Detect and report name of hosting provider

[iandunn]

Is your enhancement related to a problem? Please describe.

Some hosts like VIP and Kinsta have WP_CACHE set to false, because they handle static page caching at the server/network level.

The Monitor project relies on that constant, though, and reports a false-positive if it's not true. Knowing the name of the hosting provider would allow it, or any other monitoring system, to handle those hosts appropriately. (Issue 11 exists in the project repo to implements that side of this issue).

Detecting the hosting provider's name could be based on available PHP constants like WPCOM_IS_VIP_ENV, the server hostname, mapping the server IP to an AS number, etc.

Designs

No response

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[dmytropetrash]

Hi there! A good next step could be to check the server's IP address and use a third-party API to identify the hosting provider. This approach is usually quite effective. Let me know if you need help with implementation!

[claytoncollie]

Monitor integration context

This directly unblocks 10up/monitor#11 — the VIP/Kinsta WP_CACHE false positive bug. The Monitor-side fix is in PR #26 (Phase 1 of the feature chain).

The problem

Monitor's health.ts currently flags WP_CACHE = false as an error for every environment. Managed hosts like VIP and Kinsta handle page caching at the server/network layer without setting WP_CACHE, so this produces daily false-positive Slack alerts.

What Monitor needs from 10up Experience

A new customData entry:

[
    'key'   => 'hosting_provider',
    'value' => 'vip',  // or 'kinsta', 'wpengine', 'pantheon', 'pagely', 'unknown'
    'group' => 'system',
]

Recommended detection approach

Add a get_hosting_provider() method to Monitor.php that checks platform-specific constants:

private function get_hosting_provider(): string {
    if ( defined( 'VIP_GO_APP_ENVIRONMENT' ) || defined( 'WPCOM_IS_VIP_ENV' ) ) {
        return 'vip';
    }
    if ( defined( 'KINSTA_DEV_ENV' ) || defined( 'KINSTA_CACHE_ZONE' ) ) {
        return 'kinsta';
    }
    if ( defined( 'WPE_APIKEY' ) || defined( 'IS_WPE' ) ) {
        return 'wpengine';
    }
    if ( defined( 'PANTHEON_ENVIRONMENT' ) ) {
        return 'pantheon';
    }
    if ( defined( 'STARTER_STARTER' ) || ( defined( 'JEEVES_ENV' ) ) ) {
        return 'pagely';
    }
    return 'unknown';
}

Note: The plugin already has a partial VIP check in get_is_using_object_cache() — the new method would centralize and expand this.

How Monitor will use it

Once hosting_provider is available in customData, Monitor's calculateSystemHealth() will skip the WP_CACHE check for hosts known to handle caching at the infrastructure level (vip, kinsta, wpengine, pantheon, pagely). This eliminates the false-positive alerts without losing the check for hosts where WP_CACHE is meaningful.

The hosting provider value will also be displayed in the System DataCard on the environment detail page.