akirk/extract-wp-hooks

Extract available WordPress hooks for a Github Wiki

1.2.0 2025-08-18 18:43 UTC

Requires

• php: >=7.4

Requires (Dev)

• phpunit/phpunit: ^9.0|^10.0|^11.0
• wp-coding-standards/wpcs: ^3.0

GPL-2.0-or-later

• Alex Kirk

README

This script is intended for WordPress plugins that provide hooks that can be used by other plugins. By parsing its source code, it creates a documentation in a Github wiki.

You can configure this tool either through a JSON configuration file or directly through GitHub Action inputs. For local usage, you'll need a configuration file, but for GitHub Actions, you can specify all configuration directly in your workflow file.

Examples

• https://github.com/akirk/extract-hooks/wiki/Hooks (extracted from example.php)
• https://github.com/akirk/friends/wiki/Hooks
• https://github.com/akirk/enable-mastodon-apps/wiki/Hooks

How it works

The PHP script doesn't have any dependencies. It uses PHP's internal parser (using token_get_all) to identify PHP function calls to apply_filters() or do_action().

It generates a markdown file for each filter which is suitable for a Github wiki. The page contains potentially provided documentation (via a comment in the source code), an (auto-generated) example, parameters, return value, references to the source code (including extracted source snippet).

Example: Provide Documentation Via a Comment

For each filter, it looks at the comment preceeding the filter, so that you can document it, for example:

/*
 * This is example filter 1.
 *
 * @param string $text The text to modify.
 * @param string $mode Extra information that might be useful.
 * @return string The modified text.
 */
$result = apply_filters( 'example_filter1', $text, $mode );

This will generate an example_filter1.md that contains the text This is an example filter and a list of parameters and return value:

example_filter1

This is an example filter.

Parameters

• string $text The text to modify.
• string $mode Extra information that might be useful.

Returns

string The modified text.

But not only that, it will contain an auto-generated example:

Auto-generated Example

add_filter(
    'example_filter1',
    function(
        string $text,
        string $mode
    ) {
        // Your code
        return $text;
    },
    10,
    2
);

Provide an Example

You can also provide your own example in the comment, that will override the auto-generated example:

/*
 * This is example filter 2.
 *
 * Example:
 * ```php
 * add_filter( 'example_filter2', function ( $text ) {
 *     return strtolower( $text );
 * } );
 * ```
 *
 * @param string $text The text to modify.
 * @param string $mode Extra information that might be useful.
 * @return string The modified text.
 */
$result = apply_filters( 'example_filter2', $text, $mode );

It generates this output: example_filter2

Example

add_filter( 'example_filter2', function ( $text ) {
    return strtolower( $text );
} );

No Documentation

Finally, if you have an filter without any documentation, the script attempts to create a useful auto-generated example. So suppose you have code

$result = apply_filters( 'example_filter3', $text, $mode );

It generates this output: example_filter3

Auto-generated Example

add_filter(
    'example_filter3',
    function (
        $text,
        $mode
    ) {
        // Your code here
        return $text;
    },
    10,
    2
);

Parameters

• $text
• $mode

Install

Option 1: GitHub Action (Recommended)

Add the following workflow file to your WordPress plugin repository at .github/workflows/extract-hooks.yml:

name: Extract WordPress Hooks

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, master ]
    paths: [ '**.php' ]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  extract-hooks:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write  # Required to push to wiki repository
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: akirk/extract-wp-hooks@main

This will automatically extract hooks from your PHP files and update your GitHub wiki whenever you push changes.

Configuration

You can configure the action in two ways:

1. Using action inputs (recommended):

- uses: akirk/extract-wp-hooks@main
  with:
    namespace: "My_Plugin"
    base-dir: "."
    wiki-directory: "wiki"
    exclude-dirs: "vendor,tests,node_modules"
    ignore-filters: "debug_hook,internal_filter"
    section: "file"

1. Using a configuration file:

Create an .extract-wp-hooks.json file in your repository root:

{
    "namespace": "My_Plugin", // PHP Namespace used in the project.
    "base_dir": ".", // The directory to analyse for php files.
    "wiki_directory": "wiki", // Where the files will be written to.
    "github_blob_url": "https://github.com/username/my-plugin/blob/main/", // This is the base url for the links to the source files.
    "exclude_dirs": ["vendor", "tests"],
    "ignore_filter": ["debug_hook", "internal_filter"]
}

Available Action Inputs

Input	Description	Default
namespace	PHP Namespace that's used
base-dir	Base directory to scan for hooks	.
wiki-directory	Directory to store wiki files	wiki
github-blob-url	GitHub blob URL for source links	Auto-generated from repository
exclude-dirs	Comma-separated list of directories to exclude	vendor,node_modules
ignore-filters	Comma-separated list of filter names to ignore
ignore-regex	Regex pattern to ignore filter names
section	How to group hooks in documentation: 'file' or 'dir'	file
wiki-repo	Wiki repository URL (e.g., username/repo.wiki.git)	Auto-generated from repository
config-file	Path to config file (optional if other inputs are provided)	.extract-wp-hooks.json

Option 2: Composer

Via composer:

composer require --dev akirk/extract-wp-hooks

You will then be able to run extract-wp-hooks.php from the vendor bin directory:

./vendor/bin/extract-wp-hooks.php

Place a .extract-wp-hooks.json or extract-wp-hooks.json in your project directory to use it.