The WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:
Found a bugbugA 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.?Create a ticket in the bug tracker.
WordPress 7.1 is set to be released on August 19th, 2026. This release advances how people work together in WordPress and opens up new functionality for all to benefit from. New Notes features, including suggestion mode and emoji reactions, make asynchronous feedback richer and more interactive. Meanwhile, real-time collaboration remains an exciting focus area with a few strategic decisions remaining to shape exactly how it’ll show up in the WordPress experience. New options for responsive styling and pseudo-state styling, two longstanding areas of feedback, expand what you can do directly in the Site Editor without needing to use CSSCSSCascading Style Sheets.. A new Guidelines feature adds a persistent, structured way to encode editorial rules into WordPress, helping you keep your voice and preferences when collaborating with AI. Several new options make it easier to find your way around: see when a blockBlockBlock 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. inherits its styling from a global setting, set key details about your site in a new Identity section in the Site Editor, find what you need faster with recently used commands and suggestions shown in the command palette, and enjoy the familiarity of the adminadmin(and super admin) bar inside any of the editors. The experience of uploading and using media gets numerous updates, including a new free-form image cropper to get your images just right and client-side media improvements that support more image formats and add resiliency throughout. For those building on top of WordPress, numerous APIs are slated for more features and fixes. Expanded Unicode support is in the works so email addresses, usernames, and slugs can better reflect WordPress’ global audience. Finally, to round out the release are a slew of smaller yet important delights like a new “On This Day” dashboard widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user., new blocks, and various writing flow improvements.
As always, what’s shared here is being actively pursued, but doesn’t necessarily mean each will make it into the final release of WordPress 7.1.
For those who want to be involved in the release in a different, more hands on way, there’s a new dedicated outreach effort for WordPress 7.1 to ensure collaborative editing gets the collaborative testing it needs. Learn more here.
AI
AI Client iteration
The AI Client is the foundational piece for running AI programmatically inside WordPress, and for 7.1 the focus stays on empowering pluginPluginA 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. authors. Two notable capabilitiescapabilityA capability is permission to perform one or more types of task. Checking if a user has a capability is performed by the current_user_can function. Each user of a WordPress site might have some permissions but not others, depending on their role. For example, users who have the Author role usually have permission to edit their own posts (the “edit_posts” capability), but not permission to edit other users’ posts (the “edit_others_posts” capability). are planned: generation streaming, introduced first in the PHP AI Client as an initial effort to unlock full usage in a future release, and embeddings, which represent content as vectors to enable meaning-based search across a site. These arrive alongside minor fixes that keep improving the reliability of the AI Client.
After landing a new framework for registering and managing connections to external services in 7.0, work is underway for connectors to gain more ways to authenticate beyond APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. keys. The plan is to start simple with adding username/application password support similar to the existing API key flow and then explore more general, declaratively-defined connection forms (URLs, a default-models dropdown, and more) in PHPPHPThe web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher, advancing the DataForm API in the process.
After shipping early as an experiment in GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ to gather feedback, a new Guidelines feature lets you define writing and content guidelines that tie into AI tooling, with the ability to import/export guidelines between sites. This brings a persistent, structured system for encoding editorial rules, brand voice, and content standards directly into WordPress for humans and AI alike. As more collaboration happens directly in WordPress, this brings consistency and personalization to that collaboration.
The command palette now groups results into clear sections for recent, suggested, and matching commands. The recently used list is saved to your preferences so they persist across sessions. The design was also updated to make the list of resulting commands easier to scan and understand.
The Site Editor sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. and overall shell now follow the set WordPress admin color scheme instead of always using a fixed dark background. This ensures broader consistency across all parts of the WordPress experience when personalizing the admin with a color scheme of your choosing.
Work is underway to migrate DataViews onto the new Design System primitives for a more consistent look and feel, and to consolidate Quick Edit with the editor inspector so editing a post’s details feels the same wherever you do it. The DataForm API itself is growing more capable, including support for disabling individual controls. The Site Editor’s Pages, Templates, and Patterns screens are also becoming more extensibleExtensibleThis is the ability to add additional functionality to the code. Plugins extend the WordPress core software., with a new server-side REST endpoint that lets plugin authors register their own view and form configuration.
