index.md

Creating a throw-away plugin

A throw-away plugin is a plugin that is created for a specific purpose, and that is not meant to be used in a production environment.

The plugin is barely functional, is not refined and will likely contain bugs and hard-coded values. It should be cheap to create, and cheap to throw away.

Throw-away plugins are useful to test a specific feature, or to test a hypothesis, without having to modify an existing plugin or theme.

Steps

1. If your development site does not contain a mu-plugins directory, create it in the wp-content directory.

2. Create a new file in the mu-plugins directory, and give it a unique name, e.g. throw-away-plugin.php.

3. Add the following code to the file:

   <?php
   /*
   Plugin Name: Throw-away Plugin
   */
   
   // Your code here

4. Run the request (e.g. visit the page) that you want to test and collect your results.

5. Once you have collected your results, you can delete the throw-away plugin.

Notes

The mu-plugins directory is a special directory in WordPress that contains "Must Use" plugins. These plugins are automatically activated and cannot be deactivated from the WordPress admin interface.
The reason to put your throw-away plugin in the mu-plugins directory is that it will be automatically activated * before* any other plugin and will be available for all requests.

Here are some ideas for what you can do with a throw-away plugin:

• print to the error_log to debug a specific request
• add a filter by means of add_filter to test a behavior that would be hard to test otherwise
• add a new REST endpoint to test a specific feature