Running Your Own WordPress Plugin Update Server Using GitHub

WordPress plugins typically receive automatic updates through the official WordPress plugin repository. But many developers build plugins that aren’t meant for the public directory. These might be: internal company plugins premium plugins client-specific functionality plugins distributed privately through GitHub In these cases, developers still want the convenience of the native WordPress update system . The challenge is that WordPress expects updates to come from the WordPress.org infrastructure. To solve this problem, I built a plugin that allows a WordPress site to act as its own plugin update server , using GitHub repositories as the source of truth. The Problem With Private Plugin Updates When WordPress checks for plugin updates, it builds a site transient called: update_plugins This transient contains information about available plugin versions. WordPress also calls the plugins_api() endpoint to populate the plugin details modal that appears when you click View Details in the adm