Installation & Setup

Before you can build themes, write plugins, or explore the loop, you need a working WordPress installation. This page walks through what WordPress needs to run, the classic "5-minute install", setting it up locally on XAMPP/WAMP for development, and the WP-CLI command-line workflow that many professional WordPress developers use instead of clicking through the browser wizard.

1. Server Requirements

In practice, the easiest way to satisfy all of this on your own computer is an all-in-one stack like XAMPP or WAMP (this very tutorial site runs on WAMP) — both bundle Apache, PHP, and MySQL/MariaDB together so you don't have to install and configure each piece separately.

2. The Famous "5-Minute Install"

WordPress is well known for how quickly it can be installed. The classic manual process looks like this:

3. Configuring wp-config.php Manually

If the setup wizard can't write the file itself (for example, due to file permissions), or if you simply prefer to configure things by hand, copy wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and fill in your database details directly:

<?php
define('DB_NAME', 'my_wordpress_db');
define('DB_USER', 'wp_user');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'a_strong_password');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8mb4');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

// Unique authentication keys and salts - generate your own at
// https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/
define('AUTH_KEY',         'put a long random string here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put a long random string here');

4. Installing Locally with XAMPP or WAMP

For learning and theme/plugin development, running WordPress locally is much faster than deploying to a live server for every test. The workflow is nearly identical on both stacks:

5. Installing via WP-CLI

WP-CLI is the official command-line tool for WordPress. Many professional WordPress developers prefer it over the browser wizard because it's scriptable, fast, and works well over SSH on remote servers. A typical WP-CLI install looks like this from a terminal, inside your site's folder:

wp core download
wp config create --dbname=my_wordpress_db --dbuser=wp_user --dbpass=a_strong_password --dbhost=localhost
wp core install --url=http://localhost/mysite --title="My Site" --admin_user=admin --admin_password=strongpass --admin_email=you@example.com

wp core download fetches the latest WordPress core files, wp config create generates wp-config.php for you, and wp core install runs the equivalent of the 5-minute wizard entirely from the command line — no browser required. This makes WP-CLI extremely popular for automated deployments, staging environments, and CI pipelines.

6. Logging In and First Look at wp-admin

Once installation finishes, WordPress redirects you to /wp-login.php. Log in with the admin username and password you chose to reach the WordPress Dashboard at /wp-admin/ — this is the control center where you manage posts, pages, media, themes, plugins, users, and settings for the rest of this track.

7. Must-Use Plugins and Default Themes

Two concepts worth knowing about from day one: