Axle Read-Only Mode

Read-only mode for migrations and deploys. Visitors still see the site, but nothing can be saved, so no edit, order or comment gets lost in the switch.

When you move a site to a new server, or replace the live database with one from staging, anything saved on the old copy during the move is lost. Maintenance mode hides the whole site. Axle Read-Only Mode keeps it online and makes it read-only until you unfreeze, or until the freeze ends on its own.

[!NOTE] Free and open source under the GPL. No pro version, no upsells, no ads in wp-admin, no tracking. And it stays that way.

Part of Axle by AryanX, a family of plugins for running WordPress sites safely.

Features

• wp-admin still opens, but saves, uploads, settings and plugin changes are refused
• Block editor disables Save and Publish and says why, including for people who already have it open
• REST and XML-RPC writes get 423 Locked. Reads still work
• Visitors posting comments, forms, checkouts or sign-ups get a 503 with Retry-After and your own message
• WP-Cron is held back and runs when the freeze ends
• End time, schedule, +30 minutes and +1 hour, and quick freeze from the admin bar
• Blocked attempts listed (who, when, what), and the last ten freezes kept
• Logging in always works, so an admin can always unfreeze

Install

1. Download axle-read-only-mode.zip from the latest release.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload Plugin, choose the zip and activate it.

Or with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/aryanjasala/axle-read-only-mode/releases/latest/download/axle-read-only-mode.zip --activate

Needs WordPress 6.6+ and PHP 7.4+. To try it first, the Try in WordPress Playground badge opens a throwaway WordPress in your browser with the plugin and some demo content.

Quick look

WP-CLI is never blocked, so a deploy script can wrap the migration:

wp axle-read-only-mode on --minutes=30 --reason="Moving servers"
# ... migrate ...
wp axle-read-only-mode off

If the script dies halfway, the freeze still ends after 30 minutes.

Screenshots

The block editor during a freeze	Axle Read-Only Mode during a freeze, with countdown and blocked attempts"> Tools > Axle Read-Only Mode during a freeze, with countdown and blocked attempts
What visitors see when they send a form during a freeze

Documentation

Project structure

axle-read-only-mode.php        plugin header and PSR-4 autoloader
src/
├── Plugin.php           creates the services, guards load only while frozen
├── State.php            the saved freeze, its timing and messages
├── Freezer.php          starts, extends and ends freezes
├── BlockedLog.php       what the freeze stopped
├── History.php          the last ten freezes
├── Guards/              wp-admin, REST, front-end and cron guards
├── Admin/               freeze screen, notice, admin bar
├── Editor/EditorLock.php  locks the block editor through the heartbeat
└── Cli/Command.php      wp axle-read-only-mode
assets/                  editor lock and countdown scripts
tests/
├── Unit/                PHPUnit
└── e2e/                 Playwright specs and the Docker site
.wordpress-org/          screenshots
docs/                    reference, development, contributing, releasing

More free plugins

Small plugins that each fill one gap in WordPress, all free with no pro version:

	Plugin	What it does
	Page Template Usage	See which template every page uses, and fix the pages on a missing template
	Staging Guard	Stops staging copies from emailing real people or getting indexed
	Category & Tag Trash	A trash for categories, tags and custom terms, with undo and full restore
	Restore Blocks from Revisions	Restore a single block from an old revision, not the whole post
	Activity Log with Undo	An activity log where every change you can reverse has an Undo button
	Agent Governance	Hold risky AI agent calls for approval, preview what they change, and roll back a session
	Block Doctor	Scan the whole site for invalid and broken blocks and fix them in bulk, with undo
	Block Theme Ops	Find Site Editor changes that override your theme files, see the diff, reset them or send them to Git
	Role Right-Sizer	Recommends the smallest role each user needs, from what they actually do
	Update Rehearsal	Try plugin, theme, core and PHP updates on a disposable copy of your site in WordPress Playground first
	User Session Manager	See every device signed in, sign out one, and limit sessions per role

License

Copyright Aryan Jasala. Licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later.