Updating Plugins — Our Secure Staging-Test Workflow

<h2>The Problem with "Update All"</h2><p>WordPress provides an "Update all plugins" button, but 1 in 20 updates breaks something (theme conflict, deprecated function, database migration without rollback), resulting in downtime in production.</p><h2>Our Secure Workflow</h2><ol><li><strong>Auto-Detection</strong> of new versions via wp-cli → ticket and dashboard notification</li><li><strong>Staging Clone</strong> — our cron job creates a staging environment on staging.{yourdomain.nl} every night</li><li><strong>Update on Staging</strong> + smoke test of 12 critical pages (homepage, contact, quote, blog, etc.)</li><li><strong>Visual Diff</strong> — Claude Vision compares before/after screenshots to detect regressions</li><li><strong>Client Approval</strong> via a single click in your dashboard ("Apply to live")</li><li><strong>Production Deployment</strong> with instant rollback ready (file snapshot)</li><li><strong>Health Check</strong> 60 minutes after deployment — automatic rollback in case of errors</li></ol><h3>How Much Work is This for You?</h3><p>By default, zero. We manage updates. For <strong>major version updates</strong> (WordPress 6.5 → 7.0, WooCommerce 8 → 9), we send a notification 7 days in advance with a changelog and impact analysis, allowing you to review the staging environment yourself.</p><h3>Override</h3><p>Want to prevent a specific plugin from being auto-updated? Open a ticket with "Pin {{plugin}} to version X.Y.Z". We will add it to your <code>wp-cli.yml</code> file.</p>