Category Archives: Summaries

Jb Audras 8:38 pm on May 27, 2026
Tags: , 7.0.1, , ,   

Dev Chat summary: May 27, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 See the agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 7.0

WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” was released on May 20th! 🚀

Some new dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. were published for 7.0:

WordPress 7.0.1

We have some issues in the milestone, but nothing that deserves an immediate 7.0.1 release (this the below discussion concerning potential hotfixes, though).

@jorbin proposed to publish a call for volunteers in the next couple days to target middle or end of June for the release.

WordPress 7.1

WordPress 7.1-alpha is under active development.

Two posts were published concerning 7.1:

General

Discussion 💬

From @masteradhoc: 3 TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets/PR are waiting for review:

@audrasjb will review them in the next days.

@desrosj suggested to add a legal review to #65025 and pinged @4thhubbard to organize that.

From @jorbin:

#65286 is the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. we are discussing. No actions are blocked, but the publishing screen on the non blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor looks extremely messy, so it’s worth cleaning it up while 7.0.1 is being worked on. @desrosj had proposed putting a fix in the Classic Editor plugin which could absolutely work. I was thinking the Hotfix plugin would make sense since it’s possible for this to affect custom post types and people may not be using the classic editor pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. at the same time. There are also other options […] but I think we should pick one and aim to get a solution out sooner rather than later.

@jeffpaul: “if we’ve not confirmed it affects CPTs, then I’m in favor of the classic editor plugin (and also that its low priority in that case)”.

@audrasjb: “I was about to say the same thing, in fact Classic Editor (plugin) seems like a really good option”.

@desrosj: “My thinking about the Classic Editor plugin instead of the Hotfix plugin is that sites that are choosing to remain using the classic editor likely have this plugin installed and activated already. So it fixes a wide number of sites just by pushing the update (provided they have auto-updates enabled, of course). I think we could still include the fix in the Hotfix plugin as well (anyone experiencing the issue without the Classic Editor plugin could install and activate), but it has far fewer users at 4,000+ compared to 9M+.”

@audrasjb: “But it wouldn’t affect websites where the Block Editor is disabled via a hook, or during CPT registration, etc.”

@davidbaumwald confirmed this affects CPTs without the Classic Editor.

@jorbin: “I like the idea of both hotfix and classic editor. I will also say that hotfix should always  have a lot less users than classic editor since one is designed as a short term needed plugin and the other is the hotfix plugin”.

@masteradhoc added that the issue will be fixed on the WP Rocket plugin quite fast, as a ticket is already open there.

@jorbin and @audrasjb noted that the Hotfix plugin should be Featured in the plugins list. @audrasjb added that the plugin should also get a small assets refresh.

In conclusion, there is a path forward for the short term (use both Classic Editor and Hotfix plugins), and @jorbin and @desrosj will coordinate to put this together.

@yaniiliev asked whether there are any changes that the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team would like to see on the new profiles page? Anything missing, anything feeling off? This will be discussed during next week’s meeting. Feel free to comment this summary if you have anything to share about this topic.

#7-0, #7-0-1, #7-1, #core, #dev-chat

Jb Audras 3:46 am on May 13, 2026
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Dev Chat summary: May 6, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 7.0 Updates

  • RC3 (“new Beta 1”) scheduled for this Friday, May 8th
  • Call for RTC testing from hosts. Submissions still welcome. Thank you to Bluehost, Kinsta, XServer, GoDaddy,WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/, Ionos, and any other hosts for helping test RTC.
  • A decision about RTC introduction is about to be finalized (and it was finalized). See ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #64696.

General

Discussion 💬

@desrosj noticed there are still 37 open tickets in milestone 7.0 and that the statuts of the about page ticket (#64536) wasn’t clear.

@jorbin proposed to run a dedicated 7.0 scrub after the chat.

@juanmaguitar will host a dedicated GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ scrub on Thursday.

@jorbin and @audrasjb asked about the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. timeline. It is currently under review and should be published ASAP.

