Can’t activate plugin programmatically

Version: 3.0.2

Hi. I’m getting an error when trying to activate the plugin programmatically. I have a site builder tool that builds sites for me, including activating plugins. When I do:

activate_plugin('strong-testimonials/strong-testimonials.php');

I get this error:

Uncaught Error: Class 'Strong_Testimonials_Welcome' not found in /www/wp-content/plugins/strong-testimonials/strong-testimonials.php:162

I think it’s because the ST activation code has this:

new Strong_Testimonials_Welcome();
do_action( 'wpmtst_after_update_setup', $first_install );

However, that class is only require_onced if is_admin() is true:

if ( is_admin() || ( defined( 'WP_CLI' ) && WP_CLI ) ) {
    ...
    require_once WPMTST_ADMIN . 'about/class-strong-testimonials-welcome.php';
    ...
}

Even if the class were included, the wpmtst_after_update_setup hook does a redirect:

wp_safe_redirect( admin_url( 'index.php?page=wpmtst-getting-started' ) );
exit;

This will be equally problematic for a site built programmatically.

My request is, can you rethink your approach on this? It looks like your redirect is for the sake of showing a “Getting Started” page. It only does that if it’s the “first install” (the wpmtst_db_version value does not exist in the options table). How about also checking the options table for some value like ‘skip_welcome’, or ‘is_programmatic_activation’, or similar? This will help me out a lot because I build lots of sites programatically. Thanks!