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WordCamp Asia 2026 brought the global WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9–11, gathering contributors, organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,627 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event.

The event unfolded across Contributor Day and two conference days, with a program that moved from technical sessions and workshops to hallway conversations, shared meals, and joyful moments of connection across the venue. From first-time attendees to longtime contributors, WordCamp Asia 2026 reflected the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem and the many ways people shaped and sustained it.


WordPress is not a company. It is a shared commitment to keeping the web open.

Mary Hubbard, Executive Director, WordPress

Throughout the event, WordCamp Asia 2026 balanced formal programming with the conversations happening around it. Sessions and workshops set the pace, while morning networking, tea breaks, lunch, the family photo, the sponsor’s raffle, and the after party in Jasmine Hall helped make the event feel welcoming, social, and connected.

How WordCamp Asia 2026 Took Shape

Bringing together contribution, practical learning, and forward-looking conversation in one shared program. Across Contributor Day and the conference sessions that followed, attendees moved between hands-on work, technical talks, workshops, and broader discussions about AI, education, enterprise, community growth, and the open web.

The result was a WordCamp that felt expansive without losing its sense of connection. Different rooms with topics as themes, helping different audiences, and different forms of participation all fed into the same larger picture: a community actively building what comes next for WordPress as a feeling that something bigger was happening: not just a schedule being delivered, but a community showing up for one another and for the future of WordPress.

Contributor Day: Building WordPress Together

Contributor Day opened WordCamp Asia 2026 with one of the clearest expressions of what makes the project special: people coming together to move WordPress forward by working on it. More than 1,500 participants joined 38 table leads across more than 20 contribution tables, creating a day that was expansive in scale and grounded in real work. For some, it was a return to familiar teams and longtime collaborators. For others, it was the beginning of their contributor journey.

The day moved between structured learning and hands-on participation. Alongside contributor sessions, attendees joined workshops, visited the Open Source Library, took part in YouthCamp, and attended The Making of a WordPress Release: Conversations with Past Release Squad Members, a featured panel that added depth and perspective to the work of building and sustaining WordPress.

What made Contributor Day stand out was not only the number of people in the room, but the range of ways they could take part. Workshops created space for skill-building. YouthCamp brought younger participants into the experience and widened the event’s reach in a meaningful way. The day felt welcoming, energetic, and full of possibility.

By the end, the impact was already visible across teams. Polyglots contributors suggested more than 7,000 strings and reviewed 3,200 of them. Photo contributors uploaded 76 images. The Test team worked on more than 20 tickets, and 55 contributors joined Training. Those numbers told only part of the story, but they pointed to what Contributor Day continued to do so well: turn a large gathering into shared work that strengthened the project in real time.

Conference Sessions Take Shape

Across the conference days, WordCamp Asia 2026 covered a wide range of topics, from technical development and hands-on workshops to business strategy and the open web. Sessions took place across the Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tracks, with workshops running alongside the main program.

One of the opening sessions was James LePage’s WordPress and AI, which introduced a theme that appeared throughout the conference: how WordPress is responding to changes in AI, publishing, and developer workflows. That topic continued in later sessions focused on AI-driven development, autonomous testing, plugin maintenance, and automation.

Later that morning, a fireside chat with Mary Hubbard and Shilpa Shah shifted the focus toward trust, security, and the longer-term questions shaping open source publishing. Coming early in the program, the conversation gave the conference an important center of gravity, pairing technical change with questions of stewardship, resilience, and what people needed from WordPress as the web continued to evolve. Rather than pulling away from the event’s technical momentum, it deepened it, bringing a human perspective to the pace of change and reminding the audience that progress in open source is not only about what gets built, but about how communities guide, challenge, and sustain that work over time.

From there, the conference widened into a program that balanced developer-focused talks with sessions on the Interactivity API, the HTML API, AI-driven development workflows, education initiatives, observability, automation, and startup strategy. On the final day, those threads continued through talks on WP translation, community building, WordPress Playground, data engineering, enterprise WordPress, and journalism on the open web.

Together, the two conference days made clear that WordCamp Asia 2026 was designed not for one kind of attendee, but for many. Developers, founders, marketers, contributors, organizers, and people finding their place in WordPress for the first time all found something that spoke directly to their work and interests. The breadth of the program was striking, but so was the feeling that these conversations mattered now.

Building What Comes Next

WordCamp Asia 2026 closed with reflections from Mary Hubbard, following an opening announcement from Chenda Ngak that WordCamp India will join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship WordPress event.

Mary’s remarks tied together several threads that had already surfaced throughout the event: India’s long-standing role in the WordPress project, the growth of programs like Campus Connect and WordPress Credits, the energy of YouthCamp, and the significance of WordPress 7.0. One of the clearest ideas in the session was that WordPress is entering a new phase shaped by real-time collaboration, AI infrastructure, and global contributor growth. That framing gave the closing session a strong sense of direction without losing sight of the community work that made it possible.

The session then shifted into a panel discussion about the current state of WordPress and where the project is headed next. Peter Wilson and Sergey Biryukov joined Hubbard on stage, while audience questions brought the conversation back to many of the themes that had shaped the event across all three days. Even from afar, Ma.tt Mullenweg remained part of the discussion, following along remotely and sending written responses during the live Q&A.

Those questions touched on contributor growth, AI, plugins, local communities, product direction, and the long-term health of the open web. What stood out was how often the answers returned to the same core idea: WordPress continues to grow through open discussion, shared responsibility, and the people who keep showing up to build it together.

A Lasting Momentum

Over three days in Mumbai, WordCamp Asia 2026 brought together contribution, learning, and community. From Contributor Day through the closing keynote, the event balanced hands-on work with bigger conversations about publishing, technology, education, and the open web.

The event also created space for many kinds of participation. Some attendees contributed to Core, Training, Polyglots, Photos, and other teams. Others came for the conference program, workshops, or the chance to reconnect with collaborators and meet new people. Across session rooms, tea breaks, shared meals, sponsor hall conversations, and the after party, the community side of the event remained just as important as the formal program.

Thank you to the organizers, volunteers, speakers, sponsors, attendees, and everyone who joined online. WordCamp Asia 2026 was a reminder that WordPress continues to grow through the people who show up to contribute and build together.

There is still more to look forward to this year. The community will gather again at WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków, Poland from June 4–6, followed by WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona from August 16–19.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 will be available to watch live across three days of streaming, making it easy for the global WordPress community to follow along from anywhere. This year’s live streamed programming begins with a special Contributor Day broadcast, followed by two full conference days of presentations from across the WordPress community.

This post gathers each official stream in one place so you can quickly find the right broadcast for each day. Bookmark this page and return throughout the event to watch live.

Day One: The Making of a WordPress Release

Go behind the scenes of a WordPress release in this special Contributor Day live stream from WordCamp Asia 2026. Past release squad members come together to share stories, reflect on their experience, and talk about what it takes to bring a WordPress release to life. The Panel will go live at 4:30 am UTC.

Day Two: Conference Livestreams

Watch the second day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live for a full day of presentations and sessions. beginning at 4:00 am UTC, including a Fireside chat with Mary Hubbard, which will begin at 5:00 am UTC over on the Growth Stream.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

Day Three: Conference Livestreams

Watch the third day and final day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live, beginning at 4:00 am UTC for another full day of presentations from across the community. Don’t forget to watch Ma.tt Mullenweg give the final keynote, which will begin on the Growth stream at 10:00 am UTC.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

You can also explore the full schedule to see what is coming up across the event and plan your viewing. However you join, we hope you will follow along and be part of WordCamp Asia 2026.

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April 9-11, 2026 | Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai, India

WordCamp Asia 2026 brings the WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9 to 11, with a schedule shaped around artificial intelligence, enterprise WordPress, developer workflows, product strategy, and open source collaboration. For attendees planning their time, the program offers a useful view of the ideas, tools, and practical challenges shaping WordPress today.

Get Your Event Pass
WC Asia Schedule
About WordCamp Asia

Keynotes to Set the Stage

The keynote sessions at WordCamp Asia 2026 help frame some of the biggest conversations at this year’s event.

Ma.tt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, is expected to speak about the future of the open web and the ever-evolving role that WordPress plays.
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, will also join a fireside chat moderated by Shilpa Shah, focusing on leadership, education initiatives, artificial intelligence, and community growth.

Together, they offer an early view of the themes and discussions unfolding across WordPress in 2026.

AI, Automation, and the Future of WordPress

Artificial intelligence is one of the clearest threads running through the program. Sessions from Fellyph Cintra, Fumiki Takahashi, and Nirav Mehta examine how AI is already influencing WordPress through Core discussions, testing workflows, plugin development, and day-to-day implementation. That same theme continues in sessions on marketing and content strategy, including Adeline Dahal’s work on structuring WordPress content to make it more machine-readable. 

This cross-section of presentations shows how automation is moving from concept to practice. From autonomous testing with WordPress Playground to AI-supported development workflows, these sessions highlight applicable tools and skills that teams can start using right away, not just concepts. For attendees interested in where WordPress is heading, this is one of the strongest themes across the event.

