Standalone Use

Rudel can expose its DB-backed core outside WordPress.

That means an external product can talk to the same Rudel registry and metadata tables without needing to boot a live WordPress request first.

What works outside WordPress

With a direct DB connection, Rudel can:

• list apps and sandboxes
• load one app or sandbox by ID
• inspect app domains, worktrees, deployments, and lifecycle metadata
• read and update DB-backed policy/config state
• keep reporting the known apps and environments directories when you pass them in as context

What stays inside WordPress

Rudel still uses WordPress multisite as the real site/runtime substrate.

That means these operations still require a live WordPress multisite runtime:

• creating apps or sandboxes
• destroying apps or sandboxes
• creating app-derived sandboxes
• adding or removing app domains when the underlying subsite domain must be updated
• any request/bootstrap behavior that depends on WordPress loading the active site

Initialization

Direct connections choose pdo_mysql or mysqli automatically. Set RUDEL_DB_DRIVER to mysqli or pdo when an embedded runtime needs to force a specific direct DB driver. WordPress runtime storage continues to use $wpdb.

use Rudel\Connection;
use Rudel\Rudel;

$conn = new Connection(
    host: '127.0.0.1:3306',
    dbname: 'wordpress',
    user: 'root',
    password: 'secret',
    prefix: 'wp_',
);

Rudel::init(
    $conn,
    [
        'environments_dir' => '/var/www/html/wp-content/rudel-environments',
        'apps_dir' => '/var/www/html/wp-content/rudel-apps',
    ]
);

Rudel::ensure_schema();

After that, the normal DB-backed read/query APIs are available:

$apps = Rudel::apps();
$sandboxes = Rudel::all();
$status = Rudel::status();

For embedded products that share one WordPress database but need separate Rudel registries, pass a connection-level table prefix:

$conn = new Connection(
    host: '127.0.0.1:3306',
    dbname: 'wordpress',
    user: 'root',
    password: 'secret',
    prefix: 'wp_',
    table_prefix: 'divine_rudel_',
);

That leaves the WordPress database prefix alone and changes only the Rudel table segment. With the example above, environments resolves to wp_divine_rudel_environments.

Mental Model

The simplest way to think about this split is:

• Rudel core = registry, metadata, worktrees, deployments, policy
• WordPress adapter = multisite site lifecycle, routing, and live request bootstrap

That keeps one source of truth for Rudel state while still respecting that real site creation and runtime behavior belong to WordPress.