Standalone mode

Standalone mode lets your snippets keep working when FluentSnippets is not installed. It exists so that choosing this plugin is not a commitment you cannot back out of, and so that an agency can hand over a finished site without handing over a dependency.

Turning it on

FluentSnippets → Settings → Standalone Mode → Turn on Standalone Mode.

That writes a single small file, wp-content/mu-plugins/fluent-snippets-mu.php. It is a must-use plugin, so WordPress loads it automatically and it cannot be deactivated from the Plugins screen.

That file contains a copy of the snippet runner: the same code that reads your storage directory’s index.php, evaluates conditional logic, and includes your snippet files at the right hooks. It does not contain your snippets. Those stay where they were, in wp-content/fluent-snippet-storage/.

What happens when you remove the plugin

In both cases your snippet files are never deleted, so nothing is lost either way. The difference is only whether they keep executing.

Managing snippets while standalone

You cannot. The mu-plugin runs snippets; it has no admin interface. To add, edit or remove a snippet you either reinstall FluentSnippets, which brings everything back exactly as it was because the state is in the files, or edit the snippet files directly and rebuild the index by hand.

For most people, reinstalling is the answer. Standalone mode is not meant to be a permanent way of working, it is a guarantee that removing the plugin does not break the site.

Staying up to date

The mu-plugin records the plugin version it was written from. When you update FluentSnippets, the first admin request after the update notices the runner is older than the plugin and rewrites it. That matters because the stale copy is precisely what takes over the moment the plugin is deactivated.

Deactivating the plugin also refreshes the mu-plugin first, so what takes over is always current.

If you delete the plugin directory by hand, without deactivating through the admin, the mu-plugin stays at whatever version it last wrote. It keeps working; it just will not gain later fixes.

Turning it off

Settings → Disable Standalone Mode removes wp-content/mu-plugins/fluent-snippets-mu.php. With the plugin still active, nothing changes for visitors. Snippets carry on running, just through the plugin rather than the mu-plugin.

Requirements and caveats

• WordPress must be able to create wp-content/mu-plugins/ if it does not exist. On a host that makes that directory unwritable, enabling standalone mode returns an error rather than failing silently.
• If you use a custom WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR, the file goes there.
• Some managed hosts manage mu-plugins themselves and may remove files they did not put there. Check after enabling it, and check again after a host-side migration.
• The runner is a copy, not a symlink. Editing it by hand is pointless: it is overwritten on the next plugin update or standalone toggle.

When to use it

Client handover. Build the site, enable standalone mode, remove FluentSnippets. The client owns a site that works, with the custom code visible in wp-content as ordinary files, and no plugin they have to keep installed or updated.

Reducing the active plugin count. On a site where the snippets are finished and unlikely to change, standalone mode gets you the behaviour without the plugin loading its admin code on every request.

Proving there is no lock-in. Enable it, delete the plugin, watch the site carry on. That is a reasonable thing to check before committing to any tool.