Enterprise WordPress and Scalability

Enterprise sessions take that discussion further by focusing on scale, architecture, and operational complexity. Rahul Bansal, James Giroux, Anirban Mukherji, and Abid Murshed are among the speakers exploring how WordPress supports larger organizations, more complex commerce systems, and demanding digital environments. Their sessions look at growth, implementation, and the kinds of decisions that matter when WordPress is supporting business-critical work.

Other talks in this track focus on the realities of enterprise operations, including migration risk, observability, and long-term performance. Together, they show how WordPress continues to adapt to larger systems and more complex digital ecosystems without losing the flexibility that makes it widely used in the first place.

Developer Experience and Modern Practices

The developer track stays grounded in both Core tools and everyday engineering practice. Ryan Welcher will cover the Interactivity API, Jonathan Desrosiers will look at automation in open source, and Takayuki Miyoshi will introduce a schema-sharing approach to form management. These sessions point to a broader shift toward building WordPress systems that are more dynamic, maintainable, and easier to scale over time.

These more technical presentations also include sessions on the WordPress HTML API, Content Security Policy, open source data pipelines, and evolving plugin standards. Rather than focusing on a single type of builder, this part of the schedule addresses developers working across infrastructure, security, front-end experiences, and long-term platform health.

Community, Education, and Open Source

The schedule also makes space for the people and ideas that support WordPress beyond engineering alone. A panel featuring Anand Upadhyay and Maciej Pilarski, moderated by Destiny Kanno, looks at education initiatives and student pathways into open source. Kazuko Kaneuchi will reflect on the story of Wapuu and the culture of contribution around WordPress. At the same time, Kotaro Kitamura and Chiharu Nagatomi will share how WordPress and its community shaped their professional journeys.

That wider perspective continues in sessions on product thinking, marketing, career growth, and business strategy. Speakers, including Nabin Jaiswal, Himani Kankaria, Julian Song, Karishma Sundaram, Sandeep Kelvadi, Aviral Mittal, Anh Tran, and Anna Hurko, explore how WordPress works and connects with decision-making, discoverability, professional development, and organizational growth. Taken together, these sessions reflect one of WordPress’s long-standing strengths: its ability to connect software, learning, and community in the same space.

Hands-on Workshops

Hands-on workshops round out the schedule, offering practical sessions for attendees who want to move from ideas to implementation. They include:

Explore the full schedule to plan your sessions, and get your event pass to join WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai.

Mumbai is calling. See you at WordCamp Asia 2026! 

Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.

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The second Release Candidate (“RC2”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 7.0 RC2 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC2
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC2?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights. For technical information related to issues addressed since RC1, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. 

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

What else to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report.  You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. 

Curious about testing releases in general?  Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. If you haven’t yet, make sure to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC2) also marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

An RC2 haiku

At first just a dream,

RC2 flows like a stream

with seven-oh gleam.

Props to @amykamala @annezazu for proofreading and review.

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When WP Engine acquired WPackagist on March 12, the WordPress developer community faced a familiar question: what happens when critical open source infrastructure ends up under corporate control? The community already had an answer in progress. Four days later, WP Packages (formerly WP Composer) launched as a fully independent, community-funded alternative, with some neat additional features.

Built by Ben Words from Roots, the team behind Bedrock, Sage, and Trellis, WP Packages is a new open source Composer repository for WordPress plugins and themes. Composer is PHP’s dependency manager, and it is how many professional WordPress developers install and update plugins and themes in their projects. Every free plugin and theme in the WordPress.org directory is available through WP Packages. Migrating from WPackagist can be done via a single script or a few terminal commands.

What Happened and Why It Matters

WPackagist was created in 2013 by Outlandish, a UK-based digital cooperative, and it served the WordPress Composer ecosystem for over a decade. In its later years the project suffered from deferred maintenance, slow update cycles, and little to no community input. When WP Engine announced the acquisition, developers raised immediate concerns about a private-equity-backed corporation controlling infrastructure this foundational to the WordPress developer workflow. WP Engine immediately updated the Composer info field to display a “WPackagist is now maintained by WP Engine” notice in every developer’s terminal. A small thing, but telling. That’s how corporate ownership changes the relationship between a tool and its users.

Ben had already started building a WPackagist replacement last August, long before the acquisition made headlines. When WP Engine’s deal landed, he accelerated the launch, going live on March 16 with a fully open source repository on GitHub.

Open source repo ≠ transparent system. WP Packages makes everything public, including infrastructure and build process. – Ben Word on X

It’s also just a better tool. WP Packages supports Composer v2’s metadata-url protocol, which lets Composer fetch metadata only for the packages a project actually needs. WPackagist still relies on the older provider-includes approach, forcing Composer to download large index files before resolving dependencies. Cold dependency resolves on WP Packages are roughly 17x faster: 0.7 seconds for 10 plugins compared to 12.3 seconds on WPackagist.

WP Packages also uses CDN caching with public cache headers and serves immutable, content-addressed per-package files. Package naming is cleaner (wp-plugin/ and wp-theme/ instead of wpackagist-plugin/ and wpackagist-theme/), metadata includes plugin and theme authors, descriptions, and homepage URLs that WPackagist has been missing for years, and updates sync every five minutes rather than WPackagist’s roughly 90-minute cycle.

How to Switch

Switching from WPackagist to WP Packages requires just a few terminal commands.

  1. Remove your existing WPackagist packages:
composer remove wpackagist-theme/twentytwentyfive
  1. Remove the WPackagist repository and add WP Packages:
composer config --unset repositories.wpackagist && composer config repositories.wp-composer composer https://repo.wp-packages.org
  1. Require packages with the new naming:
composer require wp-theme/twentytwentyfive

Alternatively, use the migration script to automatically update your composer.json:

curl -sO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/roots/wp-packages/main/scripts/migrate-from-wpackagist.sh && bash migrate-from-wpackagist.sh

Roots also provides a WP Packages Changelog Action for GitHub workflows that tracks dependency updates using the new naming format. Projects using Bedrock already ship with WP Packages configured out of the box.

Open Source Wins

The entire WP Packages project is public. The application code, documentation, and even the full Ansible deployment configuration are available on GitHub. Anyone can fork the repository and run their own WordPress Composer registry. Ben has also committed publicly that WP Packages will never use the Composer info field to push messages, ads, or upsells into developer terminals. That kind of restraint is easier to promise when a project answers to its community rather than to a corporate parent.

WP Packages is funded through GitHub Sponsors. Current sponsors include Carrot, Kinsta, WordPress.com, and Itineris. The WordPress ecosystem has always been at its strongest when the community builds the tools it needs in the open. Ben saw a gap forming months before anyone else was paying attention, built something better than what existed, and released it for everyone. No acquisition required. No boardroom decisions about availability or pricing. Just developers solving a problem for other developers and sharing the result. Open source wins.

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The first Release Candidate (“RC1”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.

WordPress 7.0 RC1 can be tested using any of the following methods:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC1
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC1?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and WordPress 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights.

RC1 contains more than 134 updates and fixes since the Beta 5 release. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 5 using these links:

New Features since Beta 1

The release squad in conjunction with project leadership identified additional features that were not ready for beta 1 but are included in RC1 as supporting requirements for flagship features of the release.

Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These tickets and pull requests are just some of the latest updates:

The final release is on track for April 9, 2026. As always, a successful release depends on your confirmation during testing. So please download and test!

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Help test this release

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0.

What to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Test on your hosting platforms

Hosting systems provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting infrastructure ensures that WordPress and hosting systems are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue. Thank you to all web hosts who test WordPress!

Want to set up testing on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0. If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC1) marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle. However, strings will not be available for translation until RC2 later this week.

An RC1 haiku

RC1 arrives

with momentum, sped up time

and jazz on the mind.

Props to @4thhubbard, @desrosj, @jeffpaul, @chaion07, @audrasjb, @jorbin for collaboration and review.

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WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to test Beta 5 on a test server and site.WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 can be tested using any of the following methods:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the Beta 5 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-beta5
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is still April 9, 2026.  The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information. What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3 and Beta 4 announcements for details and highlights.

How to test this release

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Beta 5 updates and highlights

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains more than 101 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release.

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes, and more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 using these links:

Issues addressed since Beta 4:

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains a new feature!

Instantly access all the tools you need with a single click using the new Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar! In 7.0 Beta 5, logged-in editors will see a field with a ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol in the upper admin bar that unfurls the command palette when clicked. The new command palette entry point streamlines navigation and customization, giving you full control from anywhere on your site – whether you’re editing, designing or just browsing plugins.

A Beta 5 haiku

A smooth melody

Beta 5 plays on its strings.

Seven brings good things.

