Display unexpected plugin output during activation with --debug

Open Copilot opened this issue 3 months ago • 1 comments

When a plugin generates output during activation, WordPress returns a WP_Error with code unexpected_output and the captured output as error data. Currently, WP-CLI shows the error message but not the actual output, making debugging difficult.

Changes

src/Plugin_Command.php: Check for unexpected_output error code and display captured output via WP_CLI::debug() with 'plugin' group
features/plugin-activate.feature: Add test scenario verifying debug output appears with --debug flag

Example

# Before: no visibility into what was output
$ wp plugin activate broken-plugin
Warning: Failed to activate plugin. The plugin generated unexpected output.

# After: see the actual output with --debug
$ wp plugin activate broken-plugin --debug
Warning: Failed to activate plugin. The plugin generated unexpected output.
Debug (plugin): Unexpected output: echo "initialization started";

The output only appears when --debug is used, keeping normal operation unchanged.

[!WARNING]

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If you need me to access, download, or install something from one of these locations, you can either:

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Original prompt

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>wp plugin activate should show what unexpected output the plugin generated</issue_title> <issue_description>If a plugin generates output during activation, activate_plugin will return an WP_Error object configured like this:
$output = ob_get_clean();
return new WP_Error( 'unexpected_output', __( 'The plugin generated unexpected output.' ), $output );
As you can see, the output is passed as the third parameter, and the error has code "unexpected_output".

I have a use-case where I need the output that was generated for logging reasons.

Relevant code that should print the output:

https://github.com/wp-cli/extension-command/blob/409b3f6defa9d02f32b5f04bbf969a9906e1f6de/src/Plugin_Command.php#L347-L354</issue_description>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)
@danielbachhuber Hey @Luc45,
Thanks for the suggestion!

I have a use-case where I need the output that was generated for logging reasons.

I'm a little hesitant about changing the output solely for this use case.

What do you think about instead running the $result through an action, so your custom code can capture and report the output however you need?</comment_new> <comment_new>@swissspidy
I think it's useful to include the output just to make debugging easier. Could be in a debug() statement though.</comment_new>

Fixes wp-cli/extension-command#329

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Nov 06 '25 09:11 Copilot

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