CI/CD Workflows for Composer-Based ACF Pro Projects

Composer-only install policy is safe when CI verifies lockfile, runtime APIs, and schema files on every release.

Practical Use Cases

Use Case 1: GitHub Actions gate for Composer and runtime checks

.github/workflows/acf-composer-gate.yml

name: acf-composer-gate

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist
      - name: Verify lock integrity
        run: composer validate --strict
      - name: Runtime ACF API check
        run: wp eval 'var_export(function_exists("acf_get_field_groups")); echo PHP_EOL;'

Expected output

./composer.json is valid
true

Use Case 2: Release smoke script for plugin and schema parity

scripts/release-smoke-acf.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

wp plugin get advanced-custom-fields-pro --fields=name,status,version
wp eval 'echo "groups=" . count(acf_get_field_groups()) . PHP_EOL;'
ls -1 wp-content/themes/your-theme/acf-json/*.json >/dev/null

echo "acf-release-smoke=pass"

Expected output

name	status	version
advanced-custom-fields-pro	active	6.3.1
groups=18
acf-release-smoke=pass

Hands-On Practice

1. Add Composer validation and runtime ACF checks to CI.
2. Add release smoke script for plugin version + field group count.
3. Fail deployment automatically when any ACF runtime check fails.

What's Next

• Continue by reviewing the ACF track overview.
• Review this module context in Module 11 Overview.
• Related lesson: Local JSON and Version Control Workflow.