Permit single-file mu-plugins#337
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Sets up tests to demonstrate the issues in this ruleset that prevent easy use of single-file mu-plugin patterns, which have pragmatic uses in many codebases and should still require namespaces, etc.
Permits files which are direct children of mu-plugins or client-mu-plugins to have sideeffects and to not require a folder-based structure. Proper file organization is still recommended but in many cases a full inc folder is overkill for a small mu-plugin which adjusts third-party plugin functionality, etcetera.
joehoyle
reviewed
Jun 22, 2026
| $path = str_replace( DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, '/', $path ); | ||
| } | ||
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| return (bool) preg_match( '#/(?:client-)?mu-plugins/[^/]+\.php$#', $path ); |
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Not in any projects that I've worked on in the past 3–4 years, my inclination is to leave that one out as it's a confusing pattern
joehoyle
approved these changes
Jun 22, 2026
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I reviewed use of HMCS across a variety of VIP and Altis projects and noticed a recurring configuration in project PHPCS to disable the rules which prevent the use of single-file MU plugins, e.g. to drop a small
hm-thirdpartyplugin-integration.phpwhich simply registers a few hooks to customize third-party code and doesn't benefit practically from the more robust folder-based code structure.I believe this should be permitted by our standards, and this PR "paves the cowpath" by adjusting the ruleset to avoid false-flagging files like this from needing to be organized into
inc/namespaces, and to permit them to have side-effects.