[ekamran]

Fixes #359.

Problem

prepare.php only rejects PHP older than 7.2, but WordPress has required PHP 7.4 since 7.0 (r61459). With PHP 7.2 or 7.3, a run gets past the check, clones and builds WordPress, and then fails in Composer with a dependency error. Details in #359.

Fix

• A new wpt_runner_get_required_php_version() loads src/wp-includes/version.php from the prepared checkout inside a function and returns $required_php_version. WordPress reads the requirements of a new version the same way in update_core(). The check then follows WordPress when the minimum changes.
• The PHP version check now runs right after the clone, before npm install and the build, so an unsupported PHP version stops the run in seconds. The version lookup moved with it, unchanged.
• If the version cannot be read, prepare.php stops with an error that names the file.

Verification

The version check block of prepare.php, run on its own with the trunk version.php (7.4):

Test environment PHP	master	this branch
7.2.34	allowed	stopped
7.3.33	allowed	stopped
7.4.0, 7.4.33, 8.3.30, 8.5.11	allowed	allowed

The message reads: "WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or later, but the test environment runs PHP 7.3.33." With the 6.8 branch's version.php (7.2.24), the check stops 7.2.23 and allows 7.2.24. A version.php with a double-quoted value is read the same way.

Full prepare.php against trunk (8778884d3f):

• WPT_PHP_EXECUTABLE pointing to a script that reports 7.3.33: master runs for 43 seconds (clone, npm install, build) and then fails in Composer. This branch stops after the clone, 7 seconds in, with the message above.
• PHP 8.5.11: both prepare the environment, and the generated wp-tests-config.php files are identical.

php -l passes on PHP 7.4, 8.0 and 8.2, and phpcs is clean.

Notes

• Escape the database settings written into wp-tests-config.php #355, Ensure PHPCS cache directory is tracked and fix docblock typos #357, Add WPT_PHPUNIT_ARGS to pass extra arguments to PHPUnit #358 and Add Docker setup and container CI workflow for the test runner #344 merge cleanly with this branch. Reduce the need for npm by installing built files from the WordPress mirror #246 also splits the clone from the build, so the two conflict in prepare.php. The resolution keeps this check between the clone and Reduce the need for npm by installing built files from the WordPress mirror #246's asset step.

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Claude Code and Codex
Used for: Investigation, implementation, verification harness, and PR wording. I reviewed the reasoning and test results, and I take responsibility for the contribution.

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Co-authored-by: ekamran <ekamran@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: sonali195 <sonaliprajapati@git.wordpress.org>

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[sonali195]

Looks good to me. The PHP requirement is read from the cloned WordPress checkout and checked before the build, so unsupported PHP versions are caught early. I found no issues.