Recipes and pro-plugin licenses
A recipe does what a premium plugin needs beyond its files: it activates the license for the site’s address, does it again when the address changes, and releases it when the site is deleted. Plugins → Recipes is where you install recipes and enter their keys.
Set up a recipe
Section titled “Set up a recipe”- Open Plugins → Recipes. Under Recipe catalog, find the plugin and choose Install.
- Under Installed recipes, enter what the recipe asks for, usually the license key, and choose Save.
- For sites that already have the plugin, open each site’s WordPress tab and choose Activate all in its Recipes card. New sites get the license on their own.
When a recipe runs
Section titled “When a recipe runs”| When | What the recipe does |
|---|---|
| A site is created, right after its plugins are installed | Activates the license, then checks it |
| The site’s address changes: going live, a new primary domain, a restore or a move under another address | Activates it again for the new address |
| The site is deleted | Releases the activation |
| Activate all, Activate or Check on the site’s WordPress tab | Activates, or only checks, on demand |
A recipe runs only where its plugin is installed and active, once every value it asks for is entered. A failure never stops the job it runs in, such as creating the site. It is a warning in that job’s log, and failed on the site.
The bundled recipes
Section titled “The bundled recipes”| Plugin | Activation | After an address change |
|---|---|---|
ACF PRO, advanced-custom-fields-pro |
Defines ACF_PRO_LICENSE on the site and runs ACF’s own license check |
The same check, for the new address |
Breakdance, breakdance |
wp breakdance license with your key |
wp breakdance replace_url and wp breakdance clear_cache, then the license again |
Their install step then updates the plugin to the vendor’s current release. If that update fails, it is only a warning.
The signed recipe catalog
Section titled “The signed recipe catalog”The same recipes, and any added or corrected since, are published as a public catalog. The panel fetches it every hour and checks its signature before reading it. An installed recipe follows the catalog’s changes without a panel update. A failed fetch keeps the previous copy, and Fetch now fetches at once.
Each fetch is two requests to GitHub Pages, carrying nothing about your sites. To stop them and use
the bundled recipes only, set WPL7_CATALOG_URL=off in deploy/.env and run setup.sh again.
Add a local recipe
Section titled “Add a local recipe”For a plugin without a recipe, choose Add local recipe and paste one in the catalog’s format. It is installed and enabled at once, and no fetch ever changes it. A local recipe with a catalog recipe’s id replaces it: start from Copy JSON on the installed one. Recipe format explains how to write one.
Where the keys live
Section titled “Where the keys live”The panel stores keys in its database as you entered them, and shows a key again as its last four
characters at most. A key the recipe hands over as a PHP constant goes into
wp-content/mu-plugins/wpl7-licenses.php, on sites that have that plugin only. Other recipes pass
the key to the vendor’s command. Job logs hide a key that a command prints back unchanged.
Read a site’s status
Section titled “Read a site’s status”The Recipes card on a site’s WordPress tab shows one word per recipe:
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| active | The last run or check found the license active, for the address shown |
| failed | A step, or the check after it, failed. The message says which. |
| plugin inactive | The plugin is installed but switched off, so nothing was done |
| not set up | A value is missing. Set up leads to it. |
| released | The activation was released while the site was being deleted |
| not checked | The recipe has not run on this site yet |
A job started from this card fails when a recipe fails, so the Jobs list shows it.
Limits
Section titled “Limits”- Every administrator of a site with the plugin can read its key. That is what licensing a site means.
- Release on delete is best effort. If the vendor cannot be reached, the activation stays.
- Whether a dev address counts against a license is the vendor’s rule.
- Disabling or uninstalling a recipe leaves what it already activated. Its constants leave a site at that site’s next recipe run.
- A command that prints a key in another form, cut short or in capitals, shows it in the job log.
- A recipe step runs inside the site’s container. It can do what a site administrator can, and nothing on the server.