wo)
• WP-CLI installed and working (wp in PATH)
• Nginx + PHP-FPM (Provided by WordOps)
• SQLite support for PHP
• Sudo privileges for www-data to run WordOps commands without password

File layout

Panel site lives at:

• /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/index.php
• /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/includes/db.php
• /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/includes/functions.php
• /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/style.css
• /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/panel.sqlite (auto-created)

Helper scripts live at:

• /usr/local/bin/wp-dev-bootstrap.sh
• /usr/local/bin/wo-fix-perms.sh

Install steps

1. Create the WordOps “panel” site

   sudo wo site create <dev panel URL> --php

   Add host entry on your workstation (or internal DNS), then confirm you can load the site.

2. Drop in the panel files

   Copy:

   • index.php → /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/index.php
   • includes/db.php → /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/includes/db.php
   • includes/functions.php → /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/includes/functions.php
   • style.css → /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs/style.css

   Make sure the web server can write the SQLite DB (the panel will create it on first load):

   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/<dev panel URL>/htdocs

   Optional: lock down later once seeded

First login / seeding

On first load, if there are no users, the panel auto-creates an admin user with the following credentials:

Username: admin
Password: change-me

Log in and change it immediately using the user dropdown → “Change password”.

Daily workflow

Option A: (recommended) VSCode Remote - SSH

• Devs connect via SSH to the server
• Edit project files directly under /var/www/<site>/htdocs
• Panel handles provisioning + bootstrap + ownership metadata
• No need for tooling (node, php, etc) on user machines beyond VSCode + SSH

Option B: SMB shares (with SSH tunnel)

• Export /var/www (or per-site roots) via Samba
• Use group permissions (webdev) so edits behave identically to SSH
• Map network drives on dev machines
• Requires tooling (node, php, etc) on user machines for composer, Tailwind, etc

Troubleshooting

“PDOException: could not find driver”

PHP SQLite extension missing:

sudo apt install -y php-sqlite3
sudo systemctl restart php8.3-fpm || sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

WordOps fails when run as www-data

Don’t run wo as www-data directly:

Correct (what the panel does):

sudo -u www-data sudo /usr/local/bin/wo site list

Incorrect:

sudo -u www-data /usr/local/bin/wo site list

Panel isn’t streaming output

Bootstrap output streams (proc_open + flush)

WordOps sometimes buffers; that’s normal. The panel will still show output when it arrives.

Next steps / nice-to-haves

• “Fix perms” button in the panel post-create
• Per-site notes (who/why) for management visibility
• Audit log for create/delete/bootstrap actions
• Optional “clone template site” support