28. Local JSON Workflow | Field Forge - Custom Fields, Built for Speed

Local JSON saves field group definitions as .json files in your theme, enabling version control and cross-environment deployment. Requires PRO license.

This is Field Forge’s own Local JSON format and uses fieldforge-json/ by default. The ACF migration tool also understands ACF’s Local JSON source files from acf-json/group_*.json, so a site can import ACF field groups even when the acf-field-group and acf-field database posts are absent.

Setup

Enable Local JSON in Field Forge > Settings.
Create the directory: your-theme/fieldforge-json/
Field groups auto-save to this directory when edited.

your-theme/
  fieldforge-json/
    group_1_product-fields.json
    group_2_hero-section.json
    .htaccess          # Auto-created: "Deny from all"
    index.php          # Auto-created: silence

Bidirectional Sync

Field Forge detects JSON changes on admin load:

JSON to DB: New or modified JSON files are imported into the database.
DB to JSON: Database changes are exported to JSON files.

Deployment Workflow

Development          Staging              Production
-----------          -------              ----------
1. Edit field        3. git pull          5. git pull
   groups in UI      4. Visit admin ->    6. Visit admin ->
2. git commit           auto-sync            auto-sync
   fieldforge-json/     JSON -> DB           JSON -> DB

Programmatic Sync

// Force export all groups to JSON
$local_json = FIELDFORGE_Local_JSON::instance();
$count = $local_json->save_all();

// Check for differences
$diff = $local_json->get_diff();
// Returns: ['new_in_json' => [...], 'new_in_db' => [...], 'modified' => [...], 'in_sync' => [1, 3]]

// Run sync (JSON wins)
$result = $local_json->sync( 'json_to_db' );

// Run sync (DB wins)
$result = $local_json->sync( 'db_to_json' );

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