WP Config set gives Error: Could not process the 'wp-config.php' transformation.
Bug Report
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- [x ] Yes, more specifically, I reviewed the guidelines on how to write clear bug reports.
Describe the current, buggy behavior wp config set foo bar is not working as expected and gives output
Error: Could not process the 'wp-config.php' transformation.
Reason: Failed to update the config file.
However, the anchor text is correct.
/* Add any custom values between this line and the "stop editing" line. */
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */
Expected Response:
Success: Added the constant 'foo' to the 'wp-config.php' file with the raw value 'bar'.
Environment:
- cPanel
- Softaculous
- WP-CLI 2.7.1
- Wordpress 6.2
- PHP 7.2,7.4,8.0
wp --info
OS: Linux 3.10.0-962.3.2.lve1.5.42.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Nov 9 08:11:18 EST 2020 x86_64
Shell: /usr/bin/bash
PHP binary: /opt/alt/php74/usr/bin/php
PHP version: 7.4.33
php.ini used: /opt/alt/php74/etc/php.ini
MySQL binary: /bin/mysql
MySQL version: mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.38-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
SQL modes:
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar/vendor/wp-cli/wp-cli
WP-CLI vendor dir: phar://wp-cli.phar/vendor
WP_CLI phar path: /home/cq60tjb
WP-CLI packages dir: /home/cq60tjb/.wp-cli/packages/
WP-CLI cache dir: /home/cq60tjb/.wp-cli/cache
WP-CLI global config:
WP-CLI project config:
WP-CLI version: 2.7.1
Provide a possible solution Wp-config.php has the correct Anchor text. The issues are replicate able on a fresh install.
Provide additional context/Screenshots

When --raw is added the command works fine
wp config set foo bar --raw
Thanks for the report, @naqirizvi
I'm unable to reproduce the issue on my local machine:
$ wp config set foo bar
Success: Added the constant 'foo' to the 'wp-config.php' file with the value 'bar'.
$ wp cli info
OS: Darwin 22.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.3.0: Mon Jan 30 20:38:37 PST 2023; root:xnu-8792.81.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64
Shell: /bin/zsh
PHP binary: /opt/homebrew/bin/php
PHP version: 8.0.27
php.ini used: /opt/homebrew/etc/php/8.0/php.ini
MySQL binary: /opt/homebrew/bin/mysql
MySQL version: mysql Ver 8.0.32 for macos13.0 on arm64 (Homebrew)
SQL modes:
WP-CLI root dir: /Users/danielbachhuber/projects/wp-cli-dev/wp-cli
WP-CLI vendor dir: /Users/danielbachhuber/projects/wp-cli-dev/wp-cli/vendor
WP_CLI phar path:
WP-CLI packages dir: /Users/danielbachhuber/wp-cli/packages/
WP-CLI cache dir: /Users/danielbachhuber/.wp-cli/cache
WP-CLI global config: /Users/danielbachhuber/.wp-cli/config.yml
WP-CLI project config: /Users/danielbachhuber/projects/vanilla/wp-cli.yml
WP-CLI version: 2.8.0-alpha
A few thoughts, to potentially help move this along:
- Can you see if it reproduces for you in another environment?
- Can you share your full
wp-config.php(with any secrets nulled out) so I can inspect it? - It looks like there are some failures in the underlying
wp-config-transformerpackage that might be related https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-config-transformer
Feel free to stop by the #cli channel on WordPress.org Slack if you'd like help debugging further.