@joefusco asked: “Is there a process for getting systems team feedback on the RTC custom table?  The code and testing infrastructure are ready, including a standalone testing pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. that can run on production sites without changes to trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision..  I’m not sure who to direct this to or what the next gate is in the process.”

@desrosj answered the systems team has been involved with the discussions and I know that they have been testing.

@joefusco replied “Mainly whether there are any outstanding concerns with the table structure or the approach that would prevent it from landing in 7.0.  Also, is there a documented process for new table proposals that require systems review?  This won’t be the last time a feature needs a schema change, and it would help future contributors know the path.”

Several attendees noted that it’s likely not worth the effort to formalize a process, as that kind of change doesn’t occur regularly.

#7-0, #core, #core-editor, #dev-chat

annezazu 1:02 am on May 8, 2026
Tags:   

Results: Real Time Collaboration performance testing analysis

Following the decision to remove real-time collaboration from WordPress 7.0, this post summarizes what the latest hosting test data showed and outlines the recommended storage strategy for future iteration. A huge thank you to every web host that submitted results in response to last week’s call for testing. Submissions came in from eight hosting environments between April 29 and May 4, and analysis of the aggregated, anonymized data is now complete. Based on the results, the recommendation is to use custom-table-with-transients as the default RTC storage strategy for continued testing and future iteration.

As a reminder, four candidate storage strategies for the Real Time Collaboration (“RTC”) feature were tested under load:

  • post-meta — the RC2 baseline.
  • custom-table — a dedicated table for all RTC data.
  • post-meta-transients — post metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. for storage with transients for client awareness.
  • custom-table-with-transients — a dedicated table with an object cache-backed awareness (Note: while contributors have been referring to this as a transient approach, it is a convenient short hand rather than a technical description)

The test runner captured per-request REST dispatch time and database query counts during sustained 30-second polling windows. Eight complete captures from a mix of shared, shared-with-Redis, managed-cloud, and no-object-cache environments form the basis of the analysis below.

What the data showed

Across the cohort, custom-table-with-transients was first or tied-first on six of seven complete environments, and was never slower than the RC2 baseline (post-meta approach). On average, the custom-table-with-transients approach was ~52% faster and the purely custom-table approach was ~37% faster than the current implementation. On hosts without a persistent object cache, it landed within 0.05–0.17 ms of plain custom-table—close enough that the two are effectively tied where caching is absent.

Two clean signals showed up in the database query counts during dispatch:

  1. With a persistent object cache present, both transient-based strategies dropped to a single database query per dispatch.
  2. Independent of caching, the custom-table schema cut the query count roughly in half compared to the post-meta strategies.

custom-table-with-transients wins because it gets the schema reduction when caching is absent, and the cache reduction when it’s present. post-meta-transients, by contrast, is not recommended even as a fallback. It nearly doubles in latency without a persistent cache, and on one no-cache shared environment it exhibited a pathological transient code path that pushed dispatch latency past 26 ms — several times worse than any other strategy on that host.

Recommendation for the future

The recommended storage strategy custom-table-with-transients is considered the best case among the candidates. It wins decisively on environments with a persistent object cache, remains comfortably ahead of the baseline on environments without one, and degrades gracefully across the full spread of hosting tiers represented in the data.

Read the full analysis

The full anonymized analysis—including per-environment dispatch tables, query counts, cross-cuts comparing cache effects, and bootstrap floors—is available here. All submissions remain anonymized in line with the commitment made in the original call for testing.

Summary

The data from this testing window was sufficient to make the call confidently: custom-table-with-transients is the best option forward as the default for real time collaboration. When work resumes after clean up from 7.0, this is the approach best positioned to explore more deeply next.

Thank you again to every host that participated. Your contributions provided the data needed to make this storage recommendation and will help set real-time collaboration up for success across the wide range of environments where WordPress runs. Props to Ionos, BlueHost, Kinsta, XServer, and WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ for their contributions here.

Props to @griffbrad for drafting this post. Props to @dd32 @desrosj @jmdodd @peterwilsoncc @jorbin @4thhubbard for testing, analysis, and review. If I missed your name, please tell me as it’s a mistake and there have been a lot of moving pieces.

#feature-real-time-collaboration

Jb Audras 8:18 am on April 21, 2026
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Dev Chat summary: April 15, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @amykamala 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 7.0 Updates

  • The Path Forward for WordPress 7.0. The 7.0 release is still on pause for the time being. A new schedule is being worked out and will be announced by the 22nd. There will be another Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). in name, but in practice the next release will be treated as a betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process., specifically to test architectural improvements to Real Time Collaboration. Thank you in advance to everyone who helps test!

General

Discussion 💬

@annezazu has published Defining expectations for Iteration issues announcing some adjustments to iteration issue handling in the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ repo.

From @amykamala: “Finding the most current PRs and discussions can be a bit of a wild goose chase because while PRs mention tickets in their content, the fields/relationships on the right that would link PRs to a ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker., project, status, etc are not actively being used. For 7.0 theres a kan ban board but nothing in it because tickets and PRs are not being tagged. So the only way to find this info is to scroll endlessly on tickets and click on all the links in the notifications. Some of you may remember a while back I asked devs in here to please start tagging their PRs in the fields on the right.”

  • @jeffpaul noted that the #core-program channel may be a good place to iterate on this topic.

Matt is requesting community reps and organizers increase emphasis on Elevating Individuals in the contributor space to to celebrate volunteers and folks who contribute in their own spare time.

From @miroku: “I can only report problems; can that be considered a contribution? I’m always struggling to figure out how to volunteer effectively”. @jorbin answered that testing and finding bugs is absolutely a contribution!

@westonruter wanted to draw attention to this issue with @wordpress/core-abilities which makes it difficult to use outside of a React context. A PR is available to fix the issue.

#7-0, #core, #core-editor, #dev-chat

annezazu 8:48 pm on April 8, 2026
Tags: ,   

Defining expectations for Iteration issues

Two years ago, efforts were made to provide more clarity in the Gutenberg GitHub repository to make it simpler to keep up to date with work underway at various levels. This post focuses on a piece of that effort: iteration issues and the growing role they can play to make it simpler to follow ongoing work in the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ repository at critical periods. Iteration issues should happen alongside dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. and merge proposals.

Changes to Iteration issues

As a reminder, these iteration issues are solely for following dedicated tracks of work in the Gutenberg repository, and their goal isn’t to replace the TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets that we use for tracking tasks.

  • For each release, open a new iteration issue with the [Type] Iteration label and a name similar to “Feature Name for WordPress X.X”. Do not re-use an iteration issue from a prior release.
  • Before the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. cycle for the release, updates need to happen at a minimum of once per month.
  • 1 week ahead of beta and during beta/RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). periods, updates need to happen weekly. In particular, emphasis should be put on updates ahead of beta 1, RC1, and the final release. 
  • When the work on a release is done, close the iteration issue and open a new one for the next release as needed.

The aim in doing this is to make it easy for folks to stay up to date on features being worked on for major WordPress releases. Currently, pulling together accurate and up-to-date information remains too fragmented, partially due to either the lack of timely updates to Iteration issues or due to the lack of an iteration issue, leading to too few people who have the time/effort/expertise to sort through it all. This has led to confusion in the lead-up to key moments in the release cycle and is a vulnerability in the process that needs to be rectified. By contributors dedicating themselves more deeply to curating Iteration issues and keeping them up to date, that information can remain a shared resource for all in a consistent way and help us lean towards automation over the reliance of individuals to collate. 

When should an iteration issue be opened?

Most, if not all, headline items in roadmap posts need iteration issues. When in doubt, create one. 

What makes a good iteration issue?

To help more folks succeed in creating a good iteration issue, there is a new Iteration issue template when creating an issue that follows these best practices: 

  • Assigned contributors planning to work on it. As needed, this includes assigning someone to handle updates.
  • A scope of work tailored to the release and the timeline, with necessary issues opened.
  • Any necessary design input or clear requests for design collaboration.
  • Any open questions or known decisions should be clearly stated, with discussions branching out into various individual issues.
  • Regular updates in the form of comments on the issue. Specifically, monthly in early stages of the release and weekly at later stages aka starting 1 week before beta 1.

