README

Safely migrate content between Craft CMS 5 environments — with automatic dependency resolution, field-level conflict review, asset transfer, multi-site support, and snapshot-based rollback.

Transport exports the content you choose into a portable, inspectable .zip package and imports it into another environment, resolving every reference by UID so nothing breaks when IDs differ between sites.

Features

Portable packages — a .zip of JSON (manifest.json + per-type element files) plus bundled asset files. Human-readable and version-independent.
UID-based identity — references (relations, authors, parents, Matrix/Hyper links) are stored as UIDs and resolved to local IDs on import. No fragile ID mapping.
Automatic dependency ordering — a topological sort imports each element after the elements it depends on (structure parents, authors, relations), with cycle detection.
Field-level diff & selective merge — review each changed field side by side and accept or reject it individually before importing.
Asset file transfer — bundles real files from any volume and recreates them in the target.
Multi-site — per-site title/slug/enabled/field values, with optional site mapping.
Snapshot-based rollback — every import is snapshotted first; roll it back with one click. Rollbacks are themselves reversible.
CLI — script exports, imports, history, and rollbacks.
Extensible — register handlers for custom element and field types. Built-in conditional support for Commerce, Verbb Hyper, Neo, and Super Table.

Requirements

Craft CMS 5.3+
PHP 8.2+
ext-zip

Installation

composer require justinholtweb/craft-transport
php craft plugin/install transport

Exporting

Control panel: Transport → Export. Choose the site, the element types to include, optionally a section, and whether to bundle asset files. Submit to download the package.

CLI:

craft transport/export --types=entries,categories,assets --site=default --output=content.zip
craft transport/export --section=blog --output=blog.zip
craft transport/export --all --output=everything.zip

Importing

Control panel: Transport → Import runs a four-step wizard:

Upload the package.
Configure — review every element with its action (Add / Update / Unchanged) and select which to import. Pre-flight validation flags missing sections, entry types, groups, or volumes.
Preview — see field-level changes (current vs. incoming) and uncheck any field to keep the target's current value. Optionally run as a dry run or in the background.
Run — import and review the results.

CLI:

craft transport/import content.zip --dry-run   # simulate, report what would change
craft transport/import content.zip             # import

History & rollback

Transport → History lists every import and export. Open an import to see its details and error log. Completed imports can be rolled back with one click — Transport restores updated elements to their prior state and deletes elements the import created. Rollbacks are snapshot-protected, so they can be undone too.

craft transport/history
craft transport/rollback 42

Settings

Temp path — where packages are staged (@storage/transport by default).
Max package size — upload limit for import.
Include asset files — bundle files by default, or export metadata only.
Snapshot retention — how long / how many import snapshots to keep.
Log level — verbosity of storage/logs/transport.log.

What Transport does not do

Transport moves content, not schema. Sections, fields, entry types, volumes, and global sets are managed by Craft's Project Config. Transport's pre-flight validation checks that the required schema already exists in the target before importing.

Orders and other transactional Commerce data are intentionally excluded.

Extending

See docs/EXTENDING.md for registering custom element and field handlers via EVENT_REGISTER_ELEMENT_HANDLERS and EVENT_REGISTER_FIELD_HANDLERS.

Troubleshooting

"Missing section / entry type / group / volume" — the target is missing schema the package needs. Deploy your Project Config first, then import.
A field didn't import — unsupported field types are skipped with a warning in storage/logs/transport.log rather than failing the whole import.
An import went wrong — roll it back from Transport → History.

License

Proprietary (Craft License). A valid license must be purchased through the Craft Plugin Store for each production install.

justinholtweb / craft-transport

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