A dedicated Design → Identity screen brings the essentials of your site’s identity into one place, with an inline media editor for your logo and favicon and quick editing of your site title and tagline. The aim is to make these foundational settings simple to find and easy to update without digging into templates or needing to go searching in Settings.
Work continues on the shared component library in wordpress/ui and the underlying theming system that powers it. A highlight of this cycle is graduating ThemeProvider from experimental to a stable, public API, alongside finalizing the public token names (background, foreground, and stroke renames), and adding new theme-customization tokens for corner radius and element sizing. In parallel, key parts of the editor UIUIUser interface begin adopting improved components, with flyout menus extending to transforms, style variations, and the block ellipsis and transform menus.
The dashboard is getting a new “On This Day” widget that resurfaces past content, a popular feature across many different platforms. Get motivated by looking back on what you’ve written and write more content today for future reminders.
Followthis pull request introducing the “On This Day” widget for more information.
Persistent admin bar across editors (aka omnibar)
The admin bar is getting some nice polish ahead of being easily accessible in the Site Editor and Block Editor. Having landed as an experiment in Gutenberg first, this work brings the toolbar into the editing experience so the admin bar is with you wherever you are. The design update removes the “Howdy” greeting, replaces the home icon with the site icon, makes the profile avatarAvatarAn avatar is an image or illustration that specifically refers to a character that represents an online user. It’s usually a square box that appears next to the user’s name. a circle rather than a square, and updates the legacy Dashicons icon font with wordpress/icons SVGs throughout the admin bar.
RevisionsRevisionsThe WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. iterations
After landing visual revisions in 7.0, this release focuses on making them even easier to read and navigate between. Planned improvements include a spark line view in the scrubbing toolbar to better visualize the history of changes, persistent URLs to allow sharing a link to a particular revision, and more.
The Abilities API gives developers and AI tooling a structured, queryable way to expose what a WordPress site can do. This cycle advances querying and filtering of abilities and implements a curated set of coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. abilities (including site settings, current-user info management, and general site awareness).
The post editor has been moving toward always running inside an iframeiframeiFrame is an acronym for an inline frame. An iFrame is used inside a webpage to load another HTML document and render it. This HTML document may also contain JavaScript and/or CSS which is loaded at the time when iframe tag is parsed by the user’s browser., which isolates the editing canvas from the admin’s styles and lets viewport-relative units and media queries work against the canvas instead of the browser window. Today the editor still drops back to a non-iframed mode whenever a block using Block API version 2 or lower is present. To make the rollout gradual, the current plan is to enforce iframing for block-based themes in this release, then extend it to all themes in a future release. In both cases, blocks need to be on Block API version 3 to work in the iframed editor, and a migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. guide is available to help extenders get there.
This release is looking to broaden Unicode support so email addresses can better reflect WordPress’ global audience. This work centers around allowing storing Unicode email addresses (Core-31992) so functions like is_email(), sanitize_email() and antispambot() can be extended to support non-ASCII addresses.
ReactReactReact is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces.
https://reactjs.org 19 Upgrade
WordPress is upgrading from React 18 to React 19. This update will first be merged into the Gutenberg plugin ahead of an eventual pathway to Core. In this upgrade, there are several new APIs, major updates to TypeScript types, changed behaviors and more. Plugin and theme developers, please help test and review what’s coming as early and as much as possible. To help with testing, install and activate the latest version of Gutenberg, head to the experiments page, and turn on the “React 19” experiment.
After WordPress 7.0 introduced the foundations of the SVG Icon API (the icon registry, a REST endpoint, and the core Icon block), 7.1’s iteration centers on opening the API up to third parties with new public functions like register_icon() and unregister_icon(), core-icons theme support, SVG sanitization and namespace validation, and collection support (similar to the Font Library) so agencies and product makers can ship their own branded icon sets. The work also explores a reusable icon picker modal for any block, Icon block enhancements like flip and rotate, and making the hardcoded icons in blocks such as Navigation, Breadcrumbs, and Details selectable through the Icon API. Alongside the API work, the core icon set itself is getting a visual refresh, with prominent icons redrawn as stroke-based designs for a more consistent, modern look.