Props to @amykamala, @annezazu and @4thhubbard for proofreading and review.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20189";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:63:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"WordPress 6.9.4 Release";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wordpress-6-9-4-release/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:34:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:3:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"minor-releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:2;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20184";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:366:"WordPress 6.9.4 is now available WordPress 6.9.2 and WordPress 6.9.3 were released yesterday, addressing 10 security issues and a bug that affected template file loading on a limited number of sites. The WordPress Security Team has discovered that not all of the security fixes were fully applied, therefore 6.9.4 has been released containing the necessary […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"John Blackbourn";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2240:"

WordPress 6.9.4 is now available

WordPress 6.9.2 and WordPress 6.9.3 were released yesterday, addressing 10 security issues and a bug that affected template file loading on a limited number of sites.

The WordPress Security Team has discovered that not all of the security fixes were fully applied, therefore 6.9.4 has been released containing the necessary additional fixes.

Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can download WordPress 6.9.4 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

For more information on WordPress 6.9.4, please vZes[/ ?isit the version page on the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the contributors who reported and investigated this issue, in particular Thomas Kräftner for his responsible disclosure. The security issues that are resolved in 6.9.4 are:

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20184";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:57:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/announcing-my-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=19831";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:341:"For nearly two decades, WordPress has been known for a simple, powerful idea: that anyone should be able to get online and start creating with minimal friction. The famous five-minute install captured that spirit for an earlier era of the web. Today, we’re introducing my.WordPress.net, a new take on that idea designed for a new […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brandon Payton";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15684:"

For nearly two decades, WordPress has been known for a simple, powerful idea: that anyone should be able to get online and start creating with minimal friction. The famous five-minute install captured that spirit for an earlier era of the web. Today, we’re introducing my.WordPress.net, a new take on that idea designed for a new generation of creators.

With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on WordPress Playground, my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’t a temporary environment meant to be discarded. It’s a WordPress that stays with you.

New Ways to WordPress

When you open my.WordPress.net, you’re placed directly into a complete WordPress environment that runs entirely in your browser. What makes this approach meaningful is not just where WordPress runs, but how it changes the relationship between people and the software itself. By removing the need to sign up or make early decisions about hosting and visibility, my.WordPress.net reframes WordPress as a space you can enter and work within, rather than a service you have to configure before you begin.

“This takes WordPress from being framed as something that is democratizing publishing to democratizing digital sovereignty.” – Alex Kirk

Seen through that lens, my.WordPress.net is not just about convenience. As you don’t need to choose a hosting provider, your WordPress belongs entirely to you. In a publishing environment, you’d briefly interact with WordPress as you prepare your next post. In a personal setting, it becomes a place you shape and return to. That change unlocks new ways of thinking about what WordPress can be.

Permanently and Privately Yours

Because sites on my.WordPress.net are private by default and not accessible from the public internet, they don’t behave like traditional websites. They aren’t optimized for traffic, discovery, or presentation, and they don’t need to be. Instead, WordPress becomes a personal environment where ideas can exist before they are ready to be shared, or where they may never be shared at all.

This changes how WordPress can be used day to day. It becomes a place to think, to draft, to organize, and to experiment without pressure, whether that means writing privately, collecting research, or building small tools for personal use. Learning also fits naturally into this model, since people can explore plugins, themes, and features inside a real WordPress environment where mistakes are expected and recoverable.

This turns WordPress into a personal workspace. It becomes a place for thinking, learning, prototyping, and tinkering, where exploration matters more than outcomes. In that role, WordPress shifts from being something you prepare for others to visit into something you actively work inside, adapting to how you want to create and learn over time.

Sparking Creativity with Apps

To make these ideas concrete, my.WordPress.net includes an App Catalog with pre-configured experiences designed specifically for personal use, built with WordPress plugins. These examples highlight how WordPress can function when it’s private, persistent, and easy to experiment with. Each app installs with a single click and configures itself automatically.

Personal CRM

A private relationship manager designed to help you stay in touch with people who matter to you. Contacts can be grouped, enriched with personal details, and paired with reminders to reconnect. In the demo, this extends to analyzing communication patterns using imported chat data, all stored locally inside WordPress.

Personal RSS Reader

Using the Friends plugin, WordPress becomes a quiet, personal feed reader. Instead of relying on external platforms, you can follow sites and creators inside your own WordPress and read at your own pace, free from algorithms or engagement pressure.

AI Workspace and Knowledge Base

Because my.WordPress.net is powered by WordPress Playground, an AI assistant can safely modify it, empowering you to customize beyond what you’re used to. Ask it to modify a plugin to your liking, or create es[/Wy[/ 2an entirely new one, featuring your desired block. Ask it about the data you have stored in your WordPress. The assistant remembers what it touches and makes it easy to share your changes with others. Over time, WordPress itself can become your personal knowledge base that the AI understands and works with.

Zero Barriers

my.WordPress.net lowers the barrier to getting started with WordPress to almost nothing. It offers a fast, commitment-free way to explore, learn, and build, whether the result is a long-term personal project or something that eventually moves elsewhere. In that sense, it updates the spirit of the five-minute install for a browser-first web.

What you should know

Create and explore

WordPress has always grown through experimentation. People trying things, breaking things, and discovering new ways to use the platform have shaped what WordPress is today.

my.WordPress.net continues that tradition by making experimentation easier and more personal. It’s an invitation to create without pressure, to explore ideas that may never be published, and to use WordPress in ways that fit your life.

Start exploring at my.WordPress.net

my.WordPress.net is built on WordPress Playground technology. Learn more at WordPress.org/playground or join the conversation in the #meta-playground channel on WordPress Slack.

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WordPress 6.9.2 was released earlier today and addressed 10 security issues.

A few users have subsequently reported an issue where the front end of their site was appearing blank after updating to 6.9.2. The issue has been narrowed down to some themes using an unusual approach to loading template files via “stringable objects” instead of primitive strings for file paths.

Although this is is not an officially supported approach to loading template files in WordPress (the template_include filter only accepts a string), it nevertheless caused some sites to break. As a result, the Security Team has decided to address this in a fast follow 6.9.3 release.

As always, it is recommended that you update your sites to the latest version of WordPress immediately. This ensures your site is protected by all available security fixes in 6.9.2 and that you will not be affected by the bug fixed in 6.9.3.

Many thanks to those who reported the issue, assisted in narrowing down the problem, and helped with the fix, in particular Jos Klever who assisted throughout the process.

You can download WordPress 6.9.3 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin shortly. You don’t have to do a thing!

For more information on WordPress 6.9.3, please visit the version page on the HelpHub site.

WordPress 7.0 beta 4

The next major release of WordPress will be version 7.0, which is planned for April 9, 2026. The Security Team has decided to package a new beta release (7.0 beta 4) to keep everyone protected from the patched vulnerabilities, including the dedicated members of the community focusing their time and effort on testing the upcoming release.

This will be an additional beta release in the 7.0 release cycle. The schedule will remain the same going forward, but with five total beta releases instead of the previously planned four. The next 7.0 beta release is still scheduled for Thursday, March 12th.

This beta version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test WordPress 7.0 beta versions on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate Beta 4 on a test server and site.

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the Beta 4 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-beta4
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 

Beta 4 updates and highlights

WordPress 7.0 Beta 4 contains the ten security patches shipped in WordPress 6.9.2, and more than 49 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release, including 14 in the Editor and 35 in Core. 

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes. More are on the way, thanks to your help with testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 at these links:

As always, a successful release depends on your confirmation during testing. So please download and test!

Props @peterwilson, @desrosj, @marybaum, @amykamala for peer reviewing.

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Reblog via Jonathan Desrosiers

WordPress is software with limitless potential and a mission to make publishing accessible to the whole world. Boston is a city with prolific, world-renowned universities, vibrant tech communities, and an incredible spirit. One of the reasons why I help organize this meetup is because I have seen first-hand the opportunities it creates for attendees when these groups come together.

While I look forward to our meetups each and every month, our speaker lineup for April has me even more excited than usual. If you’ve been meaning to attend a WordPress Boston meetup event and just haven’t gotten around to it, this is the month you should finally make it happen.

Event Details

Date: April 27, 2026
Time: 6:30PM-9:00PM
Location:
Microsoft New England Research and Development (NERD) Center
1 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142

You must RSVP to attend.

More details and the RSVP form can be found on the meetup.com event page.

A Local Pioneer

I checked my email one day last September to find a new post from Ethan Marcotte’s journal. He wrote about how he was looking for his next endeavor having just finished a project with the City of Boston where he helped the Digital Services team define a new design system. I realized I had forgotten that he was based in Boston.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to speak at our meetups so long as the topic is useful in some way to those who use or build with WordPress (submit a talk proposal if you think that’s you)! While we occasionally have speakers from out of town when logistics line up right, it’s very important to me that the meetup is a platform for celebrating and showcasing the amazing talents from the greater Boston area. The organizing team regularly performs outreach to individuals who we feel can offer valuable insight to the attendees of our meetup. I’m someone who tends to aim high. The worst case scenario: you don’t receive an answer or they politely decline.

I reached out through his website’s contact form and I’m glad I did! After a bit of coordination and planning, we landed on April’s meetup for him to give his talk The design systems between us.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Ethan, here’s a bit more about him.

