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Pete Panel dev playgrounds on Apple silicon

Dev Playgrounds

Where agentic WordPress development starts. Free forever, no hosting agenda.

Why Pete Panel for development?

Because development changed eras and the local tools didn’t. Every popular local WordPress tool was built for the previous era and answers to a hosting company: sealed-off environments, no real shell, an export button aimed at their servers. Pete Panel was designed for the agentic era: an environment your AI agent can safely own, answering to the developer.

Built for AI agents

Real WP-CLI, real files, real database, real logs, inside an isolated Docker container. Claude works on a full copy of your site; production never feels a thing.

Field-tested agentic workflows

One-line commands like /retheme and /reblock run entire gated migrations inside the playground. Recipes learned on real projects, encoded so they never bite twice.

Disposable by design

An agent run went sideways? Delete the playground, clone again, retry. Experiments are free when environments are.

From playground to production

Export in Pete format and deploy to any cloud you own in one click, with phpMyAdmin, multi-PHP, and VS Code Dev Containers along the way.

The agent needs a sandbox before it needs a server. See how the tools compare → See the agentic workflows →

Mac Silicon

Apple silicon · M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 / M5 · macOS · Docker Desktop

Apple silicon native Docker Desktop WordPress-ready Free forever
  • Docker Desktop
  • Git
  • Clone
  • .env
  • Build & launch
  • Code

The steps, start to finish

  1. Install Docker Desktop: download the Apple Silicon dmg from docker.com/products/docker-desktop, drag Docker Desktop.app into Applications, launch it once, and wait for the whale icon to turn solid (“Docker Desktop is running”).
  2. Install Git: open Terminal and run xcode-select --install (Apple’s Command-Line Tools include Git). Verify with git --version, which should print git 2.x or newer. Prefer Homebrew? brew install git works too.
  3. Clone and launch: open the Terminal app and paste this single command. It creates a Sites folder in your home directory, clones Pete Panel into ~/Sites/pete-panel, sets up your environment file, and starts the stack: 
    mkdir -p ~/Sites && cd ~/Sites && git clone https://github.com/peterconsuegra/wp-pete-docker.git pete-panel && cd pete-panel && cp .env.example.development .env && docker compose up --build
    Wait until the prompt returns and all containers are healthy.
  4. Launch Pete and create your first site: open http://pete.petelocal.net/ over HTTP (not HTTPS). On the first run you create your admin account, then land on the Pete Panel dashboard. Click Create WordPress Site, pick a subdomain, and Pete provisions a fresh WordPress in seconds, live at its own local address.
  5. Code inside the container (optional, recommended): install VS Code, add the Dev Containers extension (⇧⌘X, search “Dev Containers”, Install), then click the green >< status button, choose Attach to Running Container…, pick the PHP container, and open /var/www/html (the shared volume with all your WordPress projects).

Frequently asked questions

Why should we use Pete Panel in a development environment?

Because the upper hand in the agentic era is an environment your AI agent can safely own. Pete gives Claude an isolated, disposable dev environment with real WP-CLI, files, and database, so it can rebuild a theme, migrate off a page builder, or ship a feature on a full copy of your site, while the original never feels a thing. Work entirely in the local dev environment, or point Pete at a site running on any WordPress cloud: clone it in, hand it to the agent, and deploy when it’s right.

Do I need Docker or VirtualBox?

Docker Desktop, yes. The playground runs on Docker for consistency between your Mac and production. VirtualBox is not required. On Apple silicon, Docker Desktop’s dmg installs in one drag.

Which Macs are supported?

Apple silicon only: M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5. Intel Macs, Ubuntu, and Windows are not supported for the dev playground.

Can I migrate my existing WordPress site into the playground?

Yes, with the Pete Converter Plugin you can export your live site and bring it into Pete Panel in minutes. The same path works in reverse when you ship to production.

What does free include, exactly?

One site in the dev environment with full WP-CLI, files, and database, free forever, no credit card. Pete Panel Pro adds importing your own site, multiple sites, backups, and production deploys. See pricing →

Where are the Docker configuration commands?

In the Docker engine-room cheat-sheet below. It lists every command to shell into the php, apache, and db containers, run WP-CLI, rebuild images, restart Apache, and enter MySQL, all from ~/Sites/pete-panel.

Advanced: the Docker engine room

The playground lives where you cloned it: ~/Sites/pete-panel. Shell into the containers for WP-CLI, logs, and one-off queries.

TaskCommand (from the project folder)When / why
Go to the project cd ~/Sites/pete-panel The whole stack lives here. Every command below runs from this folder.
Start or rebuild the stack docker compose up --build Builds images if they changed and launches every service in the foreground. Hit Ctrl+C to stop.
Open a shell in a container docker compose exec php bash docker compose exec apache bash docker compose exec db bash Inspect logs, run WP-CLI, edit files quickly.
Rebuild after a Dockerfile edit docker compose build --no-cache apache docker compose build --no-cache php docker compose build --no-cache db Forces a clean image rebuild for the service you changed.
Reset phpMyAdmin docker compose down docker volume rm pete-panel_pma_data Drops the pma_data volume so phpMyAdmin is regenerated on the next up.
Restart Apache in place docker compose exec apache apache2ctl restart Applies v-host changes without recreating the whole stack.
Where Apache keeps v-hosts /etc/apache2/sites-available /etc/apache2/sites-enabled Edit in sites-available (staging), symlinked live in sites-enabled; then apache2ctl graceful inside the container.
Enter MySQL as root docker compose exec db mysql -u root -p Password = MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD in .env. Handy for one-off queries or importing .sql dumps.
Graceful Apache reload from PHP / CI curl -sf -H "X-Reload-Secret: $APACHE_RELOAD_SECRET" http://apache/internal-reload Lets a deploy script tell Apache to reload configs without restarting the container.
Delete all volumes docker compose down -v Irreversible. Stops containers and removes every volume, databases included. Nuke-and-pave only.

Ready to hand Claude the keys?

Spin up the playground on your Mac, run a workflow, and watch a migration happen in an afternoon. When it’s right, deploy.

Install the playground
See the Workflows