Deprecating the Classic block As a first step towards making the Classic block and TinyMCE opt-in, the Classic block is planned for deprecation in 7.1, and will no longer appear in the block inserter. The related work improves migration and conversion paths and prepares the next step for making the Classic block and TinyMCE opt-in, so sites that don’t rely on the classic experience would get a lighter, faster editor.
Every new block added to Core means new possibilities for all, without needing to rely on third party blocks. 7.1 has a few new Core blocks slated for inclusion:
Playlist block, with additional waveform audio visualization.
Table of Contents block, automatically generating navigable links to the headings in your content.
New block support for the HTML block, making it possible to have editable blocks inside of a custom HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. block. This is especially useful with AI generated sites, since LLMs often create custom HTML.
“Mark as decorative” toggle for the Image block to hide decorative images from screen readers for an improved experience.
An shortcode transform was added to the Embed block, so converting or pasting shortcodes now creates a proper Embed block instead of leaving raw shortcodeShortcodeA shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site. text behind.
The Group block added support for background gradients through a new background.gradient block support, allowing gradients and background images to work together without conflicts. While limited to the Group block for now, block authors can adopt this new support using a simple register block type filterFilterFilters 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. before it comes to more Core blocks.
This is a great area to contribute to the release. If interested, please help with the Dialog block for transcripts and conversations and the Marquee block for scrolling, animated content as these both are on the list of blocks to add but don’t have a champion.
Writing flow and drag-and-drop improvements
To ensure writing and arranging content continues to get smoother, a dedicated focus is on chipping away at everyday pain points in the writing experience. This includes a wide range of focuses from improving drag and drop to ensuring multi-selection works on touch devices.
Notes have a range of planned improvements that include notes on specific content within a block and across multiple blocks, rich text in notes, notifications for replies and follows, emoji reactions, a minified notes experience, and an “apply suggestions” feature. All of these help provide a richer, more interactive experience of collaborating with others directly in the editor.
Imagine a world with no post lock screen and with collaborators of all kinds (human and AI) working together to share content with the world through WordPress. After a monumental effort ahead of the last release, real-time collaboration marches ahead with that vision in mind and with big, open strategy questions around:
These decisions, along with the readiness of the feature, are the key aspects to get right for all of WordPress and to align with project leadership on. They impact who gets access to the feature and what the experience will be like. To help aid the decision making and reliability of the feature, there’s a new dedicated outreach effort for WordPress 7.1 to ensure collaborative editing gets the collaborative testing it needs. Please consider getting involved and learn more here.
When you’re styling a block, it isn’t always clear which styles are coming from the theme, a parent, or global styles. This work explores surfacing inherited styles clearly in the sidebar so you can understand where a block’s styles are coming from and edit at the right layer of styling, whether that’s a global or local change.
A standardized way to style interactive states is taking shape. Support for pseudo-state styling such as hover, focus, and active has landed for both Global Styles and individual block instances, building on the broader “states” effort. Further work, including custom states like styling the current menu item, continues beyond 7.1. All of this work means you can begin to style how blocks respond to interaction, like buttons changing color on hover, all without writing a line of CSS.
With WordPress 7.0, the experience of using patterns shifted to be more like editing a single block with a focus on content changes than exposing every tool available for every block in a pattern. For this cycle, work will focus on UXUXUser experience improvements based on feedback around this change, bugbugA 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. fixes, and general maintenance.
Responsive styling for blocks has been a long requested feature and 7.1 aims to be a big step towards more support. Building on the same style states mechanism that powers the interactive states styling for blocks, this work lets you define how a block looks at different screen sizes. This means you can apply responsive styles, like a font size at a certain viewport, directly in the editor without writing custom CSS. The feature will be available both for global styles that apply across every instance of a block, and for individual block instances. The aim is to make responsive design a built-in, first-class part of the editing experience.
After adding the ability to hide or show blocks based on viewport, theme-configurable breakpoints defined in theme.jsonJSONJSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. are being added to provide more flexible, customizable responsive styling.
After being punted from 7.0, client-side media processing keeps getting more capable and resilient ahead of this release. The work spans HEIC image support, Ultra HDR support, GIF-to-video conversion, more resilient uploads that retry on failure and resume after a crash or going offline, video transcoding to web-safe formats, optimization of previously uploaded media, and local poster generation during video upload so pages can render before a video finishes loading.
The Media editor modal replaces the existing inline cropping tool in the Block Editor. The modal keeps the familiar Crop button as the entry point, and brings freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, flip, fine-grained and snap rotation, and metadata editing into one dedicated workflow.
Galleries are becoming more dynamic and easier to build, with better handling of the legacy gallery shortcode on conversion, dynamic galleries that can sort or pull media attached to a post, and a quicker path in the inserter’s media tab to images attached to the current post with thumbnails shown directly.
The core performance change planned for 7.1 is an update to speculative loading: when both object caching and page caching are detected, the default eagerness would move from conservative to moderate, prefetching and prerendering more readily on sites equipped to handle it so navigation feels faster.
Two further efforts are being iterated on within feature plugins you can install and benefit from today. Work in the View Transitions plugin centers around bringing smooth, animated transitions between pages on the front end. Work in the Enhanced Responsive Images plugin computes more accurate sizes values in block themes so browsers download appropriately sized images. Both are in active development, and interested contributors are welcome to help move them forward.
If you have something you’re working on that you don’t see reflected in this post, please share a comment below so we can all be aware! If you’re reading this and want to help, start with the above items and/or pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me (@annezazu) in the 7.1 release leads channel. I have a list of projects that were punted from this release that I’m happy to talk to people about taking on.
The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.
WordPress Performance TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets
@westonruter shared a late submission for inclusion in WordPress 7.1 and requested reviews for PR #12514, which provides a mechanism for hosting providers to change the default Speculative Loading eagerness and mode without requiring an mu-pluginPluginA 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..
@swissspidy shared that CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. was a bit hesitant in the past to introduce new constants, let alone environment variables, and asked whether this is something hosts could control with an mu-plugin instead.
@westonruter replied that there is such an environment variable and constant for wp_get_environment_type().
@westonruter shared that configuration of Realtime Collaboration was also being done via environment variables.
@westonruter shared that the reason for the environment variable is explained in the Realtime Collaboration discussion, where a host may not be able to control all the PHPPHPThe web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher being used in a hosted site and hosts could potentially control the PHP being used but may not “manage” their hosted WordPress sites, so doing so would be a violation of sorts of what their customers expect.
Performance Lab Plugin (and other performance plugins)
@westonruter shared that there are some new PRs that need reviewing, but has not had time to review them yet due to work on Core tickets and expressed hope that there would be more time available for reviews within the next week.
The live meeting will focus on the discussion for upcoming releases, and have an open floor section.
The various curated agenda sections below refer to additional items. If you have ticketticketCreated for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. requests for help, please continue to post details in the comments section at the end of this agenda or bring them up during the dev chat.
Announcements 📢
Note: Dev Chat has been moved to Tuesdays at 15:00 UTC for the duration of the 7.1 release cycle.
7.1
7.1 BetaBetaA 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. 1 is due for release this Wednesday, July 15th. The release party starts at 15:00 UTC.
New Dev Notedev noteEach 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.: Consistent navigation in WordPress 7.1 with persistent toolbar
The discussion section of the agenda is for discussing important topics affecting the upcoming release or larger initiatives that impact the CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team. To nominate a topic for discussion, please leave a comment on this agenda with a summary of the topic, any relevant links that will help people get context for the discussion, and what kind of feedback you are looking for from others participating in the discussion.
Open floor 🎙️
Any topic can be raised for discussion in the comments, as well as requests for assistance on tickets. Tickets in the milestone for the next major or maintenance release will be prioritized.
Please include details of tickets / PRs and the links in the comments, and indicate whether you intend to be available during the meeting for discussion or will be async.