WordPress 7.0 and Beyond

While featuring local talent is important to the organizing team, another factor that we’re always trying to balance in our programming is bringing in leaders from outside of the Bay State. Again aiming high, I reached out to Mary Hubbard about having her speak at our meetup. As the Executive Director of the WordPress Project, there’s few people in a better position to present about where WordPress is going and the impact it will have on creators and local businesses.

After some back and forth, April also ended up as the best month to fit our meetup into her busy schedule. Meetups are a critical part of the overall WordPress equation and one of the reasons why it has grown to the Open Source giant it is today. We’re grateful for her willingness to attend our meetup to engage with our community by talking about what the 7.0 release mans for the project, and how community events like our meetup can play a role in the next 20 years of WordPress.

The post April 2026 Meetup: Ethan Marcotte & Mary Hubbard appeared first on Boston WordPress.

The post Reblog of Boston WordPress: April 2026 Meetup: Ethan Marcotte & Mary Hubbard appeared first on Jonathan Desrosiers.

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Hi there,

I am just back from my fourth WordCamp Asia and it was again fantastic! I also enjoyed Mumbai as a city to visit. The energy in the streets, the kindness of the people, the historic sites of many cultures and the deliciousness of the food. It was all an adventure!

Huge Kudos to all the people who put together a phenomenal WordCamp. It’s a lot of work, and it takes dedication, perseverance and an incredible amount of details to bring it all together for ca 2300 people to have a good time. And I am excited for next year to revisit India for the first WordCamp India as a fourth flagship event.

The angels behind the scenes already uploaded all 48 session videos to YouTube to the WordCamp Asia 2026 playlist on the WordPress channel.

And just in time for this Weekend Edition, WordCamp Europe announced their schedule, with two tracks for talks and two for workshops. In a few weeks, on June 4-6, 2026, roughly 1500 people will descend on Krakow, Poland. Will you be there?

If you would rather not get across the pond, there are a few WordCamps on the calendar in the US, too:

A full list of all planned WordCamps in various stages is available at WordCamp.org

What else is in this Weekend Edition? AI in WordPress, block theme and plugin updates and more…

Have fun!

Yours, 💕
Birgit

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Miguel Fonseca recaps what’s new in Gutenberg 22.9, a focused release across 131 merged PRs. The headline addition is background gradient support for the Group block, letting you layer gradients over background images for the first time. The command palette gains organized sections for recent commands and contextual suggestions — experimental, opt-in via Gutenberg Experiments. Real-time collaboration gets stability fixes: block notes now sync without a page refresh, and the stuck “Join” button in the post list is resolved.

🎙 The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #129 Artificial Intelligence, WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8 with Beth Soderberg, of BeThink Studio

Beth Soderberg and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording the Gutenberg Changelog 129

Anne McCarthy introduces the Twenty Twenty-Seven team: Henrique Iamarino leads design, with Maggie Cabrera and Carolina Nymark as co-lead developers. The standout addition is Juanfra Aldasoro stepping into a newly created lead mentor role — a deliberate move to make theme contribution more structured and welcoming for newer contributors. Starting earlier than previous default theme cycles gives the team room to be more intentional: the goal isn’t just a great theme, but growing the number of people who feel capable of contributing to WordPress theme work at all.

WordPress 7.0

The release date is still pending. An update is expected on or before April 22, 2026, next week. Stay tuned.

Benjamin Zekavica, previous Core team rep, offers a practical pre-flight checklist to prepare your plugins and sites for WordPress 7.0: if your plugins still use metaboxes, real-time collaboration will silently break for your users — migration time is now. PHP 7.2 and 7.3 are gone, MySQL minimum jumps to 8.0, and API keys in the new Connectors screen sit unencrypted in wp_options until Trac #64789 lands, so use environment variables instead. The iframed editor isn’t enforced in 7.0 core yet, but test your v2 blocks in the Gutenberg plugin today.

Core AI team member Darin Kotter cuts through the noise in WP 7.0 + AI: WordPress 7.0 ships AI infrastructure, not AI features. Your site won’t suddenly start firing off AI requests when you update. What lands in core are the provider-agnostic AI Client PHP API, the new Connectors API for managing external service authentication, and client-side enhancements to the Abilities API. Actual AI providers, features, and MCP integration all arrive via separate plugins — your choice, your setup.

Nevertheless, Depak Gupta,freelance developer from Mumbai and contributor on the Core AI team, published a plugin to Turn of all AI Features via the Settings > General page or via command line.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Jamie Marsland poses an interesting question in The future of WordPress after blocks: what if the builder isn’t human? He suggests that blocks were made for people—easy to understand but difficult for AI to interpret. He envisions a future where meaning is more important than layout, editing becomes conversations, and WordPress transforms from a site builder to a content operating system.

Shani Banerjee highlights the new features in WooCommerce 10.7, mainly focusing on performance boosts: improvements on the high-performance order storage (HPOS) reduce the number of database queries by 51%, and using object cache significantly cuts down checkout query counts. There are also updated analytics export filters that accurately reflect currency for background jobs, a new beta PHP API for handling orders, fixes for the Cart and Checkout blocks, better contrast for accessibility, and increased security for order notes in the REST API and AJAX handlers. Banerjee has all the salient details for you.

Speaking of WooCommerce, Wes Theron walks you through the new course, Build your store with WooCommerce on WordPress.com. It’s free and beginner-friendly. You’ll learn everything you need to launch and manage an online store. In about an hour of bite-size video lessons, you’ll work through products, payments, shipping, taxes, and order management at your own pace, ending with a fully functional store and the confidence to run it day to day.

Derek Hanson‘s Cover Block Parallax Style v1.2.0 is more bug-fix than feature release. The most visible fix: the editor and frontend were using different default speeds, so what you previewed wasn’t what visitors saw. Two mobile-handling bugs got squashed — the original global viewport check meant parallax would never initialize after resizing from mobile to desktop. The main new feature is a per-block “Disable on mobile” toggle, replacing the blunt all-or-nothing approach. Background oversizing also bumped from 130% to 140%, matching what production parallax libraries use.

Elliott Richmond continues his WordPress.com series with Design Your WordPress Homepage with Twenty Twenty-Five, switching to the core theme he contributed to and building a hero section, call to action, and quick links grid — properly, using blocks the way they were designed. In 12 minutes you’ll learn how Groups, Covers, Grids, Global Styles, and Patterns fit together, and why understanding what’s happening under the hood makes all the difference to your layouts.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

At WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai, I ran a block theme development workshop and whether you were there or couldn’t get a seat, the full workshop bundle is now on GitHub — everything you need to build Concrete & Light, a portfolio theme, entirely through the Site Editor. Three guided exercises walk you through styling headers and footers, setting global element styles, and creating dynamic page and archive templates. You can be up and running in minutes via WordPress Studio, the Studio CLI, or directly in WordPress Playground.

Workshop reference theme screenshot Concrete and Light

Jonathan Bossenger documents how he built a custom WordPress block theme using Claude and MCP tools — no CLI, no code editor, just conversation. WordPress.com MCP tools let Claude audit his live site directly; WordPress Studio MCP tools wrote the theme files into his local environment. The key lesson: AI got him 80% there fast, but converting Claude’s raw HTML output into proper editable block markup still required a human in the loop — and Claude Code to help get it done.

Home page hero section by Jonathan Bossenger

Yann Collet, founder of Twentig, has launched Twentig One, a new free WordPress block theme built for the site editor. Lightweight and flexible, it offers templates, post formats, color presets, font pairings, and fluid spacing out of the box. Four starter sites — Business, Portfolio, Blog, and Personal — get you up and running quickly, with more on the way.

“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025”
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Eric Karkovack walks you through using the Remote Data Blocks plugin to pull Google Sheets data into WordPress, step by step. The plugin connects to Airtable, Shopify, and Google Sheets out of the box, with HTTP support for other sources. Most of the setup time goes into Google Cloud Platform — creating a project, enabling APIs, and generating JSON credentials. Once connected, your spreadsheet data renders via a block and a customizable pattern directly in the editor.

Varun Dubey shares a hard-won lesson in CLAUDE.md for WordPress Developers: Why Layered Knowledge Beats a Bigger File: when your instructions file hits 400 lines, more rules aren’t the fix. His solution is four distinct layers — rules in CLAUDE.md, facts in memory, procedures in skills, and capabilities in MCP servers — each loaded only when relevant. For WordPress developers already running Claude Code and feeling the weight of their own instructions pile up, this is the cleanup framework you didn’t know you needed.

AI and WordPress

Jeffrey Paul announces two quick releases of the WordPress AI plugin. Version 0.6.0 marked a shift toward connected publishing workflows — image editing and refinement landed as a full Feature, and the plugin was renamed from “AI Experiments” to simply “AI.” Now 0.7.0 is out, expanding editorial workflows further: Content Classification suggests categories and tags from your post content, Meta Description Generation handles SEO descriptions without leaving the editor, and bulk alt text generation lets you process your entire Media Library at once. Your next stop is 0.8.0, where Content Provenance tracking via C2PA and a “Refine from Notes” experiment are already taking shape.

