WooCommerce Blueprints

WooCommerce Blueprints helps you streamline the setup, management, and testing of your store configurations. Blueprints allow you to import and export your store’s settings, selected WordPress.org plugins, and selected WordPress.org themes.

• Save time by reusing preconfigured store setups.
• Ensure consistency across teams and environments.
• Test new features or configurations safely and efficiently.

What Are Blueprints?

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A Blueprint is a portable configuration file that captures your WooCommerce store’s setup. It can include WooCommerce settings, selected WordPress.org plugins, and selected WordPress.org themes. This makes it easy to recreate a store environment, share configurations with teammates, or rapidly spin up new stores using your preferred setup.

Blueprints use the WordPress Playground blueprint format, making them portable and compatible with a wide range of WordPress tooling.

Enabling the Blueprint feature

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Blueprint is enabled by default in current WooCommerce versions. You can still change this setting under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features:

1. Find Blueprint (beta).
2. Toggle the feature on or off.
3. Select Save changes.

When enabled, Blueprint (beta) appears under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Blueprint (beta).

Exporting a Blueprint

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Exporting a Blueprint saves your current store configuration to a .json file that you can import into another WooCommerce site.

1. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Blueprint (beta).
2. Scroll to the Export section.
3. Choose the settings, plugins, and themes to include.
4. Select Export to generate and download the Blueprint file.

WooCommerce settings

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You can select the following WooCommerce settings to export:

• General
• Products
• Tax
• Shipping
• Payments
• Emails
• Accounts & Privacy
• Integrations
• Site Visibility
• Advanced

Most WooCommerce options are exported through the Settings API. Some data is exported directly from database tables as SQL steps, including tax rates and classes, and shipping classes, zones, locations, methods, and rates. Approved Download Directories and REST API keys created by legacy code remain examples of data that is not included.

Plugins and themes

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You can select supported active or inactive plugins and themes that are available from WordPress.org. Selected plugins are installed and activated during import. Selected themes are installed, but only the theme that was active on the source store is activated.

Arbitrary commercial or private plugins and themes are not portable through this mechanism. Blueprints also do not generally export arbitrary plugin settings, so review and configure plugin settings separately after import.

Importing a Blueprint

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Importing a Blueprint applies its steps to a new or existing WooCommerce site. Review the file and confirm that it comes from a trusted source before importing it.

1. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Blueprint (beta).
2. Scroll to the Import section.
3. Upload a Blueprint file.
4. Select Import to start the import.

The import runs the Blueprint steps sequentially. WooCommerce validates each step’s schema and capabilities immediately before applying that step. An earlier step can succeed before a later invalid or failed step is reached, and unexpected properties are not uniformly rejected. Review the import messages after the process finishes.

Import restrictions

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Imports through the WooCommerce settings screen and the admin REST API are disabled by default when the site is live. Enable Coming Soon mode before importing, or define ALLOW_BLUEPRINT_IMPORT_IN_LIVE_MODE as true in wp-config.php to allow these imports on a live site.

WP-CLI imports do not require Coming Soon mode. Review the file before running the import.

Benefits

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• Quickly apply a starter configuration across new stores using a shared theme and plugin set.
• Reuse settings and selected WordPress.org plugins and themes across development or staging environments.
• Test WooCommerce extensions in different environments and store configurations using a collection of Blueprint files.
• Replicate a store’s configuration when launching in a new market or testing a new feature or extension.

Security

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Only import Blueprints from trusted sources. Review the file before confirming an import. Blueprint steps run with the importing administrator’s access and can change site data.

Step validation and permissions

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WooCommerce validates each step before processing it and checks the capabilities required for that step. Validation and permission checks happen as the importer reaches each step; they do not guarantee that the entire file is validated before any changes are made.

Option restrictions

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The setSiteOptions step skips a list of restricted WordPress options, including site URLs, active plugins, theme settings, user registration settings, and role-related options. This restriction applies to the setSiteOptions step only. It does not universally prevent a runSql step from changing those options.

SQL execution checks

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Blueprints can contain runSql steps. WooCommerce applies defense-in-depth checks before executing these steps, including checks for allowed query types, suspicious comments, known SQL injection patterns, protected user tables, and capability-related options.

These are text-pattern checks, not a SQL sandbox or a firm security boundary. They do not make an untrusted Blueprint safe. Review every Blueprint before importing it.

Audit logging

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Blueprint import and export operations are logged under WooCommerce > Status > Logs. Look for wc-blueprint in the Source column.