The iteration issue does not need to start this way, but it needs to grow in this direction rapidly as the release process continues. In many cases, an initial iteration issue is opened with a smaller set of known key items to work on, and broader contributors help shape it as the release gets underway.

What makes a good update? 

A good update is timely and clearly states completed work, upcoming planned work, any known blockers or decisions to be made, and a broader sense of how the work is progressing. For example, an update that simply lists a changelog of items doesn’t provide a sense of whether work is continuing at the right pace for the release and what is likely to make it or likely not to. 

Ahead of key moments in a release, beta 1 and RC 1 in particular, updates need to happen weekly as noted above and should include clear summaries of what is landing in each. These can be used as foundations for any future dev notes, merge proposals, release announcement material, or even documentation. 

Let’s keep iterating

Just like these issues, this is an iteration too. Please share feedback, whether you’re handling these iteration issues or using them to stay closer to the work.

Props to @tyxla @desrosj @4thhubbard @jeffpaul for reviewing 

#github, #gutenberg

Jb Audras 3:49 pm on April 8, 2026
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Dev Chat summary: April 8, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 7.0 Updates

  • The Path Forward for WordPress 7.0. Quick summary:
    • trunk is closed to commits for the 7.1 release until further notice
    • Backporting to 7.0 still requires double committercommitter A developer with commit access. WordPress has five lead developers and four permanent core developers with commit access. Additionally, the project usually has a few guest or component committers - a developer receiving commit access, generally for a single release cycle (sometimes renewed) and/or for a specific component. sign off
    • Pre-releases are paused
    • The next release will be a RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta).
    • We’re currently in string freeze
  • New Dev Notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase.:

Discussion 💬

From @desrosj: contributors who have a list of notes for tickets to create are encouraged to create them before the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. Especially if they are good-first-bugs! 

@desrosj added: “If someone has some time, triaging the good-first-bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. list could also be helpful. Sometimes that list is intimidating because it seems like everything is attended to. But often times the patches need to be refreshed or the approaches so far are not fully solving the issue at hand. If we could note that on the tickets, it may make them more easily actionable.”

@audrasjb noted that the 8 tickets in the i18n component for 7.0 are easy tickets that would be nice to address during the contributor day. They are also Polyglots, CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and Core Editor cross-team tickets.

@desrosj will encourage our Polyglots contributors to open tickets for strings that need refinement and additional context as it is a great way to contribute to the upcoming release.

#7-0, #core, #core-editor, #dev-chat

Jb Audras 8:13 am on April 4, 2026
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Dev Chat summary: April 1, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

Editor

General

WordPress 7.0 Updates

Discussion 💬

From Matt: Rethinking Left Navigation

  • @audrasjb: “Ordering plugins in a menu is a pretty sensible [but] it would be great if users could order them themselves”
  • @jorbin recommended to make it a Feature PluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins project
  • @joedolson wanted to note that maintaining consistent navigation order is an explicit accessibility requirement

From @joefusco: “Following the awareness/presence discussion in #64696, I built a feature plugin to test the workload independently from RTC feature.”

  • @desrosj proposed to make it a Feature Plugin hosted on the WordPress GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository and… tada! It’s live.

From @wildworks: “I am proposing to remove the ability to embed YouTube videos in the cover blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.. I would appreciate your thoughts on this. In my opinion, this violates the terms of service and also presents accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues.” See this PR comment.

  • @jorbin pointed out that WordPress has shipped with header video support for almost a decade with no complaints, so removing this from the cover block should not be rushed.
  • @joedolson added that the accessibility issue is technically a content control issue; it doesn’t directly create an issue, but opens a door for significant issues that were previously easily prevented.
  • @wildworks shared this Slack thread, where comments are welcome about this topic.

#7-0, #core, #core-editor, #dev-chat

John Blackbourn 2:00 am on March 25, 2026  

WordPress 6.9.2 retrospective

The WordPress 6.9.2 release on March 10th wasn’t the smoothest, so some members of the Security Team did an internal retrospective to identify how the project can continue to improve release processes, with the aim of ensuring that users continue to have trust in minor releases. Here’s an overview of what went well, what didn’t go so well, and all the action points as a result.

6.9.2

The Security Team decided on a plan to fully ship 6.9.2 prior to starting the backports that are provided as a courtesy to older branches. Normally the commits to trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision., the currently supported branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"., and relevant backportbackport A port is when code from one branch (or trunk) is merged into another branch or trunk. Some changes in WordPress point releases are the result of backporting code from trunk to the release branch. branches are all completed before the release process starts, but this increases the time to release the supported branch and greatly increases the time pressure on the team.

The team agreed that it was a good idea to handle trunk and 6.9 prior to committing the backports, that the approach worked well, and that it facilitated shipping 6.9.2 as fast as possible.

6.9.3

Shortly after the release, an issue in 6.9.2 was reported on the support forums that affected classic themes using an unusual approach to template loading. The team paused the backport work to investigate, and decided that it warranted a fast-follow 6.9.3 release out of an abundance of caution.

The fix was shipped in 6.9.3, around eight hours after 6.9.2.

7.0 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 4

It’s uncommon for a security release of WordPress to ship during the beta period of the next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope.. This is not intentional, the situation simply doesn’t arise often. In the twenty year history of WordPress it appears to have happened three times previously (3.9.2, 4.0.1, and 6.3.2).

Shortly after the release of 6.9.2, several community members asked if a new beta of WordPress 7.0 would be released containing the security fixes. This was not originally planned but of course makes sense, as the project should encourage as many people as possible to test beta releases and not leave them on a known insecure version until the next scheduled beta.

As a result, WordPress 7.0 beta 4 was released at the same time as 6.9.3 and included both the security fixes from 6.9.2 and the template loading fix from 6.9.3.

6.9.4

Around twenty hours after 6.9.2 was released, the Security Team received a report that some of the fixes listed in the release announcement for 6.9.2 were missing from the package. The team quickly determined that three of the ten commits that were made to trunk did not get successfully merged into the 6.9 branch and were missing from the package as a result.

The merge commits were missed due to human error, but the problem should have been easily caught by the release process. There is no step in the minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. process to independently double check that all commits were successfully merged into the active branch. Sounds obvious in hindsight, but it’s a checklist oversight that’s never been spotted.

Backports

Officially only the latest version of WordPress is supported. The Security Team historically has a practice of backporting security fixes, as necessary, as a courtesy to sites on older versions in the expectation the sites will be automatically updated.

Backporting the fixes from 6.9.2/6.9.3 to 22 older branches proved to be very time consuming. While several of the branches were ready ahead of time, several were still being worked on close to release.

  • Backports back to 6.4 were completed by end of day on Tuesday March 10th.
  • Backports back to 5.3 were completed by end of day on Wednesday March 11th, mainly due to time constraints from contributors.
  • Remaining backports were blocked by a bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. with the wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ svn server pre-commit hook that prevented pushing to the 5.2 branch and earlier, and issues with branches not syncing to the build server. The wordpress.org systems team members applied several fixes, and backports back to 4.7 were released by end of day on Friday March 13th.
  • The 6.0 branch (which will be version 6.0.12) remains unreleased due to an unresolved issue with the build. At the time of writing this branch remains unprotected.

Backporting security fixes to a large number of branches (22 at the time of writing) continues to be a source of contention between the security team and project leadership. While the effort required from the security team to backport fixes to a branch is generally proportional to the age of the branch, the bulk of the work is actually taken up by the human processes that are needed to manage such a large number of branch releases. The team are in the planning stages of some work to increase automation and streamline the backporting processes so time from human contributors can be better spent elsewhere.

