Local WordPress theme development that doesn't make you want to quit web development.
You have a theme. You want to work on it. You do not want to hand-roll a docker-compose.yml, fight Nginx, remember which port MAMP decided to squat on this week, or edit /etc/hosts like it's 2009.
Kiqr is the deal: you stay in your theme repo, run one command, and a real WordPress site — database, admin, phpMyAdmin, hot-reloading and all — appears at a tidy local URL. WordPress core stays out of your git history. Your theme stays the star of the show.
cd my-glorious-theme
kiqr up
# ☕ ...a few seconds later...
# → http://my-glorious-theme.your-laptop.lvh.me:5477
That's the whole pitch. Keep reading and we'll prove it.
Not sure your machine is ready? Kiqr will tell you straight:
kiqr doctor
Per project (recommended) — pin it to the theme, keep the whole team on the same version:
npm install --save-dev @kiqr/cli
npx kiqr up
Add a couple of scripts and your teammates never even have to learn the commands:
{
"scripts": {
"dev": "kiqr up",
"stop": "kiqr down"
}
}
Globally — if you live in the terminal and want kiqr everywhere:
npm install -g @kiqr/cli
Your project directory must be a WordPress theme — i.e. it has a style.css with a Theme Name: header. That's how Kiqr knows what it's looking at:
/*
Theme Name: My Glorious Theme
*/
No header, no theme, no party. (Kiqr will say so politely.)
cd my-glorious-theme
kiqr up
First run in a fresh theme? Kiqr notices there's no project config yet, recognizes your theme, and offers to set everything up — no init ceremony required. When it's done you get:
http://<theme>.<your-computer>.lvh.me:5477/wp-adminEdit a file, hit refresh (or run kiqr watch and don't even do that). Welcome to the good life.
Everything below is a real, shipped command. Run kiqr <command> --help any time you forget the details.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
kiqr up | Spin up the environment. Auto-initializes a new theme if needed. |
kiqr down | Stop your project's containers. Your data stays put. |
kiqr restart | Stop, regenerate config, start again — the classic "turn it off and on." |
kiqr watch | Watch theme files and auto-reload the browser on every save. |
kiqr watch runs a LiveReload server and watches .php, .css, .js, .scss, .sass, .less, .html, and .txt. Change a stylesheet, the browser refreshes the CSS in place; change anything else, it does a full reload. Two terminals, infinite smugness.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
kiqr status | Is it running, and where do I reach it? At a glance. |
kiqr info | Project details + credentials (admin login, DB creds). |
kiqr logs | Tail the WordPress container logs. |
kiqr doctor | Environment health check — Docker installed? running? ports free? |
kiqr doctor is the first thing to run when something feels off. It checks that Docker is installed and awake, that the ports Kiqr needs are free, and flags WSL — so you stop guessing and start fixing.
kiqr open launches URLs and folders so you don't have to copy-paste them:
| Command | Opens |
|---|---|
kiqr open | Your site |
kiqr open admin | /wp-admin, auto-logged-in (no password tango) |
kiqr open phpmyadmin | phpMyAdmin, auto-logged-in |
kiqr open plugins | The local plugins folder |
kiqr open uploads | The local uploads folder |
kiqr open data | The project's local data directory |
kiqr db)Snapshots of your local database, compressed and tagged so you can roll back after that "experimental" migration.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
kiqr db dump | Create a compressed .sql.gz backup. |
kiqr db list | List your backups, newest first. |
kiqr db restore <id> | Restore from a backup (with a safety net — see below). |
kiqr db restore offers to take a fresh safety backup before it overwrites anything, and makes you solve a tiny math problem first so you can't fat-finger your way to regret.
kiqr wp)The entire WP-CLI toolbox, piped straight into your container:
kiqr wp plugin install woocommerce --activate
kiqr wp user create alice alice@example.com --role=editor
kiqr wp post create --post_title="Hello World" --post_status=publish
kiqr wp search-replace 'old.test' 'new.test' --dry-run
Arguments are passed through verbatim — quotes, spaces and all — so even fiddly commands behave.
