Plugevity Update Watch

Updates are the most common way a working WordPress site breaks, and auto-updates make it happen while nobody is looking. WordPress rolls back a plugin auto-update only when it causes a fatal error right away. A broken checkout, a form that no longer loads or a fatal error on one template can go unnoticed until a customer complains.

Update Watch logs every core, plugin and theme update and, about a minute after each batch of updates, checks the pages you care about and your PHP error log. If something broke, you get an email (and, if you want, a Slack or webhook message) that says what was updated just before and how to roll it back.

Features

• Update log: every WordPress, plugin and theme update with the old and new version, when, who (or “automatic”, “WP-CLI”), and a short changelog excerpt for WordPress.org plugins.
• Changes made outside WordPress: version changes from FTP, Git deploys or host tools are found and logged as “detected”.
• Smoke check after every update batch: up to five pages of your site (home, a form, cart, checkout), each with an optional text that must appear on the page. Also looks for PHP fatal errors written to the error log during the updates.
• Alerts only when a check fails: by email, and optionally to a webhook (Slack incoming webhooks, Zapier, Make, n8n).
• Manual rollback steps in every alert. Update Watch never rolls back, deactivates or changes anything by itself.
• Site Health test that turns orange when the last check failed.
• Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+): plugevity/get-update-log and plugevity/run-smoke-check, so AI agents and automations can ask what changed and whether the site still works.

Privacy

Update Watch sends no data to Plugevity.

• The smoke check only requests pages of your own site.
• After a WordPress.org plugin is updated, it asks the public WordPress.org API (api.wordpress.org) for that plugin’s changelog, sending only the plugin’s slug. WordPress itself contacts the same service to check for updates.
• If you add a webhook URL, failed-check alerts are sent there: the site URL, the checked page URLs and their results, and the names and versions of recent updates. PHP error messages are never sent to the webhook.
• Alert emails go from your own site to the address you choose and may include PHP error messages.
• “Copy diagnostics” on the Update Watch screen builds an anonymous summary you can paste in a support topic. The plugin does not send it anywhere.

Built to last

Plugevity plugins follow a public continuity pledge: https://plugevity.com/pledge/