Action points

As a result of the issues with 6.9.2, its fast-follow releases, 7.0 beta 4, and backporting, the security team and coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team have some action points that will be addressed in the coming days and weeks:

  • Add unit testunit test Code written to test a small piece of code or functionality within a larger application. Everything from themes to WordPress core have a series of unit tests. Also see regression. coverage for handling stringable objects in the template_include filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. that was addressed in 6.9.3. While this is not strictly supported, the otherwise full front end breakage that can occur means we’re essentially locked in to supporting it now.
  • Update minor release checklist page to:
    • Add info about double verification of merge commits
    • Update the TTL adjustment to be a requirement instead of a nice to have
    • Remove outdated noise from the checklist, including codex changes
    • As a general rule, there should be no reason to skip a step unless it’s clearly documented why that might happen
    • Add planning info about releasing a minor during a beta or RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). phase
    • Before bumping versions and performing a tagging commit, the built asset on the Test Build Processes workflow should be used to confirm things work as expected.
  • Backport related Build/Test Tool changes to older branches.
    • Ensure PHPUnit reports notices and warnings as exceptions.
    • Ensure all local environment scripts have catch() mechanisms in place.
  • Create ways to make it easier to test built assets on the Test Build Processes workflow.
    • Playground supports testing this asset from a pull request but not an individual commit.
    • A script could be created to download the built asset and extract the zip file into the build directory locally for testing.

Longer term, Matt Mullenweg has asked what AI-assisted tooling can be used to review changes going into releases in order to assess risk of breakage, generally assist with review, and improve quality control. This is a wider concern not specific to security releases. Hopefully we’ll hear more about that in due course.

Thanks to @peterwilsoncc, @dmsnell, @audrasjb, and @sergeybiryukov for reviewing this post prior to publishing.

Jb Audras 7:38 am on February 6, 2026
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Summary, Dev Chat, February 4, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

Nominations for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team Reps 2026

The nomination process for Core Team Representatives for 2026 is over. We are putting together the nominations, then a poll will probably be opened for voting. It will stay open for two weeks. Stay tuned.

WordPress 6.9.1

It was released yesterday! Congrats to everyone involved in this release!

Milestone 6.9.2 is open on Trac and @jorbin will monitor new tickets related to 6.9.

WordPress 7.0 Update

Discussion 💬

We have a formal proposal for merging the WP AI Client into WordPress 7.0!

Proposal for merging WP AI Client into WordPress 7.0

@jorbin noted that there is no formal timeline for feedback on this new feature.

There are discussions in the proposal on Make/Core and in the related Trac ticket.

The realtime coordination feature also was noted by @marybaum and @jorbin as a set of features that would deserves a merge proposal blogpost.

From @adamsilverstein:

I’d like to mention I have posted a detailed progress update for the Client Side Media feature on the tracking issue. The summary is: last week we landed the wordpress/worker-threads package, which unlocks running VIPS directly in a worker thread. This means the feature can now be tested. Also: the final 7 pre-betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. PRs are nearly ready for review.
The main thing I need support on is code reviews and testing!

This was cross-posted on the #core-editor channel.

#6-9-1, #7-0, #core, #dev-chat

Jb Audras 5:50 pm on January 28, 2026
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Summary, Dev Chat, January 28, 2026

Start of the meeting in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/, facilitated by @audrasjb 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

Nominations for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team Reps 2026

The nomination process for Core Team Representatives for 2026 is still open. Please submit your nomination here.

Recap: WordPress 6.9 “Gene” Retrospective

A retrospective of WP 6.9 was published by its release squad, with detailed feedback on the 6.9 cycle.

WordPress 6.9.1 Release Schedule

The WordPress 6.9.1 maintenance release is planned on February 3, 2026, with a first BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. release on January 29, 2026.

@jorbin noted that help is still needed on the following tickets/PR:

WordPress 7.0 Release Squad and Bug Scrub Schedule

The WordPress 7.0 Release Squad has been announced.

The 7.0 bug scrub schedule was published. @audrasjb hosted the first scrub right before the devchat.

What’s new in GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ 22.4

Gutenberg 22.4 was released, with a detailed announcement.

Open floor 💬

As a new contributor @indigochill asked whether ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #60726 was a good way to start contributing to WordPress Core. @johnbillion, @jorbin and @audrasjb confirmed that it is a nice first ticket to learn how to contribute to Core as it is self-contained and clearly documented, but encouraged them to thoroughly read all the comments in the ticket to make sure to understand the full background of the ticket and its history.

#6-9-1, #7-0, #core, #dev-chat