kiqr seed)Staring at an empty install is no way to build a theme. Generate realistic content and import it:
kiqr seed --preset blog # posts + an About page (default)
kiqr seed --preset portfolio # an intro page + project pages
kiqr seed --preset woocommerce # a shelf of demo products
kiqr wp import kiqr-seed-blog.xml --authors=create
kiqr seed writes a standard WordPress import file (WXR) full of block-editor-friendly content — then kiqr wp import pours it in.
kiqr agent)The shared reverse proxy + splash page that route every Kiqr site live as one persistent background service — the kiqr agent. It starts on your first kiqr up and keeps humming across projects, so switching themes doesn't thrash the proxy up and down.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
kiqr agent status | Is the agent running? On what port? |
kiqr agent start | Start it. |
kiqr agent stop | Stop it (e.g. to free the port). |
kiqr agent restart | Restart it. |
kiqr agent logs | Stream its logs. |
kiqr down and kiqr destroy leave the agent alone on purpose — it's infrastructure, not project clutter. (It's also where future shared goodies will live: a dashboard, a mail catcher, the collaboration tunnel.)
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
kiqr init | Initialize a Kiqr project in the current directory (usually automatic via kiqr up). |
kiqr destroy | Nuke this project's data — database, uploads, the lot — and start fresh. Asks first. |
kiqr completion <bash|zsh|fish> | Print a shell completion script. |
Tab-completion is a quality-of-life upgrade you didn't know you needed:
kiqr completion bash >> ~/.bashrc # bash
kiqr completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_kiqr" # zsh
kiqr completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/kiqr.fish # fish
Onboard a new dev in one command. They clone the theme repo and run kiqr up. Same WordPress version, same PHP, same everything — because it's all in kiqr.yaml. No "works on my machine."
Switch PHP or WordPress version. Edit kiqr.yaml, then kiqr restart. Kiqr validates the combo against Docker Hub before pulling, so you get a clear "WP 6.4 doesn't ship PHP 8.5 — try 8.3" instead of a cryptic failure. Database and uploads are preserved.
Try something reckless, then undo it. kiqr db dump → break things gloriously → kiqr db restore <id>. Time travel for your database.
Populate a fresh theme for screenshots/QA. kiqr seed --preset woocommerce && kiqr wp import kiqr-seed-woocommerce.xml --authors=create.
Start completely over. kiqr destroy wipes the data; the next kiqr up builds a pristine site.
Project settings live in kiqr.yaml, committed to git so the whole team shares them:
project_id: "a1b2c3d4-..." # stable id; never changes even if you rename the folder
name: "my-glorious-theme"
wordpress:
version: 7 # any valid WordPress Docker tag (e.g. 7, 6.4, or "latest")
php_version: 8.3 # the PHP version to run WordPress on
development:
dynamic_urls: true
Point wordpress.version at any WordPress Docker tag, run kiqr restart, and you've switched versions without losing data. Machine-specific secrets (database password, login token) are stored outside the repo in your local data directory — they never get committed.
Kiqr orchestrates WordPress, MariaDB, and phpMyAdmin in Docker containers, with Traefik out front as a reverse proxy and a friendly splash page for unmatched hostnames. Your theme directory is bind-mounted straight into WordPress, so every save shows up instantly.
project_id.kiqr open plugins).Each developer gets a hostname derived from their computer name (<theme>.<computer>.lvh.me), which always resolves to 127.0.0.1 — so there are zero port collisions even when the whole team is on the same Wi-Fi, and nobody touches /etc/hosts.
The shared proxy + splash are bundled as the kiqr agent (see above): one persistent service the whole machine shares.
Start here, always:
kiqr doctor
kiqr agent stop (or free whatever's on the port) and try again.kiqr.yaml and tells you exactly which field is wrong.PRs welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the dev loop, coding standards, and the branch → PR → CI flow. The short version: npm install, npm run dev, and make sure npm run lint && npm run typecheck && npm test && npm run build are all green before you push.
MIT — go build something great.
FAQs
Local WordPress theme development CLI
The npm package @kiqr/cli receives a total of 0 weekly downloads. As such, @kiqr/cli popularity was classified as not popular.
We found that @kiqr/cli demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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