wp plugin activate

Overview

Activate one or more WordPress plugins instantly from the terminal. Activate a single plugin, a list, or all installed plugins at once — with no wp-admin required.

What It Does

wp plugin activate triggers WordPress's plugin activation routine for the specified plugin(s) — the same action as clicking "Activate" in the dashboard. Activation hooks run as expected, making it safe for plugins that initialize database tables or settings on activation.

Syntax

wp plugin activate <plugin>... [--all] [--network] [--quiet]

Arguments & Options

Argument / Flag	Description
PLUGIN...	Plugin slug(s) to activate (space-separated)
--all	Activate all installed plugins
--network	Activate plugin(s) network-wide on a multisite
--quiet	Suppress output

Basic Usage

Activate a single plugin

wp plugin activate woocommerce

Output:

Plugin 'woocommerce' activated.
Success: Activated 1 of 1 plugins.

Activate multiple plugins

wp plugin activate contact-form-7 yoast-seo litespeed-cache

Activate all installed plugins

wp plugin activate --all

Activate network-wide (multisite)

wp plugin activate woocommerce --network

Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: Post-install activation in a setup script

# Install and activate in one flow
wp plugin install woocommerce --activate
wp plugin install contact-form-7 --activate
wp plugin install litespeed-cache --activate

Scenario 2: Activate a set of required plugins after fresh install

#!/bin/bash
REQUIRED_PLUGINS=(
  "woocommerce"
  "yoast-seo"
  "contact-form-7"
  "litespeed-cache"
  "acf"
)

for plugin in "${REQUIRED_PLUGINS[@]}"; do
  if wp plugin is-installed "${plugin}"; then
    wp plugin activate "${plugin}"
  else
    echo "Plugin not installed: ${plugin}"
  fi
done

Scenario 3: Activate a mu-plugin equivalent via CLI

wp plugin activate my-custom-plugin --network

Scenario 4: Conditional activation (only if inactive)

STATUS=$(wp plugin status woocommerce --format=json | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['status'])")
if [ "${STATUS}" != "active" ]; then
  wp plugin activate woocommerce
fi

Best Practices

1. Use wp plugin install --activate when installing — activates immediately without a second command.
2. Activate plugins in dependency order — activate prerequisites before dependent plugins.
3. Check status first with wp plugin status before activating to avoid errors on already-active plugins.
4. Use --network for multisite — single-site activation only affects that site, not the entire network.
5. Test activation hooks on staging before mass-activating on production.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Fix
Error: Plugin file does not exist	Wrong slug or plugin not installed	Verify with wp plugin list
Plugin activates silently without running hooks	Using mu-plugins path	Activation hooks don't run for mu-plugins
Warning: Plugin already active	Plugin was already active	Use wp plugin status to check first
Network activation fails	Not a multisite install	Remove --network flag

Quick Reference

wp plugin activate woocommerce                   # Activate single
wp plugin activate plugin-a plugin-b            # Activate multiple
wp plugin activate --all                         # Activate all
wp plugin activate woocommerce --network         # Network-wide
wp plugin list --status=inactive                 # See inactive plugins

Next Steps

• wp plugin deactivate — deactivate plugins.
• wp plugin install — install plugins.
• wp plugin status — check activation status.
• wp plugin list — list all plugins and their status.