James LePage, co-team rep of WordPress Core AI and head of AI at Automattic, catalogs what the community is building on top of the WordPress AI infrastructure ahead of 7.0. The volume is the point: ten community AI provider plugins, 70+ plugins adopting the Abilities API covering hundreds of millions of installs, dozens of MCP server implementations, fourteen agent skills, and tutorials in Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. WooCommerce, ACF, Ninja Forms, GravityKit, Yoast, and WP Engine are all in. None of it was dictated from the top — the community decided the building blocks were worth using. The post has about 180+ distinct resources and links. And LePage himself admits it’s not exhaustive.

JuanMa Garrido shares hard-won lessons in Using local AI models with WordPress 7.0: what I learned connecting Ollama — the kind the official docs skip. The biggest gotcha: call wp_ai_client_prompt() at init priority 25 or later, not the default 10, or authentication won’t be wired up yet and you’ll get a silent “No models found.” He also covers how to allowlist localhost requests (blocked by WordPress’s SSRF protection by default), register fallback auth for keyless local providers, and use is_supported_for_text_generation() as a pre-flight check before committing to an API call.

Gary Pendergast brings his AI writing experiment directly into the block editor with Claudaborative Editing 0.4. The new WordPress plugin — available on GitHub now, pending directory approval — adds a sidebar menu with Compose, Proofread, Review, Edit, and Translate modes, plus a pre-publish panel that suggests tags, categories, and excerpts. You control how much the LLM does: it can fix things outright or just leave notes for you to act on. Gary uses it mainly for planning — to organize his thoughts before writing, not to write for him.

What’s new in Playground?

Fellyph Cintra announces a new blueprint agent skill that teaches your coding agent to write valid WordPress Playground Blueprints from natural language prompts. Install it with one npx command and your agent gains a structured reference covering every Blueprint property, resource type, step sequence, and common pitfalls — so it stops guessing property names or forgetting require '/wordpress/wp-load.php' in runPHP steps. It works with Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Copilot, and Codex.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
Send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

Featured Image:

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It was great fun to conduct a Workshop at WordCamp Asia contributor day. Roughly 100 students were in the class and it was a great interactive session. I also know that there were quite a few of you who didn’t get to join us because there wasn’t enough room.

Birgit Pauli-Haack workshop on the block editor and full-site editing was a highlight of the entire event. Her depth of knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for the future of WordPress left me inspired and ready to dive deeper. – Kinjal Dwivedi

Special thanks to Birgit Pauli-Haack for the brilliant session on building block themes from scratch. – Nikul Valani

Birgit Pauli-Haack’s Block Themes workshop was equally sharp, demystifying modern theme architecture in ways that clicked instantly. Manisha Makhija

 Building a Block Theme from Scratch by Birgit Pauli-Haack
– a great hands-on look at how Full Site Editing is shaping modern WordPress – Fathima Begum

If you attended the Block Theme Development workshop at WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai and want to revisit the exercises, or if you couldn’t make it but want to work through it on your own, the complete workshop bundle is available on GitHub. Everything you need to follow along is included:

You can get started within minutes.

If you have used the Site Editor to customize a theme but have not yet built one from scratch, this workshop is a great next step. The exercises stay entirely within the visual editor. By the end, you will have a working portfolio theme and a solid understanding of how template parts, patterns, global styles, and custom templates fit together. Using the Create Block theme plugin, you can save all your changes in the new theme files, export it and use it on other websites.

A quick primer before you start

Before jumping into the exercises, it is worth reviewing the workshop slide deck. If you are coming from classic WordPress themes, the mental model is different. A block theme replaces PHP template files with HTML templates built from block markup, and it replaces scattered CSS with a single theme.json file that defines your colors, typography, spacing, and layout in one place. Templates and template parts live in their own folders, and every piece of them is made of blocks.

Screenshot of slide Theme.json the hear of the block themes

The Site Editor is where it all comes together. It gives you a visual canvas for designing templates, setting global styles, and previewing changes in real time. Developers ship defaults through theme.json; site owners customize through the Site Editor. When a user makes a change in the editor, it takes precedence over the theme default. Understand that layering is key before you dive into the exercises.

What the workshop covers

The workshop walks you through building Concrete & Light, a block theme for a fictional heritage architecture studio based in Mumbai. Rather than starting from theory, you start from a working site with real content — five pages and three project posts — and progressively shape the design through the Site Editor.

Reference theme for the Building block theme from scratch Concrete & Light.

Three guided exercises take you from basics to custom templates:

Exercise 1: Styling the Header. You install fonts (Jost and Playfair Display), set up a semantic color palette, configure typography presets, and transform the default header into a dark, minimal navigation bar with uppercase text and an accent border. This is where you get comfortable with global styles and template parts.

Exercise 2: Footer and Global Elements. You build a four-column footer with studio branding, page links, social channels, and addresses. Then you style headings, links, and buttons across the entire site to ensure design consistency. By the end, you understand how global element styles cascade through your theme.

Exercise 3: Page Templates. This is where it gets interesting. You create a Landing Page template with a full-viewport hero image, a 40% overlay, and a dynamically pulled page title — no hardcoded text. Then you build a Category Projects template with a three-column query loop grid, giving you hands-on experience with archive templates and dynamic content.

You use the visual tools WordPress provides and see the results immediately. The Create Block Theme plugin is pre-installed so you can export your modifications as a proper theme at any point.

Getting started on your own

You have three options for setting up your site:

Instructions for installing WordPress Studio or using the Studio CLI for the workshop are also available.

Whichever route you choose, the blueprint automatically installs WordPress, activates the required plugins, imports all demo content and media, and configures the site settings.

Once your site is running, open the exercise instructions on GitHub and work through them at your own pace. The instructions include color references, specific block settings, and enough context that you should not get stuck even without a workshop facilitator in the room.

The full workshop bundle is on GitHub. Fork it, clone it, or just download the ZIP. And if you build something with it, we would love to hear about it.

If you have trouble or run into problems, email pauli@gutenbergtimes.com or ping me on WP Slack or create an issue or discussion on GitHub

Attended the workshop “Building a Block Theme from Scratch” by Birgit Pauli-Haack , WordPress Core Contr#a\>H\ ?ibutor and it completely changed how I look at modern WordPress development.

Key takeaways :

• Block-based themes are shaping the future of WordPress
• Flexibility and customization are now more powerful than ever
• Modern theme development is all about blocks, not templates

It was an amazing learning experience and a great opportunity to connect with such an inspiring community.

Aman Reddy

Resources to learn more

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Transcript

[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

[00:00:26] Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case how web accessibility boosts traffic, SEO, and revenue.

[00:00:39] If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

[00:00:56] If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there.

[00:01:13] So on the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett.

[00:01:16] Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then, she’s become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place. Especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne’s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.

[00:01:46] This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you are leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.

[00:02:22] Anne talks about why accessibility hasn’t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world, and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared towards the real world, bottom line, business benefits of accessible websites. Reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.

[00:02:46] If you’re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who’s ever wondered whether accessibility is worth it, this episode is for you.

[00:02:57] If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

[00:03:07] And so without further delay, I bring you Anne Bovelett.

[00:03:17] I am joined on the podcast by Anne Bovelett. Hello Anne.

[00:03:20] Anne Bovelett: Hi Nathan. Thank you for having me today.

[00:03:23] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. Anne and I have been talking for quite a long time before we hit record and we’ve covered a lot of ground. But the ground that we’re going to cover today is all to do with accessibility, your WordPress website and why, well, why you are leaving money on the table if you are not pursuing the accessibility goals that you probably should be in the year 2026.

[00:03:43] Before we begin that, I guess it would be a good idea for you, Anne, to give us your credentials. Tell us a little bit about you and how come you get to speak authoritatively about accessibility in WordPress. So over to you, give us your bio.

[00:03:55] Anne Bovelett: It’s the most dangerous thing to ask me ever, right? Because I always talk too much.

[00:04:01] So let me do it differently this time. When I started figuring out about accessibility, about six years ago, I quickly realised that it’s not that complex to learn accessible coding. It’s not that complex to learn universal design principles. But what is hard for a lot of people working in accessibility is that many of them have this very social way of acting. I do too. I’m in it for the right reason, I think, because I want everybody to have freedom and also the freedom to make the same mistakes that we do, but also not to be constrained in any way.

[00:04:46] And then I was speaking to accessibility specialists, remediators, and in every layer of businesses, and I realised that they were being punched upon by organisations because they were just getting too many roles in one. The expectations were insane. So companies were 2 – 3000 people working for them, outputting I don’t know what kinds of digital products and websites, would expect one person to be the accessibility person to guard the compliance. And I mean this is a recipe for burnout 101.

[00:05:21] And one thing I don’t have a lack of is a big mouth. And one of the reasons why I started working for myself is because of that big mouth. I was not material to be hired, even though I managed to work for 22 years in employment. I realised at some point, if I ask a good fee, for some reason people take me seriously. Have you ever noticed that, Nathan? The more money you ask for, the more serious they’re going to take you. It’s absolutely ridiculous. But that’s what’s happening.

