Pw Maintenance

ProcessWire Maintenance Mode

This implements a managed maintenance mode for ProcessWire driven by CLI commands, mimicking Laravel's artisan down behavior.

When to Use

• You are about to run a heavily disruptive migration or seeding.
• The website needs to display a "demo/under construction" or "maintenance" message gracefully while you allow designated administrators (with a secret parameter) to continue browsing.

Core Content

How It Works

The wire down command writes a down.json payload into ProcessWire's $config->paths->assets directory. The wire up command deletes this file.

Because processwire-console operates independently of HTTP requests, it cannot stop requests directly. To make it work, the site/init.php file MUST be configured to intercept traffic when down.json exists.

Integration (One-Time Setup in site/init.php)

To ensure the website goes down for visitors during maintenance, verify or place this snippet inside site/init.php:

// Intercept down.json if exists
$downFile = $config->paths->assets . 'down.json';
if (file_exists($downFile) && php_sapi_name() !== 'cli') {
    $down = json_decode(file_get_contents($downFile), true);
    // Support secret bypassing (e.g. ?secret=dev123)
    $providedSecret = wire('input')->get('secret') ?: wire('session')->get('maintenance_secret');
    
    if (empty($down['secret']) || $providedSecret !== $down['secret']) {
        if (!empty($down['redirect'])) wire('session')->redirect($down['redirect']);
        http_response_code($down['status'] ?? 503);
        die('Site is under maintenance. Please check back soon.');
    } else {
        // Save the secret in session so they don't have to keep it in the URL
        if ($providedSecret === $down['secret']) {
            wire('session')->set('maintenance_secret', $down['secret']);
        }
    }
}

Supported CLI Commands

• wire down
  • Safely stops the app for the public.
  • Options:
    • --redirect=/some-url - Where to push visitors.
    • --status=503 - Explicit HTTP code.
    • --secret=developerToken123 - Very critical. If passed, the developer visits example.com/?secret=developerToken123 and can still use the site normally to verify fixes.
• wire up
  • Restores the application to live status.

Anti-Patterns

• ❌ Editing index.php: ProcessWire updates overwrite index.php. Do not place the check logic there. Place it in site/init.php (earliest site hook).
• ❌ Missing CLI check: Always ensure php_sapi_name() !== 'cli' inside site/init.php or you will lock yourself out of the wire CLI commands while down!

Related Skills

• pw-expert
• pw-migrations