Repair wp/5.7 branch Actions: Run PHP coding standards on the runner instead of inside wp-env

[desrosj]

Part of #82936.

What?

Moves PHP coding standards checks (phpcs) out of wp-env into a new phpcs job in unit-test.yml. The job runs on the runner at PHP 7.4 and reports violations as annotations with cs2pr. The .cache/.gitkeep, .gitignore and phpcs.xml.dist changes add the PHPCS scan cache. It also sets timeout-minutes: 20 on the new phpcs job, like the other jobs got in #84763.

In the PHPUnit job, the Running lint check step is replaced by an Install Composer dependencies step (npm run wp-env run composer "install --no-interaction").

Why?

Coding standards checks don't depend on the PHP version being tested. Inside wp-env they only ran after the environment started, they repeated on every leg of the PHP matrix added in #84772, and violations showed up as container logs instead of annotations on the diff.

The lint step's prelint-php hook was also the only thing that installed Composer dependencies for PHPUnit, and phpunit/bootstrap.php requires vendor/autoload.php. wp-env start doesn't install them on this branch, so the new step keeps that install.

The job uses PHP 7.4 because the PHP_CodeSniffer and WPCS releases this branch depends on emit deprecation notices on PHP 8.4 and newer that abort the scan.

How?

Ports the phpcs job from #46510 (9ee17a7).

The phpcs command keeps --runtime-set ignore_warnings_on_exit 1 from this branch's Composer lint script, so existing warnings are still reported but don't fail the job, as before.

Both Composer installs fail until #84777 (two PRs up) adds config.allow-plugins and config.platform.php.

Use of AI Tools

This PR was created by Claude Code under my supervision. All code should be treated as AI-produced and not yet reviewed by a human until this PR is marked Ready for Review.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[coderabbitai]

Important

Review skipped

Auto reviews are disabled on base/target branches other than the default branch.

Please check the settings in the CodeRabbit UI or the .coderabbit.yaml file in this repository. To trigger a single review, invoke the @coderabbitai review command.

⚙️ Run configuration

• Configuration used: defaults
• Review profile: CHILL
• Plan: Advanced
• Run ID: 5022b80c-b082-49fa-9111-95ae0e0ebb03

You can disable this status message by setting the reviews.review_status to false in the CodeRabbit configuration file.

Use the checkbox below for a quick retry:

• 🔍 Trigger review

• Autofix · Keep fixing CodeRabbit findings and required CI, and resolving merge conflicts

Thanks for using CodeRabbit! It's free for OSS, and your support helps us grow. If you like it, consider giving us a shout-out.

❤️ Share

• X
• Mastodon
• Reddit
• LinkedIn

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.}

[github-actions]

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

If you're merging code through a pull request on GitHub, copy and paste the following into the bottom of the merge commit message.

Co-authored-by: desrosj <desrosj@git.wordpress.org>

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.