[00:05:59] And so I was trying to find my way in accessibility, like where do I fit in best? And then I thought, I’m going to be the flag bearer and I want to teach companies. And one of the things I like to do is to beat them with their own stick. Because I don’t care why someone makes whatever product, or whatever service they have accessible, I just care that they do. So if the stick that says money works, I’ll beat that. I’ll beat with that. It’s no doubt.

[00:06:35] And that’s where my career started changing, and especially since the past one and a half years. Someone said, you should change your job title. You should turn it into Accessibility Strategist. Well, here we are. I don’t care much for titles, but apparently that pretty much describes what I do.

[00:06:57] Nathan Wrigley: It’s kind of curious to me that if you were to, I say this phrase quite a lot on this podcast because there’s a lot of introspection going on and a lot of gazing back in time. It’s kind of curious that the accessibility bit never got importance from the get-go. And I mean right back from when the internet began.

[00:07:18] There was this great promise that suddenly great swathes of information, which would’ve been hither to unavailable to an awful lot of people, would suddenly be able to be parachuted into your living room via a computer and increasingly, you know, into your hand with a mobile phone.

[00:07:34] And yet the technology developed, the browsers developed, the web design industry developed, and it never got that importance. I’m genuinely puzzled by how that occurred. How it is that we all ignored that. And it really is probably only within the last 3, 4, 5 years that this clarion call for accessibility has become mainstream. I know that there’s people that have been banging the gong probably right from the beginning, but it has been largely ignored and I find that really curious.

[00:08:07] Anne Bovelett: I think that is due to two things. First of all, because people approach this as a purely social issue that needs to be resolved, and that people can’t imagine that they have certain users, which is arrogance at its finest. But, you know, that’s another topic.

[00:08:27] The other thing is good intentions. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Because in the beginning of the internet, when things got more colour, I always say this is the point, where things got more colourful, when Google was still small, when Alta Vista was still a thing and Yahoo and you remember, and I think we had four digit or five digit numbers for ICQ members. Actually the HTML, the sites were pretty ugly, right? They were fugly, I would say. I remember we had to build with tables and stuff, and then jump through hoops to make something look the way we wanted to.

[00:09:08] But the thing is, around that time, all we had was semantic HTML. We still have that, but back then it’s all we had. And because we were using semantic HTML, it was great for screen reader users, for example, and other assistive technology. But then everybody always wants to improve. They want to do better. And there is a German word for it, and I haven’t found the equivalent for that in English. We call it verschlimmbesserung. It literally means, instead of improving it, maybe down proving it. It’s like over-engineering.

[00:09:48] So this is what happened. And then people always want to work faster and they love building tools that help others, because in a sense, we are a social species, if you like it or not. We’re just social in the wrong things often, I think as a society. And from that perspective, there’ve been developers that had a great idea, said, let’s make frameworks, and then let’s make things easier for our fellow designers and developers.

[00:10:13] And very fast, at some point, semantic HTML was not a thing anymore because people were coding with div and span. And the div and span are the chameleons, the useless chameleons if you talk about accessibility, because you can make a div look like something, but you can’t make it behave like something until you put a ton of JavaScript on it. Div is like tofu without seasoning, right?

[00:10:41] And the same is with span. And because semantic elements like a button is challenging to style for some, a lot of frameworks came that used div and span a lot. And then they’re relying on JavaScript. And then these frameworks were growing and then at some point people were like, oh, this is the biggest framework used by everybody, so it must be good. That’s like saying the opinion of the majority is the truth. Unfortunately it’s not.

[00:11:15] That is my theory. I’m saying this more often. There was this time when everybody was doing Duolingo and then making big messages on social media, look, I’m on a 682.5 day streak in Duolingo, developers, right? And I’m like, why are you telling me about your streak for that but you can’t remember 50 semantic HTML elements? That’s very much also bashing the developer, which is pretty unfair because the problem is, with accessibility is, it’s not taken into account from the beginning.

[00:11:59] Let me compare that with another situation. So our family home burnt down to the ground and we had to rebuild, and then we got the chance to improve some things because we got modern stuff. And then, because we were building this community seminar centre at the same time, we needed to think about how we’re going to build the toilets, right? And then we had to go, and here, because the architect that helped us, he was nice guy, but he didn’t think about wheelchairs, about accessibility.

[00:12:32] At that time, I wasn’t thinking about accessibility or digital accessibility at all. But I was like, what if someone comes in with a wheelchair? Or what if we have a guest that weighs over 190 kilos? Will our toilet survive that? What kind of toilet do we need? And just close your eyes and go into that little toilet room, bathroom you call it, probably, and then close your eyes and imagine, okay, I have trouble moving, I have pain, I have rheumatism. I don’t but, you know, and I’m on a stick. Where do I put my stick? Do I have a place to put that in the corner? Can I reach for the paper?

[00:13:13] All these practical things. These are decisions that you take before you even start building the room. And it’s the same thing with anything else. Digital applications, terminals, elevators. I don’t know, anything. And the thing is, the better you do it, the less people have to ask queH\%N\ ?stions afterwards about, how does this work?

[00:13:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because in the real world, I know that in the part of the world where I live, and I’ve made this comparison on different podcasts in the past. It’s so self-evident when somebody, for example, who’s using a wheelchair. It’s so self-evident when they can’t get in the building because, well, there they are at the door with some impediment. Maybe there’s three steps that are just unachievable. And it’s really obvious. There they are in the real world. You walk past and you notice it. It’s right there in front of you. Look, there’s a problem that needs to be solved.

[00:14:13] And so for the real world, the legislation in the part of the world where I am, came into effect many years ago. And so, for example, the ramps came in and all the premises that are publicly trading things must have ramps and so on and so forth.

[00:14:26] However, the internet is a different animal in that most of us are browsing in the comfort of our own home. Nobody has any idea what you are browsing. Nobody’s got any idea where it is failing for you because they’re not staring over your shoulder. And even if they were staring over their shoulder, it would be fairly hard for them to determine that, again, to use the metaphor of getting in the building, they wouldn’t see that you couldn’t get in the building even if they were watching your phone. It has to be reported by you, the user that can’t achieve the things. And so there’s this real kind of difficulty in matching it up.

[00:15:03] And also because a website kind of looks finished when it looks finished to most people, then you just put the tools away. There’s the website. It looks finished, so it is finished. We’re done. And of course, there’s this whole increasingly vocal cohort of people who, and we’ll get into them in a moment, who are not able to access these things, but they have to self-report.

[00:15:31] And who do you even report to? If I can’t access a building on my high street, let’s say the local library, I could probably even go to the police in all honesty. There’s a central place. I could go to the police, go to the council, and I could say, this must be fixed. And it, sure enough, it will be fixed. There is no equivalence here. Who would I go to to report a problem so that it will definitely be fixed.

[00:15:53] So there’s this whole sort of strange disconnect, which presents the problem of today. How do we encourage people who don’t get the self-reporting, that it’s a jolly good idea to fix the problems in advance?

[00:16:08] Anne Bovelett: Make it hurt.

[00:16:08] Nathan Wrigley: Or make it valuable, make the fix valuable. And in the scenario that you are describing today, we’re going to talk about some articles, one of which you’ve written, but also one which has been done by accessibilitychecker.org. We’re going to look into those. This is making the economic argument for doing it.

[00:16:26] Anne Bovelett: I’m sorry for interrupting you, but it was not just accessibilitychecker.org because then everybody’s going to go, oh, yeah, another accessibility site. This was Semrush. Semrush people. They did this together with accessibilitychecker.org.

[00:16:41] Nathan Wrigley: Sorry, I’m reading out the URL where I located it, so yeah. But the point being that there’s an economic imperative. And that kind of cuts through a lot, doesn’t it? You know, if you go to a business and you say to them, if we were to make this minor tweak with your business, we could increase your revenue by 0.5 of a percent. If we make these other tweaks, we can increase you by 8%, 9%, or what have you.

[00:17:04] Any business owner who hears those words is going to be curious. Okay, right, you’ve got my attention, now what? And although it kind of misses out the whole moral argument, like we should be making sites accessible just because that’s morally the right thing to do. Put that to one side. Let’s go with the economic imperative.

[00:17:23] So I will link in the show notes to anything that we mention today. So I’ll just drop that in. Go to wptavern.com, search for the episode with Anne, and all the links will be provided there, as well, I might add with a transcript of everything that we say today.

[00:17:38] Tell us the sort of headline pieces that you found curious in the accessibilitychecker.org piece, which is obviously, as you said, created by Semrush amongst others.

[00:17:47] Anne Bovelett: I’m just looking at the first page from Semrush itself. And it was interesting because they actually have an infographic on it that says, summary of findings. That’s not accessible at all, but we used it in our Hackathon project last year. But they tested 10,000 websites. And this is actually what I, and many of the people in my line of work have been waiting for, data, data, data. Because this is what companies care about. And I understand that. You know, they are responsible for people’s salaries, not just the revenue and the turnover, but also for the people that they employ, right?

