How to fix wp-env: "error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout"

Question

I have been using @wordpress/env for a few weeks, starting it with npm run wp-env start. Since this morning, that now fails with:

> wp-env "start"

✖ error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout:
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/assets/css/ie.css
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/assets/sass/01-settings/file-header.scss
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/style-rtl.css
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/style.css
Please commit your changes or stash them before you switch branches.
Aborting

GitError: error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout:
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/assets/css/ie.css
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/assets/sass/01-settings/file-header.scss
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/style-rtl.css
        wp-content/themes/twentytwentyone/style.css
Please commit your changes or stash them before you switch branches.
Aborting

    at Object.action (/home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:1228:25)
    at PluginStore.exec (/home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:1263:29)
    at /home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:1627:43
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at GitExecutorChain.handleTaskData (/home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:1625:16)
    at GitExecutorChain.<anonymous> (/home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:1609:44)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at fulfilled (/home/alice/wp-demo-theme/node_modules/simple-git/dist/cjs/index.js:55:24) {
  task: {
    commands: [ 'checkout', '6.1.1' ],
    format: 'utf-8',
    parser: [Function: parser]
  }
}

The error message talks about "your local changes", but I have not modified any files in the twentytwentyone theme folder. wp-env seems to have brought this on itself.

I have tried removing the Docker image for WordPress and starting again, but the problem persists. I have tried wp-env start --update - that does not fix it either. The Docker container does not stay up so I cannot get into it (with docker exec) to remove those changes.

Any idea how I can get wp-env working again?

Answer 1

I had the same problem with a completely new installation of wp-env.

In my case, the error apparently originated from wp-env downloading PHPUnit in node_modules/@wordpress/env/lib/download-wp-phpunit.js.

Commenting line 137 (version 5.14.0) in download-wp-phpunit.js resolved the problem:

log( `Fetching ${ ref }.` );
await git.raw( fetchRaw );

log( `Checking out ${ ref }.` );
// await git.checkout( ref ); <--- Comment this line

onProgress( 1 );

Please note that this is only a temporary solution, and the problem will surface again after an update of wp-env.

If you have wp-env installed globally and locally, be sure to use the right one after the change (or change both, if necessary).

This will likely impact the usage of PHPUnit. I'm just trying out wp-env, so I cannot comment on the scope of this change. Someone with more experience on the tool and a deeper understanding should probably dig deeper into this if more people are affected.