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wp user set-role (Multisite Context)

Overview

In a Multisite environment, users exist at the network level but hold specific roles on each subsite. Use this command with the --url flag to assign or change a user's permissions on a particular site.

Syntax​

wp user set-role <user> <role> --url=<site-url>

Basic Usage​

Make a user a contributor on Subsite A​

wp user set-role jane_doe contributor --url=example.com/site-a

Output:

Success: Added jane_doe (15) to http://example.com/site-a/ with role contributor.

Real-World Scenarios​

Scenario 1: Bulk updating roles across sites​

While you can script this with wp site list, remember that roles only exist per site.

# Set role on a specific subdomain site
wp user set-role dev_user administrator --url=dev.example.com

Common Gotchas​

  1. Missing --url — If you omit the URL, WP-CLI defaults to the root site.
  2. Super Admin Power — Super admins essentially have administrator privileges on every site, even if not explicitly assigned a role via this command.

Next Steps​