Studio: Improve performance for create site

[bcotrim]

Related issues

• Fixes STU-842
• Related STU-744

Proposed Changes

• During createSite store setup steps in a blueprint to run at first site start. This will avoid having to run Playground CLI twice (once for run-blueprint and another for server)
• Made thumbnail generation async
• Fixed race-condition in the UI, to make the creating site component display until startSite is done.
• Created Studio Admin API mu-plugin with persistent endpoints that reuse the already-loaded WordPress instance, avoiding the overhead of loading wp-load.php multiple times:
  • get_theme_details endpoint - Retrieves active theme information without loading WordPress
  • set_admin_password endpoint - Sets/updates admin user password without loading WordPress
• Added request() method to Playground CLI server process to communicate with persistent WordPress instance via HTTP requests
• Added fallback logic in phpGetThemeDetails to support WP-Now provider (uses runPhp() when request() is not available)

Testing Instructions

• As much tests as possible around, creating, starting, stopping, importing and exporting sites (including sync and preview sites)

Pre-merge Checklist

• Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

[sejas]

Great refactor. I reviewed the code, and suggested a few improvement on Blueprint types. I also tested the app and only found these errors:

• The Stop all button on the left sidebar doesn't work.
• The creation site notification appears too early and not after the site is created.
• I tested it on Windows using Parallels and it took a while to create the site and it render the wp-admin.

windows-slow.mp4

[sejas]

@bcotrim , thanks for applying the suggestions.
I tested the app on Mac and WIndows and I didn't catch any regression. I was able to create a site using a local blueprint and also a blank site.

Windows is still slower than Mac, but the problem seems to come from the playground-cli boot process.

Here are the logs for both platforms:

MAC

Would have bumped stat: studio-app-site-create=file-blueprint
Starting server for 'blue git'
[playground-cli] [+10.81ms | Total: 10.81ms] The fs-ext package is not installed. Internal file locking will not be integrated with host OS file locking.
[playground-cli] [+0.90ms | Total: 11.71ms] Starting a PHP server...
[playground-cli] [+5.48ms | Total: 17.19ms] Setting up WordPress latest
[playground-cli] [+698.12ms | Total: 715.30ms] Resolved WordPress release URL: https://downloads.w.org/release/wordpress-6.8.3.zip
[playground-cli] [+8.96ms | Total: 724.27ms] Fetching SQLite integration plugin...
[playground-cli] [+1.01ms | Total: 725.28ms] Booting WordPress...
PHP.request() is deprecated. Please use new PHPRequestHandler() instead.
[playground-cli] [+4374.35ms | Total: 5099.63ms] Booted!
[playground-cli] [+0.62ms | Total: 5100.25ms] Running the Blueprint...
Logging in – 100%
[playground-cli] [+2957.13ms | Total: 8057.38ms] Finished running the blueprint
[playground-cli] [+0.17ms | Total: 8057.55ms] WordPress is running on http://127.0.0.1:8887 with 1 worker(s)
Server started for 'blue git'

Window Logs

Would have bumped stat: studio-app-site-create=no-blueprint
Starting server for 'windows blank site'
[playground-cli] [+29.98ms | Total: 29.98ms] Starting a PHP server...
[playground-cli] [+35.95ms | Total: 65.93ms] Setting up WordPress latest
[playground-cli] [+1412.18ms | Total: 1478.11ms] Resolved WordPress release URL: https://downloads.w.org/release/wordpress-6.8.3.zip
[playground-cli] [+104.38ms | Total: 1582.49ms] Fetching SQLite integration plugin...
[playground-cli] [+5.21ms | Total: 1587.69ms] Booting WordPress...
PHP.request() is deprecated. Please use new PHPRequestHandler() instead.
[playground-cli] [+60377.93ms | Total: 61965.63ms] Booted!
[playground-cli] [+6.61ms | Total: 61972.24ms] Running the Blueprint...
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 0%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 1%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 33%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 34%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 35%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 36%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 37%
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Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 63%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 64%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 65%
Running the Blueprint ΓÇô 66%
Logging in ΓÇô 66%
Logging in ΓÇô 100%
[playground-cli] [+4578.10ms | Total: 66550.34ms] Finished running the blueprint
[playground-cli] [+3.50ms | Total: 66553.85ms] WordPress is running on http://127.0.0.1:8892 with 1 worker(s)
Server started for 'windows blank site'
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-14560--14560-Xnz3PrPc4Mif
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-14560--14560-Xnz3PrPc4Mif
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-14560--14560-Xnz3PrPc4Mif
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-8832--8832-WxdxW0O4mj9b
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-17108--17108-SNpZ3zooZ0oC
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-14560--14560-Xnz3PrPc4Mif
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-8832--8832-WxdxW0O4mj9b
-13536-cNMUjMeNvJEY
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-14560--14560-Xnz3PrPc4Mif
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-8832--8832-WxdxW0O4mj9b
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-17108--17108-SNpZ3zooZ0oC
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-15180--15180-G00mNJ9sszRQ
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-3480--3480-U9vpYFPwpJQ5
Deleted stale Playground temp dir: C:\Users\MACBOO~1\AppData\Local\Temp\electron.exe-playground-cli-site-4064--4064-aKbQlfpJhYgE

[youknowriad]

This definitely improved performance, you can see it on Code vitals on the site creation metric https://www.codevitals.run/project/studio/siteCreation

We're now back to similar performance levels to pre playwright CLI enabling.

[wojtekn]

Thanks for checking and sharing @youknowriad - introducing those performance tests was a good idea!

[youknowriad]

haha thanks, let's keep an eye on them. They're only useful if we pay attention to them though :P
One good follow-up there maybe would be a comment on PRs if the diff is too high or something.

[adamziel]

Really nice work here! 🎉

A few thoughts I had about Mac logs:

[playground-cli] [+35.95ms | Total: 65.93ms] Setting up WordPress latest
[playground-cli] [+1412.18ms | Total: 1478.11ms] Resolved WordPress release URL

This time is mostly spent on translating 6.8 to a WordPress release URL, it's interesting this takes 1.5 seconds – it's mostly a memoized request to https://api.wordpress.org/core/version-check/1.7/?channel=beta. time curl https://api.wordpress.org/core/version-check/1.7/?channel=beta gives me around 500ms consistently, I wonder if that's just a connection thing or is there anything else going on.

[playground-cli] [+1.01ms | Total: 725.28ms] Booting WordPress...
PHP.request() is deprecated. Please use new PHPRequestHandler() instead.
[playground-cli] [+4374.35ms | Total: 5099.63ms] Booted!

This is the time needed to spawn a worker and run the WordPress installation wizard. We could likely cache a vanilla WordPress installation to save a bit time here, although we'd pay the price in complexity. Starting a new site from that "preinstalled template" would require rewriting URLs and likely other database records – https://playground.wordpress.net/ used to do that and it was faster, but it was also error-prone. Now we just run the installation wizard every time until we have a full site importing pipeline.

[playground-cli] [+0.62ms | Total: 5100.25ms] Running the Blueprint...
Logging in – 100%
[playground-cli] [+2957.13ms | Total: 8057.38ms] Finished running the blueprint

Not sure what's in the Blueprint but 3 seconds seems pretty cool. I'm happy to discuss any perf improvements here if you think there's a room for that.

[adamziel]

About the windows logs – this is such a long, looong time. Is this with the windows security layer exception added to prevent it from slowing down the process?

[bcotrim]

About the windows logs – this is such a long, looong time. Is this with the windows security layer exception added to prevent it from slowing down the process?

I have the Windows security layer exception and noticed similar times. Disabling the Windows security also didn't help, from my testing.