WordPress 7.1 makes navigation more consistent across the whole adminadmin(and super admin) interface, including the editor, where the difference is most noticeable.
In the editor, the top-left “W” logo / site icon served as the back button, and clicking it took you out of the editor. But a “W” logo / site icon doesn’t read as a back button, and using it for navigation was a frequent source of confusion. Three changes are implemented to fix this situation:
the toolbar now appears in the editor as it does everywhere else (except in the Distraction Free mode),
the “W” logo / site icon is replaced with a dedicated back button (a chevron), and
the site icon, when set, is shown in the toolbar.
The result is a navigation model where each icon means one thing everywhere: the “W” logo always opens the About page, the site icon (when set) always opens the site menu in the toolbar, and the chevron always goes back to the previous screen. The site title also stays visible throughout the editor, including on the editing canvas. See the following images:
Before
After
or with site icon:
Before
After
What it means for users
The toolbar will be shown in Post and Site Editors by default, as part of the persistent navigation layer. If you’d rather work without it, turn on the Distraction Free mode, where the toolbar is hidden as it is today in that mode.
What it means for pluginPluginA 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. developers
Before WordPress 7.1, the toolbar could already appear in the Post Editor when the fullscreen mode is turned off. The Site Editor has no such mode, so a persistent toolbar in the Site Editor is a new behavior. If your plugin adds a node in the toolbar, it’s worth double-checking if it still works correctly in the Site Editor.
If you’d prefer not to show your plugin’s toolbar node in the editor at all, you can filterFilterFilters 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. it out on editor screens, e.g. by checking $screen->is_block_editor() as follows:
add_action(
'admin_bar_menu',
function ( WP_Admin_Bar $wp_admin_bar ) {
$screen = function_exists( 'get_current_screen' ) ? get_current_screen() : null;
// use this check to hide the node in the Site Editor
if ( $screen && 'site-editor' === $screen->id ) {
return;
}
// ... or use this check to hide the node in any block editor
if ( $screen && $screen->is_block_editor() ) {
return;
}
$wp_admin_bar->add_node( ... );
},
100
);
Additional resources
TracTracAn open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets: #65091, #65088
As of ~16:00UTC today (8 July 2026), all rules configured to enforce the desired contributor workflows and quality requirements in the GutenbergGutenbergThe 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 have been converted from branch protection rules to repository rulesets. This was done to fix a broken step in the pluginPluginA 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. release process where the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/ app responsible for pushing version bump commits to trunk was unable to do so.
While rulesets are an iteration on branchbranchA 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". protection rules, they are not a flat out replacement and can be used together. However, they do have several advantages over branch protection rules, including more flexibility, the ability to layer them, and being publicly accessible for contributors to understand why they may be unable to perform a certain action on a specific branch.
After looking through the pre-existing protection rules, there did not appear to be any benefit to keeping any one branch protection rule over a ruleset. Best efforts were made to ensure the new rulesets function identically to the previous protection rules, but there may be some nuance that was missed.
If you happen to notice any permission or capabilitycapabilityA capability is permission to perform one or more types of task. Checking if a user has a capability is performed by the current_user_can function. Each user of a WordPress site might have some permissions but not others, depending on their role. For example, users who have the Author role usually have permission to edit their own posts (the “edit_posts” capability), but not permission to edit other users’ posts (the “edit_others_posts” capability).-related problems, please mention them in the comments below or share them in #core-editor so they can be fixed.
Props @jorbin for comparing the new rulesets with the previous branch protection rules, and proofreading this post.
The live meeting will focus on the discussion for upcoming releases, and have an open floor section.
The various curated agenda sections below refer to additional items. If you have ticketticketCreated for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. requests for help, please continue to post details in the comments section at the end of this agenda or bring them up during the dev chat.
BetaBetaA 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. 1 is scheduled for next week on Wednesday July 15th at 15:00 UTC
Heads up CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Committers: Tech and TriagetriageThe act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. leads have started tagging tickets for dev notesdev noteEach 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.. Deadline for publishing is August 3rd, and the Field GuideField guideThe 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. targeted for the 4th (just before RC1).
