Overview

Managing Kalium from the command line, for automated deployments and people who work in a terminal.

Kalium can be managed from the command line as well as from the WordPress admin. If you've never used a command line, you don't need this section, everything here can also be done from your dashboard.

It exists for two groups of people:

• Agencies and developers running automated deployments, staging pipelines or scripted site setups

• Anyone managing several Kalium sites who would rather run one command than click through the same screens repeatedly

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What you need

WP-CLI installed on your server. It's the standard command-line tool for WordPress, and most managed WordPress hosts have it already. Run this to check:

wp --version

If that returns a version number, you're ready. If not, your host's documentation will say whether it's available, and wp-cli.org covers installing it yourself.

Kalium active on the site you're working with. The commands come from the theme, so they only exist where it's running.

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The command groups

Kalium adds two:

Starter Sites

Import, list and remove starter sites. Useful for setting up a new site in one step, or rebuilding a staging site from scratch.

License Management

Activate and deactivate the theme license. This is the one agencies use most, activating a license as part of a deployment, or releasing it when a staging site is torn down.

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Finding your way around

Every command has built-in help:

wp help kalium

That lists everything Kalium adds. For a specific command:

wp help kalium starter-site import

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A note on safety

Command-line changes are immediate and there's no confirmation step. A command that imports a starter site will do so straight away.

Take a backup before running anything that changes content, and try commands on a staging site first.

Kalium's own theme backups are only taken when the theme updates, so they won't protect you here.

Theme Backups

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Adding custom code

If you're here because you want to extend Kalium rather than automate it, the command line isn't the route. Custom PHP, CSS and JavaScript belong in a Snippet or a child theme:

Adding Custom Code

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If a command isn't found

wp: command not found WP-CLI isn't installed, or isn't on your path. Check with your host.

'kalium' is not a registered wp command The Kalium theme isn't active on that site, or you're running the command from outside the WordPress installation. Change to the site's root folder first.

A command fails with a license error Starter site commands need an active license, exactly as the admin screens do.

License and Activation Problems