Plugin helper file

Plugin authors can add a VIP-specific plugin helper file to their plugins. The code supplied in the plugin helper file will only run when the plugin is activated on a VIP-hosted site or a local site that includes the VIP MU plugins. This is useful for plugins that contain operations that are incompatible with the VIP Platform infrastructure.

VIP MU plugins will automatically identify, load, and run the code in a vipgo-helper.php file in the root of a plugin directory.

VIP’s infrastructure differs from typical WordPress hosting platforms, occasionally preventing common operations in third-party plugins from working as expected. For example, WordPress sites on VIP have read-only application containers and an external object store for media files.

The plugin helper file allows consolidation of VIP-compatible, alternative code into a single file rather than adding conditions and constants related to VIP within the rest of the plugin.

A working reference of a plugin that includes a plugin helper file can be found in the Automattic-authored plugin Edit Flow.