Netlify and Vercel do not run PHP, so a WordPress or PHP project is never published to them; the app says so rather than failing halfway. What it does instead is run the site here, the way it runs on its host, so you and your AI can work on it. Your live site stays where it is.
What you need
Docker Desktop. It is free. On Windows the app installs it for you and starts it; on a Mac it points you at the download. A machine that has never had WSL may need one restart after the install — the app says so, because a restart reads like a failed install to anyone who is not told.
A backup becomes a site
Most managed hosts — WP Engine, Pressidium and others — give you the whole site as a folder of files plus a .sql file. Add that folder to the app. It recognises WordPress, lists the database backups it finds in the folder, and asks which one to use.
Press Start. Two containers come up: WordPress on the PHP version you picked, and the database on MariaDB or MySQL, with the backup imported into it. The first start takes as long as the database is big — the button says how far the import has got. After that, starting takes seconds, because the database stays.
Nothing in your folder is rewritten. The app's own wp-config.php shadows the backup's inside the container: it points at the local database, keeps the backup's table prefix, and sets the site's address to the local one. PHP runs with the memory and upload limits a managed host gives it, so a site that runs on the host runs here.
Matching your host
Pick the PHP version (8.5 down to 7.4) and the database server (MariaDB 11 or 10.11, MySQL 8.0 or 8.4) your host runs — in the guide before the first start, or on the project's Docker card later. Changing PHP restarts the site. A database, once made, stays on the server that made it; switching servers means a fresh database from a backup, and the app says so.
WP-CLI and phpMyAdmin
While the site runs, the Docker card carries both. WP-CLI runs one command at a time against the site, on its own PHP, with what it printed underneath; the same command can be copied for a terminal. phpMyAdmin opens the database in your browser, already signed in: the database is this computer's own, with the password every local run uses.
A team repository inside the site
If a repository with the site's plugins, themes or another shared folder is cloned inside the site folder, the app can link the site's folders to it: the running site then serves the code being edited. Linking copies in anything the site had that the repository lacks, so generated data survives; unlinking puts things back.
Stopping and removing
Stop takes the containers down; the database volume stays, and the next Start finds it. Remove project asks first, says what it takes — the running site, the database, the downloaded images — and offers to keep the database for the folder's return. The Publishing page's "On this computer" section lists everything Docker keeps for the app, with stop, clean-up and image removal.
Your AI and the site
Connect Claude Code, Codex or Cursor on the AI page and it can start, stop and restart the site, run WP-CLI, read the PHP errors out of the log, set WP_DEBUG for the local run, query the database and sign in to the dashboard — from its own chat. The tools, one by one →