[00:18:27] And so in this research it showed, after 10,000 websites, that 70% of the sites were not compliant. Well, that’s not news, right? But the thing is, they found a 23% traffic increase tied to higher compliance. 27% more keywords ranked with accessibility improvement. So this is major, but here’s the biggest one. 90% boost in authority score for compliant sites.

[00:18:59] And the thing is, when I read people, wow, we’ve been celebrating last Friday because we had a 0.5 increase in our click rates, for example. That’s another one. I’m like, that could be 10% or 15%. I’m happy to see that it now becomes clear that accessibility affects everything.

[00:19:21] And the thing is, people approach or companies approach accessibility from a technical standpoint. Like, what do we have to change technically? But accessibility is about people. It’s the same thing with all these solutions, the overlays, the whatever. They’re trying to approach it as a digital problem. But this is a human-centric problem. This is how people use the web.

[00:19:48] And now if you go back to SEO, one thing I learned a long time ago, I mean you can tell me about Google and other search engines, whatever you want, I don’t care how technical you are, their biggest customer is the people who search on the web, not the ones who pay them to show their stuff. And so this is what search engines are looking for.

[00:20:16] And now with AI, I’m having a blast because I see people writing stuff like, oh, we have to tell the AI to understand our website. But you are leaving your fate in SEO in the hands of something that is going to interpret what you are doing there.

[00:20:36] I’m not going to name the names. It would be unfair because I’m going to confront them with that before. But, there is a massive event that has a fantastic, big website. I find it hard to navigate, but that’s a personal thing. And that is a JavaScript invested monster. And just for fun of it, I just asked AI, can you find this and this and this for me on that page? And AI was like, no, I can’t. It’s rendering JavaScript. I can’t read this. What do you think that does to a screen reader or, because they’re all using the same technology to read it.

[00:21:10] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. When I’ve done podcast episodes about accessibility in the past, we’ve often dwelled not on this side, in fact, I don’t think we’ve ever touched sort of like the SEO and traffic benefit of it. It’s always been from the point of view of, what can you do? As an engineer, as a web developer, what can you do to go in in the weeds and fix things?

[00:21:28] We are just going to brush that aside. You can find that information out. You know, go and talk to Anne, for example, if you want to learn how to do it. But the principle here is more about the SEO and therefore the traffic side of things, on the flip side of doing the work. So you imagine, the work is not done. It’s poorer in terms of SEO and poorer in terms of reach, poorer in terms of search engine ranking, poorer in terms of revenue through your e-commerce platform or what have you. And then if you do do the work, all of those things increase incrementally.

[00:21:59] And in some cases the data shows fairly substantially. And so I’m just going to drill into each of those statistics one at a time because I feel it needs a little bit of like teasing out a little bit. So the first one is, well, there’s many statistics, but the first of the three that I’m going to mention, which you already have mentioned is organic traffic.

[00:22:17] So again, this is making the assumption that the work has been done. You’ve achieved the accessibility goals, presumably, which were many. You’ve jumped through all those hoops and you’ve got this benefit on the other side. And here’s some possible benefits.

[00:22:29] Organic traffic increased by an average of 23% as a site’s accessibility compliance score increased. So can I ask you, is that one directly related to search engines then? Because it feels like it is. You know, you did the accessibility work and a byproduct of that is that you became more visible on search engines. Have I got that right?

[00:22:50] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, of course because if assistive technology can’t read your site, the search engines probably can’t either.

[00:22:59] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It’s kind of interesting though that you get that much of a boost. You’d think if you had improved things, you might see, I don’t know, a few percent here and there, but this figure of 23%. I mean imagine saying that to a marketing person, or the growth person inside of a company, 23% is possible. The word average in that sentence is bolded. So it’s an average of 23%. So presumably there’s a few that are lower and there’s a few that are higher, but an average increase of 23%. So I don’t ever use the phrase win-win.

[00:23:32] Anne Bovelett: It is win-win. It’s win-win on sides. Maybe that’s a little bit the dark side in me, but I go to business dinners, meetings, entrepreneur get togethers, blah, blah, blah. And then I always hear, at some point I hear people say, I don’t get it. We are paying our SEO companies so much money, and we are not getting better results. And we have had a redesign on our website. And then I look at their website like, hmm, yeah, sure.

[00:24:01] And then they will fix the site at some point, maybe they will improve the site, where the design goes, where the user flow goes. But still, it’s not ranking better, and still it’s not ranking better. And I wonder when SEO companies are going to become so smart that they’re going to tell their customer, hey customer, stop writing click here everywhere.

[00:24:25] Nathan Wrigley: That’s a great, concrete example of what you’re talking about, because I was going to drill into the next one because honestly, the next point does confuse me a little bit. Again, I’ll link to it in the show notes, but point 4, I’ll just read it here, is websites ranked for an average of 27% more organic keywords with a higher accessibility score.

[00:24:45] Can you tease that out for me? Because I’m genuinely puzzled by what that even means. I’m not sure how there’s this overlap between accessibility compliance, and the keywords and how the search engine would pick them up. So that’s me being ignorant.

[00:24:59] Anne Bovelett: I would say, set the compliance story on fire. Torch it, and throw it away because compliance is what makes people do the bare minimum. And I think, I know they had to use this term in the report because they’ve been checking it if the site is compliant. And then you will get lulled into a false sense of security when your score says, like Google does in Lighthouse, ooh, you are 97% accessible. And like, yeah, but the 3% that you say it’s not, is what’s blocking about 80% of a group of potential visitors that you are not having.

[00:25:40] But again, it’s about, in my opinion, it’s about the way things have been coded and the way things have been written. For example, what happens is buttons that aren’t buttons that are not really saying, how do you say it? It’s the same thing. It’s the read more thing again. I have to be careful that I don’t go into the rabbit hole here too much. But it’s the read more thing. It is text where links are actually named properly.

[00:26:08] And just to give you an example, I see a lot of people who try to do affiliate marketing. Let’s say food bloggers. They make humongous sites. They love using WordPress. I know that. There are tons of plugins also for food bloggers to play out the, what do you call that in English? The nutritional values of this and that. All right. And then these bloggers, people complain about it like, oh, why do they have to write their life stories and that of the spider in the corner on the ceiling before they give me the recipe? Well, that is because they’re trying to get caught in the search engines, right?

[00:26:44] And then they have all these links. Like, someone creates a great meal with a fantastic expensive pan and a pot, and I don’t know what, and they have all these articles from Amazon. And all they have is click here, click here, click here, click here. And then imagine someone who is using that. I mean I love, I have a nice little, what do you call that, extension in Chrome? I’ve been speaking German all morning. This is why my English is so rusty right now. I have this extension and it just, in a big article, if I want to know, oh, what was that tool that she was using again? I’ll go get the link list with that little extension there, or I’ll just run the screen reader and get the link list, because that’s easy for me to do. And then all I see is click here, click here, click here. So I’m not finding the link through that pan, and so I’m not buying it through her link.

[00:27:35] Affiliate websites could make so much more money if they would just do the right thing in their content. Let’s forget about the code of the theme that they chose, ju%N\?] ?st the content. If that is played out correctly, and it’s not some JavaScript generated hoo-ha, which doesn’t happen in WordPress Core, they would make a lot more money.

[00:27:58] Nathan Wrigley: Because I haven’t really been following the SEO industry for a very long time, I really don’t have much intelligence around what search engines these days look for. You know, back in the day when I was building websites, there was a, almost like a playbook that you could go through. And if you did these things, you could achieve reasonable results in SEO.

[00:28:18] And that was the state of the internet 15 years ago when algorithms were less sophisticated, and people were just beginning to kind of get online and use things like Google all the time. But it sounds to me as if we’ve got to a point with search engines, as if they’re able to, I’m maybe going to overstate this, it feels like the more human you have become as a website, the more likely Google will favour you.

[00:28:48] I’m not really encapsulating that very well, but what I mean is, if you put content on there, which is human readable. If you make it obvious where to click to do the thing, rather than stop it with keywords and things which, you know, is not really in the best intentions of humans, that’s clearly done for the algorithm only, it does sound like you are saying that the search engines favour, I’m doing air quotes here, humanity.

[00:29:15] Anne Bovelett: They always have. Let me circle back to what I said before. We, as the people who use search engines, and nowadays they’re AI in whatever they do, we are the biggest customer for them. Because if we’re not there to search, to use them, they can’t sell their services to the people paying to be found.

[00:29:37] I might be, how do you say that, unorthodox in this approach, but I’ve seen it. I have a friend, Manuela van Prooijen, she’s the owner of a company called Weblish. In the Netherlands she trains people in how to set up businesses with WordPress and how to build with WordPress. And you wouldn’t expect it when someone is just focused on that, but she’s got a very broad perspective of things. And she dove into SEO in a way that I’ve never seen before. And some of the SEO experts that I know, and we know together, were like, why didn’t we ever think of that? And it had to do with structured data. And of course, everything she builds is accessible.

