EM Nuclear Reset

EM Nuclear Reset is a developer-oriented utility for resetting one non-multisite WordPress installation to a clean core schema while preserving the reset plugin and active theme.

Scope And Safety

The reset drops only tables with the current installation's $wpdb->prefix. It preserves em-nuclear-reset, the active theme and parent theme, WordPress core, wp-config.php, must-use plugins, host-managed files, and wp-content/em-nuclear-reset-logs.

The operator is responsible for backups and recovery readiness. Multisite is not supported. Filesystem cleanup uses an explicit allowlist, rejects symlinks, and refuses paths outside the approved WordPress content directories.

Reset Execution

The reset executor runs from the WordPress Tools page and WP-CLI. Both require the exact RESET <site-url> confirmation phrase, an irreversible-action acknowledgement, a clean preflight with no blocked paths, and no active reset lock.

WordPress Admin

Open Tools -> EM Nuclear Reset as an administrator. The form requires manage_options, a valid nonce, the confirmation phrase, and the acknowledgement checkbox. It restores the initiating administrator with the existing password and signs that user back in after reset.

WP-CLI

Display the scoped plan without changes:

wp em-nuclear-reset plan

Execute a reset:

wp em-nuclear-reset execute --execute=true --confirm='RESET https://site.test' --acknowledge=true --site-title='Clean Site' --admin-user=admin --admin-email=admin@example.test --admin-password-env=EM_NUCLEAR_RESET_ADMIN_PASSWORD --yes

For WP-CLI, set the replacement administrator password in the environment or a secret manager, then pass only its uppercase variable name through --admin-password-env. Never place the password directly in a command, script, CI log, or WP-CLI argument.

Recovery And Logging

The executor acquires an exclusive lock, records the approved table count, drops approved prefix-scoped tables, rebuilds WordPress with wp_install(), restores the theme and plugin, removes eligible files, and verifies core tables, auto-increment columns, administrator access, and migration-plugin readiness.

Operation records are JSONL files under wp-content/em-nuclear-reset-logs. The plugin creates Apache .htaccess and index.php protections; configure equivalent web-server rules for Nginx or another server before resetting a remote site.

Development

Prerequisites:

• Composer for PHP quality tools and unit tests
• Node.js 20 or later for encoding checks and wp-env
• Docker Desktop only for isolated wp-env validation

Install dependencies:

composer install
npm install

Run checks:

npm run check

Run the Docker reset regression suite:

npm run test:integration

Use the isolated WordPress environment:

npm run env:start
npm run env:stop
npm run env:destroy

The isolated site runs at http://localhost:18080; test services use port 18081. env:clean and env:destroy remove Docker-managed data only, but are destructive within that environment.

Validation

The reset flow is validated in isolated Docker with WordPress 6.7. Coverage includes normal reset behavior, filesystem symlink refusal, interruption logging and lock release, loaded third-party plugin hooks during schema rebuild, the restored administrator session reaching /wp-admin/, reset-plugin reactivation, required core schema attributes, and denied direct HTTP access to operation logs.

Package For Installation

On Windows, create the installable plugin ZIP with:

npm run package:plugin

This writes dist/em-nuclear-reset.zip. The archive contains only the plugin bootstrap, includes/, and this README under an em-nuclear-reset/ root directory. It excludes development dependencies, Composer tools, tests, Docker configuration, documentation, and local build artifacts.

Install the ZIP through WordPress, or extract it to wp-content/plugins/. Do not deploy the repository working tree or node_modules/ to a remote server.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.