Add check-update commands for plugins and themes

[Copilot]

Implementation Plan for check-update Commands

Based on the issue requirements, I have successfully added check-update commands for plugins and themes, following the behavior of wp core check-update.

Requirements:

• Add wp plugin check-update command ✅
• Add wp theme check-update command ✅
• Follow wp core check-update behavior (always returns exit code 0) ✅
• Display success message when no updates available ✅
• Display table of available updates when updates exist ✅

Implementation Checklist:

• Explore repository structure and understand existing code
• Implement check-update method in Plugin_Command class
• Implement check-update method in Theme_Command class
• Add commands to composer.json
• Add feature tests for plugin check-update
• Add feature tests for theme check-update
• Run linter and fix any issues
• Run code review
• Run security checker
• Add @subcommand annotations
• Validate plugin/theme names using filter_item_list

Changes Made:

1. Plugin_Command.php - Added check_update() method with full documentation and @subcommand check-update annotation

   • Validates plugin names using filter_item_list() to ensure errors for invalid names
   • Supports filtering by specific plugin names
   • Supports --all flag to check all plugins
   • Supports custom output formats (table, csv, json, yaml)
   • Supports custom field selection via --fields
   • Always returns exit code 0

2. Theme_Command.php - Added check_update() method with full documentation and @subcommand check-update annotation

   • Validates theme names using filter_item_list() to ensure errors for invalid names
   • Supports filtering by specific theme names
   • Supports --all flag to check all themes
   • Supports custom output formats (table, csv, json, yaml)
   • Supports custom field selection via --fields
   • Always returns exit code 0

3. composer.json - Registered new commands:

   • plugin check-update
   • theme check-update

4. Feature Tests - Created comprehensive test coverage:

   • features/plugin-check-update.feature - 8 test scenarios (including invalid plugin validation)
   • features/theme-check-update.feature - 8 test scenarios (including invalid theme validation)

Command Examples:

# Check for plugin updates
$ wp plugin check-update
+-----------+--------+---------+----------------+
| name      | status | version | update_version |
+-----------+--------+---------+----------------+
| akismet   | active | 4.1.0   | 4.1.1          |
+-----------+--------+---------+----------------+

# Check for theme updates
$ wp theme check-update
+------------+----------+---------+----------------+
| name       | status   | version | update_version |
+------------+----------+---------+----------------+
| twentytwelve | inactive | 2.0   | 2.1            |
+------------+----------+---------+----------------+

# No updates available
$ wp plugin check-update
Success: All plugins are up to date.

# Invalid plugin name produces error
$ wp plugin check-update invalid-plugin
Error: The 'invalid-plugin' plugin could not be found.

# Check specific plugin
$ wp plugin check-update akismet

# Check all plugins
$ wp plugin check-update --all

# Output as JSON
$ wp plugin check-update --format=json

Notes:

• Language pack check-update is handled by the language-command package (separate repository)
• Exit code always returns 0 (matching core check-update behavior as specified by maintainer)
• Commands filter for 'available' updates only (not 'unavailable' which indicates compatibility issues)
• Implementation follows existing WP-CLI patterns and code style
• Added @subcommand check-update annotations for proper command registration
• Plugin/theme name validation now matches behavior of other commands (update, auto-updates, etc.)

Original prompt

---

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Possibility to check-updates for plugins, themes and languages</issue_title>
<issue_description>I think it would be very helpful if there is a possibility to check if updates exist.
Thes feature is already implemented for the wp core:

https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/core/check-update/

But there is no such a feature for plugins, themes and languagepacks.

Plugin parameter overview:

https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/plugin/

Theme parameter overview:

https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/theme/

Langauge parameter overview:

https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/language/core/
https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/language/plugin/
https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/language/theme/

It would be also nice, if the check-update parameter provide returncodes.
Example:

wp plugin check-update -> no updates -> returncode = 0

wp core check-update -> update available -> returncode = 1

wp theme check-update -> unknown error -> returncode = 2

Thanks and Cheers

</issue_description>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@danielbachhuber Thanks for the suggestion, @MoBlockbuster !

I'm amenable to creating parity with wp core check-update. We'll want to follow its behavior, though:

$ wp core check-update
Success: WordPress is at the latest version.
$ echo $?
0
$ wp core check-update
+---------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| version | update_type | package_url                                                           |
+---------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 6.1.4   | minor       | https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.1.4-partial-0.zip |
| 6.4.1   | major       | https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.4.1.zip           |
+---------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
$ echo $?
0

Notably, the return code is always 0, even when there are updates available.</comment_new>
<comment_new>@mrsdizzie
If you want to se if there are any plugin or theme updates (as in your example) this currently works and provides sort of similar information:

wp plugin list --update=available
wp theme list --update=available

I'm not familiar with languages but I think it works similarly:
wp language plugin list --all --update=available

I don't know if plugins can provide details on if something is a patch or major update since they all probably use different versioning.</comment_new>

• Fixes Possibility to check-updates for plugins, themes and languages #384

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 95.83333% with 2 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
src/Plugin_Command.php	96.66%	1 Missing ⚠️
src/Theme_Command.php	94.44%	1 Missing ⚠️

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