Add PHPCS + WPCS to Sublime Text 3

Install PHP_CodeSniffer (PHPCS) via git

You can use the .phar for PHPCS, but it's easier to pull the repo down from git to then choose what version to use.

cd ~
mkdir -p code
cd code
git clone https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer.git phpcs

Use PHP_CodeSniffer 2.9

WPCS does not support PHPCS 3.0 as it is a complete rewrite (namespaces etc.), so use 2.9 branch for now.

git checkout 2.9.0

Add path/to/phpcs/scripts to $PATH

Tell Mac OS where it should look for executables. Add the following to the ~/.bash_profile (or equivalent for other shells) file (creating it if it doesn't exist):

export PATH=~/code/phpcs/scripts:$PATH

Check it is working by doing which phpcs, which should return the correct path. You may need to close and re-open the terminal.

Install WordPress Coding Standards (WPCS) via git

git clone https://github.com/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards.git wpcs

Add WordPress Coding Standard to PHP_CodeSniffer

phpcs --config-set installed_paths ~/code/wpcs

Check it is installed with phpcs -i. You should see WordPress, WordPress-Core, WordPress-Extra, WordPress-Docs and WordPress-VIP amongst the built-in standards.

Install SublimeLinter package

SublimeLinter 3 is the framework that allows linter subpackages to work (think of it like PostCSS, which doesn't do anything on its own).

CMD-Shift-P -> Install Package -> SublimeLinter

Install sublimelinter-phpcs package

Now install the linter for PHPCS.

CMD-Shift-P -> Install Package -> sublimelinter-phpcs

(There are also sublimelinter-* packages for Sass, CSS, XML, JSHint etc.)

Add ~/code/phpcs/scripts to osx sublime-settings

We also need to tell Sublime Text where to look for the PHPCS executable.

Tools -> SublimeLinter -> Open User Settings.

"paths": {
    "linux": [],
    "osx": [
    	'~/code/phpcs/scripts'
    ],
    "windows": []
},

Change standard to WordPress

"phpcs": {
    "@disable": false,
    "args": [],
    "excludes": [],
    "standard": "WordPress"
},

Restart Sublime Text

Open a PHP file and look for red outlines for issues. Move cursor to there and check status bar for description. Turn on Tools -> SublimeLinter ->Debug Mode and View -> Show Console for more information. You can also change the settings so that errors are shown on save etc. See repo for what these mean.

anestan/phpcs-sublime.md