The discussion section of the agenda is for discussing important topics affecting the upcoming release or larger initiatives that impact the Core Team. To nominate a topic for discussion, please leave a comment on this agenda with a summary of the topic, any relevant links that will help people get context for the discussion, and what kind of feedback you are looking for from others participating in the discussion.
Dev Chat scheduling during 7.1 cycle
Open floor 🎙️
Any topic can be raised for discussion in the comments, as well as requests for assistance on tickets. Tickets in the milestone for the next major or maintenance release will be prioritized.
Please include details of tickets / PRs and the links in the comments, and indicate whether you intend to be available during the meeting for discussion or will be async.
As part of design systems work supporting the admin design project, the GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ Components Team has been working on a foundational layer of themeability and design tokens that support consistent, accessible UIUIUser interface components across the adminadmin(and super admin) experience. On behalf of this group, I would like to propose the initial theming capabilitiescapabilityA capability is permission to perform one or more types of task. Checking if a user has a capability is performed by the current_user_can function. Each user of a WordPress site might have some permissions but not others, depending on their role. For example, users who have the Author role usually have permission to edit their own posts (the “edit_posts” capability), but not permission to edit other users’ posts (the “edit_others_posts” capability). for merge: a comprehensive set of design tokens and themeability enabled through the ThemeProviderReactReactReact is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces.
https://reactjs.org component.
Purpose and Goals
The broader design systems effort is aimed at improving consistency and accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) of components in the WordPress admin experience. Theming and design tokens are the foundational set of styles that support this work. In practice, the net result is a set of CSS custom properties that can be used within components to apply color, typography, border, elevation, or other styling aspects.
Using design token properties instead of hard-coded values helps ensure consistency across components, while still supporting customization like user color scheme. This builds upon established shared styles like those in the @wordpress/base-styles NPM package by providing a basis that can apply to many other types of UI surfaces and controls. With this comprehensive theming approach, those established CSSCSSCascading Style Sheets. colors will become aliases to tokens within the broader set of design tokens.
One particularly ambitious outcome of this project is a tool for generating color ramps from a pair of accent and background “seed” colors. This tool can create a color scale that’s configurable, visually harmonious, and provides accessible contrast between color values that are used together.
This configurability is an important aspect of theming, and it’s crucial to unlocking a number of use-cases that should be supported:
For users, this enables more personalization over how the interface looks. WordPress can continue to provide smart defaults and support the existing set of admin color palettes, but a user could also have the option to choose whichever color combination they prefer. This can be extended later with more themeable aspects, like roundness or density.
For pluginPluginA 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. developers, they can express their own brand identity while still feeling authentic and consistent with the rest of the WordPress experience. Opting into WordPress theming means they benefit from future improvements automatically, without an ongoing maintenance cost. Design tokens aim to reduce confusion for developers and AI agents in choosing the best styling for a UI element by providing a comprehensive set of tokens aligned to semantic purpose.
For WordPress development, it provides an easier pathway to extend the user color scheme consistently to more parts of the admin interface. It also unlocks the ability to more easily implement features like a true “dark mode” feature, since admin surfaces are controlled by the background seed color.
Background
The design system effort has evolved over the last several years, guided by a baseline expectation of accessibility and consistency, and a need for a strong foundation for admin innovation:
In 2022, initial explorations around a themeable and scalable primitive system were explored, identifying challenges in managing complexity and configurability of interfaces.
In 2023, this work picked up traction around the Admin Design roadmap project, which seeks to give plugins and users more control over the experience while ensuring it is intuitive, accessible, and delightful.
While WordPress has had shared styles and shared componentry in many forms over the years, it has required significant ongoing effort to try to maintain consistency. WordPress 7.0’s visual refresh is one example of this (in particular, the reskin effort in #64308). A comprehensive theming system based on CSS properties should reduce this ongoing maintenance cost, in both React-based and non-React-based admin interfaces.
