[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #37301: A way to test plugin/theme installs and updates before applying

[WordPress Trac]

#37301: A way to test plugin/theme installs and updates before applying
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 Reporter:  Zuige            |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Plugins          |     Version:  4.4.3
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |     Focuses:  ui, administration
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Comment (by Zuige):

 @swissspidy Thanks for your comments!

 You seem to be mostly referring to the capability of checking for the most
 obvious issues like fatal php errors on the site. As mentioned, this
 already kind of exists but clearly isn't a sufficient solution.

 What about javascript errors and incompatibilities?
 What if the update completely changes how my theme looks, but the author
 didn't tell me that beforehand?
 What if another plugin depended on an API provided by the old version of
 the plugin, but that went missing in the update?

 > However, I don't think it's suitable for core to give the user an option
 to test drive this in a semi-separate environment, “where they can freely
 install and test plugins without worrying about breaking anything”.That
 sounds like a big attack surface and something not many users would use or
 understand.

 You're right. The security aspects of such a feature have to be
 considered. This is not a small feature that can just be slapped on top of
 core and hope it works for most people. The feature needs a lot of careful
 thought about how to implement it in a safe manner.

 As for the not understading part, some good hosting providers already do
 provide an on-demand staging environment sandbox feature, similar to what
 the plugin does. In terms of UI, having a "sandbox for tests" is a fairly
 easy thing to understand even for the less technical user. Especially
 after something's gone wrong in a previous update.

 I definitely agree that the way forward would be automatic tests for
 updates. However, proper visual regression / functionality acceptance
 testing (done in a headless browser) is hard and still requires a
 sandboxed test environment. Simply running a bunch of unit tests doesn't
 actually tell you if the site works the way the user expects.

 Props for pointing out the missing rollback feature. Is there a separate
 ticket for that in trac already? There should definitely be one.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37301#comment:2>
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