Some time ago, the XWP company started a project called “Tide”, which aims to improve the quality of the code in the WordPress plugin and thematic ecosystems. The company works with the support of Google, Automattic and WP Engine, creating a new service that will help users make better decisions about plugins and help programmers write better code.

On June 26, after many months of work, XWP announced the beta version 1.0, which is available on GitHub and wptide.org. This release adds Google Cloud Platform (“GCP”) and only supports local infrastructure, integrates lighthouse performance analysis and provides documentation for the entire platform to help collaborators and programmers who want to improve their code. Update all forked repositories or local instances of the previous version of Tide because they will be obsolete this month.

What is Tide for?

Tide is a service consisting of an API, an audit server and a synchronization server operating in tandem to conduct a series of automated tests on WordPress plugins and themes. Through the Tide plugin, the results of these tests are provided as an aggregated score in the WordPress administrator, which represents the overall quality of the plugin code or theme. It generates an exhaustive report, thanks to which developers can better understand how they can improve the quality of their code.

GCP migration

The prototype version of Tide from WordCamp US was based on Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), but along with the version of Tide 1.0.0-beta, migration to GCP was carried out and Tide services were rewritten in the Go programming language. This helps ensure better integration with WordPress.org because GCP and Go services are more efficient and cost-effective. This is the first step to integration with WordPress.org.

Local option

To minimize the need for programmers and co-workers to configure the GCP or AWS infrastructure to use Tide, a local option is provided. This way you can run all Tide services locally on your computer and you do not have to rely on anything else or pay for anything extra.

Documentation

The prototype version of Tide from WordCamp US was built as a conceptual proof and had limited documentation. In the 1.0.0-beta version, the documentation has been significantly expanded to include the GCP installation instruction and the local option, details of various Tide services (API, synchronization server, PHPCS server, Lighthouse server), examples of the Tide API work, and how to contribute to better use and Tide improvement. The documentation page is available at https://www.wptide.org (including the searchable demo version of the API Tide API)

Views for the future

The next step in Tide’s action plan is to work with the WordPress.org team to integrate the results of PHP Compatibility with the Tide API and the WordPress.org repository database so that it can be displayed on plug-in sites and topics.

Few packages of code had a greater impact on the open network than WordPress. Its ecosystem of plugins, themes and related services has a very large reach, and the network of companies and communities around it is stronger than any other in modern technology. The aim of Tide is to facilitate the improvement of code quality throughout the entire ecosystem. A better code on this scale means that 30% of the internet is more efficient, secure, reliable and available. This is a big deal for us and for all ecosystem partners and co-workers who have been and will be involved in the project.