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ConstellaWP Docs

Updates

From a site dashboard, ConstellaWP shows pending updates reported by the agent (refreshed on heartbeat, with wordpress.org checks at most once per hour). Owners and admins can queue updates; members can view them.

What you can update

Section titled “What you can update”
Category How it is selected
WordPress core One toggle when a newer version is available
Plugins Per plugin. Premium plugins without a package URL are marked License required and cannot be updated from ConstellaWP
Themes Per theme, same license rule as plugins
Translations Language packs pending on the site

You can mix categories in one Review updates pass. That queues an update_all job with your selection.

Optional backup first

Section titled “Optional backup first”

If the organization has a storage destination, the review panel offers Take a full backup first. When enabled, ConstellaWP queues a backup job and keeps the update queued until that backup finishes. If the backup fails, the update does not run.

Without a destination, the toggle is unavailable. Configure storage before relying on rollback.

The agent also snapshots plugins/themes it is about to update and can roll a component back if that update fails (you will see a note on the job that the previous version was restored). That is not a full-site restore — use Restore for that.

How a job runs

Section titled “How a job runs”
  1. ConstellaWP creates the job and the worker delivers it to the agent.
  2. The agent prefers WP-CLI when the capability is present, otherwise PHP (shell_exec / WP_Filesystem).
  3. After updates, ConstellaWP expects a smoke check of the homepage.
  4. Each updated component emits events (plugin.updated, core.updated, and similar).

Typical timeout: 10 minutes per category, 30 minutes for update_all.

WP Engine and core updates

Section titled “WP Engine and core updates”

If the site is linked to a WP Engine hosting account, WordPress core is managed by the host. ConstellaWP does not offer update_core for those linked sites. Plugins, themes, and translations still go through the agent.

Good practice

Section titled “Good practice”
  • Take a BYOS backup before core or many plugin updates.
  • Update premium plugins in wp-admin when ConstellaWP shows License required.
  • Watch the Jobs page until the job is success or failed. Owners and admins can retry a failed job.