Debugging Shipped

My Block Theme Template Changes Are Ignored: Find and Remove the Site Editor's Database Override With WP-CLI

I changed a pattern file in a block theme, flushed the cache, and the front end kept showing the old markup. Editing the template’s .html file did nothing either. The cause was not the cache. When a template is saved in the Site Editor, WordPress stores a copy as a wp_template post in the database, and that copy beats the file on disk from then on.

Recognise it

• You edited a PHP pattern or a template .html and the front end still shows the old blocks.
• Attributes rendered by a block (an image sizing attribute, a data attribute) still have the old values.
• wp cache flush changes nothing.

List the templates stored in the database:

wp post list --post_type=wp_template \
  --fields=ID,post_name,post_status \
  --path=web/wp \
  --url=https://example.com/store/

--url matters on multisite, because each subsite has its own templates. Then read the stored content:

wp post get <ID> --field=post_content --path=web/wp --url=https://example.com/store/ | head -100

If you see static block markup instead of a pattern reference like <!-- wp:pattern {"slug":"theme/slug"} /-->, the pattern was inlined when the template was saved. Your edits to the pattern file can never reach it.

Option A: delete the override

When the theme files should be the source of truth:

wp post delete <ID> --force --path=web/wp --url=https://example.com/store/

WordPress falls back to the theme’s .html template, and pattern references are evaluated from PHP on each request again.

Option B: patch the stored copy

When the database copy has other customisations worth keeping, replace only the part that changed:

wp eval '
$post_id = 123;
$content = get_post($post_id)->post_content;

$old = "<!-- wp:woocommerce/product-image {\"imageSizing\":\"thumbnail\"} /-->";
$new = "<!-- wp:woocommerce/product-image {\"aspectRatio\":\"3/4\"} /-->";

if (strpos($content, $old) !== false) {
    wp_update_post(["ID" => $post_id, "post_content" => str_replace($old, $new, $content)]);
    echo "Updated\n";
} else {
    echo "Old string not found, check the content manually\n";
}
' --path=web/wp --url=https://example.com/store/

wp cache flush --path=web/wp --url=https://example.com/store/

The $old string has to match exactly, including escaped quotes and newlines. That is why the script prints a message when it finds nothing, instead of writing blindly.

On a Trellis VM

Prefix with the VM shell and use the development URL:

trellis vm shell --workdir /srv/www/demo.example.com/current -- \
  wp post list --post_type=wp_template --fields=ID,post_name,post_status \
  --path=web/wp --url=http://demo.example.test/store/

Delete and flush work the same way. Your local wp cannot see the VM’s database, so run it inside the VM.

Stop it coming back

After you delete or repair the override, avoid saving that template in the Site Editor, because that creates a new override. Edit the theme’s .html file or the pattern files instead. For local development in Bedrock, WP_DEVELOPMENT_MODE=theme in config/environments/development.php makes WordPress skip theme caching, so PHP file edits show up immediately.

If the symptom is that a style variation does not apply instead, that is a different database override.