WordPress Bedrock Docker Template

Dockerized deployment of a Composer-managed Bedrock WordPress project based on the Islandora Buildkit nginx base image.

Quick Start

1. Build the application image:

docker compose build

2. Generate secrets:

docker compose up init

3. Start the site:

docker compose up -d

3. Access the site at http://localhost

The first boot runs wp-cli automatically. Default admin credentials:

• Username: admin via WORDPRESS_ADMIN_USERNAME
• Password: contents of ./secrets/WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD
• Email: admin@example.com via WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL

Project Layout

• composer.json manages WordPress core and any downstream plugin/theme dependencies.
• web/wp is the Composer-installed WordPress core directory.
• web/app/plugins, web/app/themes, and web/app/mu-plugins are where downstream projects add custom code or Composer-managed packages.
• web/app/uploads is the only application content mounted to a named volume.
• config/application.php reads runtime values from /var/run/s6/container_environment.

Template Scope

This template intentionally includes Bedrock and WordPress core only.

It does not ship with project-specific plugins or themes. When a project uses this template, add dependencies in composer.json for public packages from WPackagist, or add custom code directly under:

• web/app/plugins/
• web/app/themes/
• web/app/mu-plugins/

Example Composer additions for a downstream project:

{
  "require": {
    "wpackagist-plugin/akismet": "*",
    "wpackagist-theme/twentytwentyfour": "*"
  }
}

Local Development

Traefik is always part of the stack. In local development, docker-compose.override-example.yaml publishes Traefik on port 80, so requests still flow through the same frontend proxy used elsewhere.

By default, the wp image is self-contained: docker build runs composer install and bakes the Bedrock app into the image. The default Compose stack does not bind-mount the host checkout into the wp container.

If you want live host edits in local development, copy docker-compose.override-example.yaml to docker-compose.override.yaml. That override mounts ./ to /var/www/bedrock in wp.

The only named application volume is wordpress-uploads, mounted at web/app/uploads, so uploads persist without hiding Composer-managed dependencies.

A local Mailpit service is defined in docker-compose.override-example.yaml. Copy it to docker-compose.override.yaml for local use. It exposes:

• SMTP on localhost:1025
• Web UI on http://localhost:8025

PHP mail() in the wp container is wired through msmtp, which relays by default to host.docker.internal:25. That makes the running site use the Docker host's mail server without needing a WordPress SMTP plugin for the common local/dev case.

Useful commands:

docker compose build
docker compose run --rm wp plugin list
docker compose run --rm wp theme list
make db-rewrite-uploads-urls
./scripts/test-host-postfix.sh you@example.com

To test delivery through Postfix running on the Docker host, the app services map host.docker.internal to the host gateway and PHP mail() relays there through msmtp. The helper above runs wp_mail() through the live site's normal WordPress mail configuration.

Configuration

Primary runtime settings:

• DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD
• DOMAIN
• WORDPRESS_HOME, WORDPRESS_SITEURL
• WORDPRESS_SITE_TITLE, WORDPRESS_ADMIN_USERNAME, WORDPRESS_ADMIN_EMAIL, WORDPRESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD
• WORDPRESS_LOCALE, WORDPRESS_TABLE_PREFIX, WORDPRESS_BLOG_PUBLIC
• WORDPRESS_AUTH_KEY, WORDPRESS_SECURE_AUTH_KEY, WORDPRESS_LOGGED_IN_KEY, WORDPRESS_NONCE_KEY
• WORDPRESS_AUTH_SALT, WORDPRESS_SECURE_AUTH_SALT, WORDPRESS_LOGGED_IN_SALT, WORDPRESS_NONCE_SALT

Secrets are generated into ./secrets/ by scripts/generate-secrets.sh.

Notes

• docker compose build installs Composer dependencies into the image.
• docker compose up init generates secrets for the project.
• make db-rewrite-uploads-urls rewrites legacy wp-content/uploads URLs in WordPress content to Bedrock app/uploads URLs.
• The image includes both composer and wp-cli so dependency and admin tasks can stay inside the container.
• The image also includes msmtp; PHP mail() relays to host.docker.internal:25 by default.
• The relay envelope sender is configurable with SMTP_FROM; if unset it defaults to info@<DOMAIN> with a leading www. stripped.
• Downstream projects should own plugin and theme selection; the template stays generic.
• Mailpit remains available as an SMTP target at mailpit:1025 when a project wants application-level SMTP testing instead of host relay.

TLS Deployment

The base compose stack always includes Traefik for HTTP routing. To enable HTTPS and Let's Encrypt, layer in docker-compose.tls.yml:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yaml -f docker-compose.tls.yml up -d

Requirements:

• DOMAIN must be set to the site hostname
• ACME_EMAIL must be set for Let's Encrypt registration

The base compose stack publishes port 80. With the TLS file included, Traefik also listens on 443, redirects HTTP to HTTPS, and terminates TLS for the wp service. The repo keeps Traefik dynamic config in ./conf/traefik/wordpress.tmpl, which Compose mounts into the container as a file-provider .yml config.

A production systemd unit example is available at deploy/wordpress-bedrock.service. Adjust WorkingDirectory and EnvironmentFile for the deployment host before installing it under /etc/systemd/system/.