Columbia Games · WordPress / 14 May 2026
A PHP limit is not a tuning detail when editors cannot upload media
Default PHP limits in the Dockerized WordPress stack did not reflect real usage. Upload and memory limits had to match production behaviour rather than being raised arbitrarily.
Situation
The container started successfully, but that did not yet make it a usable development environment. Larger media uploads and plugin operations quickly exposed the default PHP limits. The wrong response would have been to set every limit unrealistically high simply to make the errors disappear.
Approach
I set the required limits based on real WordPress usage and the production environment. Upload size, POST size, memory and execution time were handled separately. The configuration became part of the Docker image rather than a developer's local php.ini, so every rebuild produced the same runtime constraints.
Outcome
Media uploads and maintenance operations became stable while the environment continued to run with realistic limits. The reason for the change was explicit and documented, so future developers did not have to rediscover why the container differed from an untouched default installation.