This also tracks with where the software industry is moving. The W3C Design Tokens Community Group published the first stable version of the Design Tokens (DTCG) specification late last year, and the WordPress theme design tokens follow this specification. This specification is seeing adoption in industry tools like Figma, which has added support for importing design tokens as variables. As the discrete foundational unit for styling UI components, a set of documented, semantic design tokens are well-understood by AI agents, which helps maintain a high standard of quality as developers adopt this technology.
What’s Proposed for Merge
For developers, the initial set of theming APIs proposed for merge are:
A coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. registered stylesheet wp-theme, including a set of prebuilt CSS properties for the default WordPress theme.
A core registered JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser.
https://www.javascript.comwp-theme, including a single React ThemeProvider component for extending the default theme in an area of the admin’s user interface.
The default theme stylesheet is compiled from a set of design tokens that follow the design token specification. Developers and designers may find these tokens useful, as they can be imported directly into design tools like Figma for use in designs.
For users, the current expected impact should be minimal, aside from more UI component consistency throughout the admin interface. The default theme was intentionally designed to be largely aligned with existing styles, and not radically change the appearance of existing screens.
That being said, a noteworthy feature coming in WordPress 7.1 is the application of the user color scheme to the Site Editor, which is powered by the theming implementation.
What’s Next
While not targeted for inclusion in WordPress 7.1, the following features are being considered for future iterations:
Better default availability of design tokens: While the new wp-theme stylesheet will be registered, it will only be enqueued by default on specific WordPress screens that use the new theming feature. As theming extends to more parts of the interface, it’s expected that the tokens would be available more universally throughout the admin interface. In the meantime, developers can enqueue the stylesheet themselves.
Adoption and support across all screens: Since the design tokens are built on web standard technology (CSS properties) and a goal of the design system is to ensure consistency across all WordPress screens, it’s expected that these design tokens would be adopted across all admin screens, not just React-based screens such as the blockBlockBlock 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. and site editor. This builds on the work in #64308 in a way that is more sustainable and comprehensive.
Enhanced user customization through theming, enabling features like “dark mode”: While this initial iteration provides a strong foundation for internal consistency, the true power of theming in providing more user expressiveness and capabilities for a “dark mode”-like experience will be explored in future releases. The theming system already supports the capabilitycapabilityA capability is permission to perform one or more types of task. Checking if a user has a capability is performed by the current_user_can function. Each user of a WordPress site might have some permissions but not others, depending on their role. For example, users who have the Author role usually have permission to edit their own posts (the “edit_posts” capability), but not permission to edit other users’ posts (the “edit_others_posts” capability). for this today.
Call for Feedback
Your feedback to this merge proposal is welcomed in the comments below. As this work is focused on the long-term sustainability of UI component development, there’s particular interest in any risks or conflicts to consider in the proposed implementation.
In an earlier post, I announced that the Classic blockBlockBlock 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. (core/freeform) would be hidden from the inserter by default starting in WordPress 7.1, accompanied by a new filterFilterFilters 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. and a companion pluginPluginA 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..
I’ve decided to revert this change. The Classic block will continue to appear in the inserter in WordPress 7.1, exactly as it does today. There is no change in behavior for users or developers, and no migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. is required.
What this means
The Classic block remains available in the inserter by default. You can insert new Classic blocks through the inserter, block library, and slash commands as before.
Thewp_classic_block_supports_inserterfilter has been removed. Because this change never shipped in a stable WordPress release, the filter has no backward-compatibility footprint; there is nothing to migrate away from.
The block-level deprecation/migration notice has been removed. The Classic block editing experience returns to what it was previously, including the “Convert to blocks” toolbar action.
TheEnable Classic Blockplugin will be closed. With the default behavior restored, the plugin no longer serves a purpose. If you installed it, you can safely deactivate and remove it; no action is otherwise needed.
Why it is being reverted
After discussing this with a number of people and gathering feedback from different places, it became clear that this approach had things largely backward. It’s one step that makes the experience worse with no direct gain, and it doesn’t really get us any closer to transparently not loading TinyMCE. One of the takeaways is that the Classic block should become obsolete by choice, not by force. I believe time will be better spent to make the alternative genuinely better, while also smoothly, losslessly migrating content, so that users move off Classic block because they want to, not because the door has been removed.
