WP Engine

WP Engine is the hosting platform we use for some WordPress projects. It provides environment management, automatic backups, and deployment tools.

This section explains how WP Engine environments work, how we use backups, and how we deploy code.

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Understanding Caching on WP Engine

Restricted Access

Not everyone at Terra has access to WP Engine.

Currently, access is limited to a small group of team members.
If you need to perform any action in WP Engine and don’t have access, ask someone with permissions.

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Environments

Each WP Engine project usually has three environments (same ones as we use in Terra): Development (Dev), Staging (Stage) and Production (Prod).

Not all projects have all three environments created by default. We need to create them when needed. For example:

• Some projects may start with Dev only
• Stage is created when needed
• Production must be created manually if it doesn’t exist yet

Create a new environment

1. Click Add environment
2. Start from a blank environment
3. Select the environment type
4. Assign a name
5. Confirm creation

Once created, the environment behaves like any other (with backups, deploys, etc.).

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Backups

Automatic backups

WP Engine automatically creates daily backups for each environment.

• Backups are environment-specific
• Dev, Stage, and Production each have their own backup history

Manual backups

Before making major or risky changes, we usually create a manual backup.

When creating a manual backup, you can:

• Add a description
• Choose who receives notifications

This gives us a safe restore point in case something goes wrong.

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Pushing and pulling environments

When sharing work with a client or preparing a release, we often sync environments.

Push (e.g. Dev → Stage)

From Dev, you can push changes to another environment:

1. Click Push
2. Select the target environment (Stage)
3. Choose Full push

Pull (e.g. Dev → Stage)

Alternatively, from Stage you can:

1. Click Pull from
2. Select the source environment (Dev)
3. Choose Full

The arrow direction indicates where the content is coming from. These two examples do the same: taking everything Dev has into Stage.

Full push and pull

We always use Full push or Full pull, which includes:

• Database
• Code

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Deployments (SFTP)

Deployments in WP Engine are done via SFTP.

Creating an SFTP user

When a new environment is created, SFTP access is not created automatically.

To enable deployments:

1. Go to SFTP Users
2. Add a new user
3. Name it (usually prefixed with terra)
4. Generate a password
5. Copy the password before saving

Password

Once saved, the password cannot be retrieved again.

6. Save the user

Configuring deploys

After creating the SFTP user:

1. Go to the project repository
2. Open the SFTP configuration sftpConfig.js file
3. Update:
   • Host
   • Username
   • Password
   • Path (theme path is always the same)

Once configured, the environment is ready for deployment.

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Best Practices

• If you need to perform an action and don’t have access, contact someone who does.
• Always make a manual backups before making risky changes
• Daily backups are created automatically