README

!! This plugin is under active development and is not recommended for production use. !!

Lightweight LMS plugin for WordPress - courses, lessons, and progress tracking without the bloat.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• WordPress 6.0+
• WooCommerce (optional, for paid courses)
• WooCommerce Subscriptions (optional, for subscription-based access)

Features

• Courses & Lessons - Custom post types with Gutenberg support
• Sections - Organize lessons into sections with drag-and-drop ordering
• Access Control - Open, free (login required), or paid (WooCommerce)
• Progress Tracking - Per-user lesson completion and course progress percentage
• Video Support - YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, self-hosted (auto-detect)
• Attachments - File downloads for courses and lessons
• REST API - Full API at /wp-json/lms/v1/ for headless implementations
• WooCommerce - Link courses to products and subscriptions

Installation

composer require lwplugins/lw-lms

Or upload the lw-lms folder to /wp-content/plugins/ and activate.

REST API Endpoints

Extending the payloads

Companion plugins can add their own keys to the course and lesson responses:

Only new top-level keys are kept. The keys core writes (access, accessible, quiz, progress, …) stay as core wrote them — overriding or removing them has no effect.

add_filter(
    'lw_lms_rest_course',
    static function ( array $data, \WP_Post $post, int $user_id, bool $has_access ): array {
        if ( $user_id && \LightweightPlugins\LMS\Progress\ProgressCalculator::is_course_completed( $user_id, $post->ID ) ) {
            $data['certificate_url'] = rest_url( sprintf( 'my-certs/v1/courses/%d/certificate', $post->ID ) );
        }

        return $data;
    },
    10,
    4
);

Drip & linear progression

A course runs with free progression by default: any lesson, any order. Switched to linear, lessons open one after the other, and each level can hold content back for a while:

Schedules only apply in linear mode — with free progression there is nothing to pace. The order is the one the course builder shows: lessons outside a section first, then the sections by their order.

Never held back: a lesson the learner already completed, preview lessons, every lesson of a course they finished, users covered by Staff Access, and open courses (readable without logging in anyway). wp lw-lms force-complete and LW Site Manager remain admin overrides.

The clock each "after enrollment" delay counts from is stored per learner and course, set at their first grant whatever the source. Renewals and re-grants never restart it, and learners who enrolled before the course started dripping keep their real enrollment date.

wp lw-lms course set-drip 42 --progression=linear --delay=2 --unit=week
wp lw-lms lesson set-drip 108 --mode=previous --delay=3 --unit=day
wp lw-lms drip status alice 42      # per lesson: open/locked, why, and when it opens
wp lw-lms drip set-start alice 42 --date="2026-09-01 08:00:00"

In the REST payloads, GET /courses/{id} carries progression, and each lesson carries:

{ "accessible": false, "locked_reason": "schedule", "available_at": "2026-09-21T10:00:00+02:00" }

locked_reason is sequence (the lesson before is unfinished, so the moment is not known yet), schedule (waiting for available_at) or null. A locked lesson answers 403 lesson_locked — with the same two fields in the error data — on GET /lessons/{id}, POST /progress, POST /lessons/{id}/quiz and GET /download/{id}.

The lw_lms_lesson_locks filter receives the locked lessons of a course for one learner (array $locks, int $course_id, int $user_id), so a companion plugin can open or hold back a lesson.

Quizzes

One JSON document per lesson, managed with WP-CLI:

wp lw-lms lesson set-quiz <lesson> --file=quiz.json   # validate + replace ("-" = STDIN)
wp lw-lms lesson get-quiz <lesson> [--format=json|table]
wp lw-lms lesson delete-quiz <lesson>

{
  "pass_percentage": 80,
  "shuffle_options": true,
  "questions": [
    { "id": "q_9e9b2eef93b3", "type": "single", "prompt": "…",
      "options": [ { "id": "opt_a", "text": "…", "correct": true }, { "text": "…" } ] },
    { "id": "q_e2f6a37486e7", "type": "boolean", "prompt": "…", "correct": true },
    { "id": "q_3ae2154b9400", "type": "open", "prompt": "…", "sample": "…" }
  ]
}

• Question ids are caller-supplied and stable (start with a letter; letters, digits, _, -). Unknown keys are rejected.
• An option may carry its own id. Recommended: without one it is addressed by position (o0, o1, …), so reordering options changes what a stored answer meant.
• pass_percentage and shuffle_options are optional; the default threshold is set under LW Plugins → LMS → General → Quizzes.
• Submit: POST /lms/v1/lessons/{id}/quiz with { "answers": { "<question id>": <option id | index | true/false | "text"> } }. Answer with the option id — with shuffle_options on, the server sends the options in random order, and a positional index would mean something else.
• The response reveals the right answer only for wrong answers (correct_option_id, correct_option, correct_answer); GET never contains one.
• last_attempt in GET /lessons/{id} carries percentage, passed, attempts, best_percentage and review — the stored snapshot of the last attempt, so a reload can show what was answered.
• Hooks: lw_lms_quiz_submitted( $lesson_id, $user_id, $percentage, $passed ), lw_lms_quiz_passed( $lesson_id, $user_id, $percentage ).

Editors get a validated JSON editor on the lesson screen and a LW Plugins → Quiz Results page (per-learner attempts and per-question statistics). Every submission is stored in {prefix}lms_quiz_attempts with its answer snapshot.

Development

composer install
composer phpcs     # Code style check
composer phpcbf    # Auto-fix

License

GPL-2.0-or-later

Sponsor

Supported by Sinann