Where the effort goes next
Much of the groundwork from this effort remains valuable, and the intention is to keep pursuing it from a user-first angle:
Understanding more in-depth why users still rely on Classic and bridging those gaps
Make “Convert to Blocks” flawless – it still has a bunch of flaws and inconsistencies
Work on better and more intuitive conversion/migration mechanisms, including mass migration
Improve TinyMCE asset registration and allow it to be disabled under various circumstances.
Build a mechanism for declaring proper explicit dependency on TinyMCE and work with plugins to utilize it.
Continue exploring ways to load TinyMCE on demand / asynchronously, among other performance improvements
Not loading TinyMCE on the block editor if the Classic Block is disabled from the block manager
Thank you to everyone who shared feedback and helped course-correct here. This work continues, pointed more squarely at what’s best for users.
It’s time to get WordPress 7.1 ready for release, and help is needed to ensure it’s smooth and bugbugA 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.-free. Whether you’re an experienced contributor or joining in for the first time, everyone is welcome! 🎉
Schedule Overview
Regular bug scrubs are being held twice a week with @sajjad67 and @adrianduffell leading them. As the release date approaches and activity ramps up, the number of scrubs may be increased. These efforts will help ensure everything is on track for a smooth launch. Participation is welcome at any of these sessions, so feel free to join. Bring questions, ideas, and let’s scrub some bugs together!
BetaBetaA 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. Bug Scrubs
Release Candidaterelease candidateOne 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). Bug Scrubs
Focus: issues reported from the previous RCrelease candidateOne 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)..
All scrubs happen in the #core channel on Make WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. Just hop in at the scheduled time to get started! If you haven’t joined Slack yet, now’s the perfect time.
Want to Lead a Bug Scrub?
Reach out in Slack, and assistance will be provided to get everything set up. Everyone is welcome—whether you’re a developer, designer, tester, or work on documentation, you can help! Just hop into the #core channel on Slack during any of the scheduled times. No experience? No problem—feel free to ask for help anytime! It’s a great way to contribute, learn new things, and connect with the community.
Check this schedule often, as it will change to reflect the latest information.
What about recurring component scrubs and triagetriageThe act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. sessions?
For your reference, here are some of the recurring sessions:
Test Scrub: 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month at 3:00 PM UTC in the #core-test channel.
Have a recurring component scrub or triage session?
PingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.”@adrianduffell or @sajjad67 on Slack to have it added to this page.
Want to lead a bug scrub?
Did you know that anyone can lead a bug scrub at any time? Yes, you can!
How? Ping @adrianduffell or @sajjad67 on Slack with the day and time you’re considering as well as the report or tickets you want to scrub.
Planning one that’s 7.1-focused? Awesome! It can be added to the schedule here. You’ll get well deserved props in Dev Chat, as well as in the #props Slack channel!
Need a refresher on bug scrubs? Checkout Leading Bug Scrubs in the coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. handbook.
WordPress 7.1 is scheduled for release on August 19, 2026! Below is the proposed calendar with expected start times for each release party, and the release squad contributors involved in release parties for the upcoming 7.1 milestone.
This release party schedule will stay in effect during the Release Candidaterelease candidateOne 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 and the final release of WordPress 7.1. This enables contributors to attend and assist with release testing during the final weeks of the release cycle.
As always, there may be last-minute adjustments. The release squad will do its best to communicate any changes promptly by publishing a post on the change, and updating this post as the canonical reference.
Emcee / Release LeadRelease LeadThe community member ultimately responsible for the Release.
CommittercommitterA 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.
BetaBetaA 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. 1
RCrelease candidateOne 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). 1
Everyone is welcome! First-timers, veteran contributors, and all those curious about the process are invited.
The final General Release will happen during WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. US 2026.
Everyone is encouraged to attend WordCamp US, but traveling and attending the event is not required to participate in the General Release Party. The release party will still happen in the #core channel on Slack.
You must be logged in to post a comment.