[00:30:24] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so I’m going to pivot slightly. However, I think we’ve made the case that if you are endeavouring to make your website more accessible, I think by reading that piece, you will understand that there are definite benefits in terms of traffic and search engine rankings and so on. So let’s just take that one as a given.

[00:30:43] And then I’m going to move over to a piece which you yourself wrote, not that long ago actually. Almost exactly a year ago, March 4th, 2025. It’s on your website, annebovelett.eu. It’s called The E-commerce Industry’s Billion Pound Mistake. And in here you make the argument, and you bind it to money, to actual dollar terms and things like that, which is quite interesting.

[00:31:05] So I’m wondering if you’d just paint the numbers around what you were saying here, if you can remember. I know it’s a year ago now that you wrote it. But broadly speaking, what was the economic case that you were making?

[00:31:13] Anne Bovelett: It’s actually, this is based on a British report, actually. It’s called the Click Away Pound Report. It was brought in 2019. And that actually measures how much revenue people left lying on the street by not making their shops, their online shops, accessible. And the economic case is, we say in Dutch, you thief your own wallet, if you’re not doing it. And again, these are, this is data, these are numbers.

[00:31:48] So in 2016, for example, the click away pound increased by 45%. Let me just throw around some numbers, right? So in 2016, the money that people left lying on the street by not making their eshops accessible was 11.75 billion. Billion, not million, billion pounds. In 2019, that was already up to 17 billion. Really, I don’t know if they’re going to do another Click Away Pound Report again at some point, but I think we’re going to be shocked. Because since 2019, the state of the internet actually worsened because of all this technology. And it’s getting worse because of all this vibe coding voodoo, where they’re using AI that is trained on inaccessible code. But that’s another thing.

[00:32:45] So there’s another article that I have. I think it is so much money that people leave lying on the street, this is larger than the Chinese economy, that amount. It’s in an article I wrote about e-commerce in 2022, where I was criticising CMSs, including WooCommerce, who actually did a great job. Now WooCommerce Core is now accessible. And said, okay, if your system sucks, the people using your system are going to lose without being able to help it.

[00:33:18] Nathan Wrigley: If you send me the link to that piece, I will obviously add that into the show notes.

[00:33:22] Anne Bovelett: It seems I’m on the cold side of accessibility because that is something that forever stuck with me. Someone called me cold hearted, because I’m talking about the commercial side of accessibility all the time. But, you know, there was a time, this is maybe a strange segway, but there was a time where I weighed way over a hundred kilos. I was so heavy. I had trouble moving, I was in pain, I was uncomfortable. And for me, buying clothes became an uncomfortable exercise. Going into these shops, especially these nice boutique shops, with their very small cabins, you know, trying to turn around and not being able to step into a pair of pants or whatever. Just uncomfortable.

[00:34:13] But the most uncomfortable thing about it for me was that I got blatantly ignored by the ladies that were selling the clothes in the stores. And three years after that, I had lost about 37 kilos. And I came into that one store where it was very, very apparent that they really weren’t interested in talking to me at all. I came in and they immediately jumped me, both of them, the shop owner and her assistant. And I got madder and madder and madder and madder.

[00:34:49] And at some point I said, you know what? Keep your clothes, just tell me don’t you remember me? Don’t you know who I am? No, we don’t remember you. And I was like, well, here’s the picture. Oh yeah, I’ve seen you before. And you know what, the fact, at that time I was thinking, maybe it’s because you’re too busy or you are, you know, I don’t know. But the fact that you jumped me right now with the same amount of people in the place tells me something else.

[00:35:15] Now, why am I telling this story? This is how a lot of people that need assistive technology feel, and also how older people feel on the web. I mean, I don’t know about the UK, but in the Netherlands, you can’t do your taxes without a couple of apps on a phone. Well, if you jump through a million hoops, maybe you can send it in on paper still, but it’s almost impossible. If apps like that don’t work correctly, you’re putting people’s fate in someone else’s hand, because you’re working with their tax number.

[00:35:54] I don’t know in the UK, in the Netherlands, your personal tax number, never ever give that to someone. Never. Your social security number, don’t do it. And then you’re like, maybe 60, 70-year-old, and you’re right before that stage where the technology’s getting too hard for you, but apps to do these things are too difficult.

[00:36:17] There is a local tax office in the Netherlands that had a full accessibility redesign done by Level Level in Rotterdam. And for them, the support requests went down, I think by 30% or something. I couldn’t find the case on their website anymore.

[00:36:35] But this is because people are being empowered to do things by themselves. That’s what they want. And for example, in Germany, there are statistics about that. This is an article that I actually published today that, I think it says like 90% of all German users will always try to first solve something by themselves, and if it doesn’t work they’ll walk away.

[00:36:58] Nathan Wrigley: That’s one of the curious things that come out of the article. The first part of this conversation was all about SEO and what have you. We didn’t really talk much about the person experiencing the problem. It was more about search engines and maybe how you would technically fix things. But this is so interesting. In your piece, you, and I’m just going to quote it because that’s going to be the easiest way to get the information into the record.

[00:37:20] And it says, a shocking 75% of disabled customers have willingly paid more for a product from an accessible website, rather than struggle with a cheaper inaccessible one. And that kind of sums up the whole thing really for me, that if you are faced with a struggle to do something, let’s say, I dont know, you want to buy a widget and it’s $100. The calculus that you are going through is, I could spend an hour and a half trying to get that $100 widget, or I could go to this other website and pay $120 for it and be done in three minutes. Well, that’s obvious, I know which one I’m going to do, which is really interesting.

[00:38:02] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, yeah. And there’s another thing. People are always like, oh, accessibility is only for the blind. No. The people that go forgotten in that, and I have to tell you, disabilities rarely come alone, right? I’m just going to take myself as an example. I have ADHD on steroids. I’m in the spectrum. I’m old. I need two pairs of glasses, one for my computer, one for my regular stuff. I’m starting to lose my hearing in certain regions. I am the target group. If I need to go and order, and I’m B2B, right? I’m a business.

[00:38:41] I will order B2B because then I can deduct the VAT. And I have to buy hardware. And I always try to buy the best. I will go to a store, maybe, and it’s B2B and I will go online. If I can’t figure out their stuff, I’m leaving. If I need to look at a manual, a video manual, that has background music while someone is talking, but there is no subtitles, I’m gone. I can’t follow it. My brain won’t let me.

[00:39:15] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I mean the analogy in my head is kind of, I don’t know, you’re going into a clothes shop or something like that and you need a new pair of shoes or something, and you discover that all the shoes are in a locked cupboard in a corner. And in order to get to the shoes, you need to ask a receptionist for the key. And then they go and find the key, and then they give you the wrong key and the key doesn’t work. And then they don’t point out where the box of shoes is, so you’re completely confused.

[00:39:36] That whole thing is just avoided by going to the next shop along the street where all the shoes are right there for you to pick up and try on and what have you. You’ve made the journey easy, and it turns out that price isn’t necessarily the prime mover here, which is really interesting. I find that statistic fascinating, that people will pay accordingly if they can get what they need out of it. I mean I know it sounds like common sense, but having it painted in those stark colours is.

[00:40:04] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, yeah. This is one of the things I did want to mention as well. I have the privilege of talking to Mark Weisbrod a lot from Greyd. You know him? He’s the CEO of Greyd. I think he’s unique, especially in the world of WordPress because he’s looking at things solely from a business perspective. He’s not distracted by technical issues or whatsoever. He will get it from there. He’s someone who often says to me like, okay, I like the story now show me the data.

[00:40:39] But then at some point, I remember it was before the European Accessibility Act was coming into effect, I think. So this, we’re talking about this in 2023 or something. And then I said, I don’t get it. Why is everybody so focused on the European Accessibility Act? Look at how much money they can make by leaving people their dignity. Because that’s basically what it is by making your stuff accessible.

[00:41:06] If you get past the stupid idea that if something is accessible, it can’t look nice. I mean, go to github.com without being logged in, that’s accessible. It’s a wonderful website. And then I said, where is the common sense? Why, if I talk to the C-suite of a company in one of those business things, and I say, listen, if you would make this and this and this more accessible in your web shop, your turn over would go up by so many percent, why are they not like, we’ve got to invest this money right now?

[00:41:39] And then he said, no matter what, people will always think with their wallet today and tomorrow. They’re not thinking about next week. Only the most visionary leaders in the industries think way more. And this is something I say now, because he said, he was telling me about they were selling, in a company he worked for, they were selling solar systems. And these systems would save the buyers so much money on the long run, but it was very hard to sell them because it was in the long run.

[00:42:20] And if a CEO or a CFO, I mean I know it sounds offending, I don’t mean it that way, but in large corporations it’s to eat or to be eaten. Managers are always afraid of their managers kicking down on them and the others kicking up, and they’re always trying to defend their own spot in the business. It’s only in smaller companies that people can have more leverage. So there are always so many powers at play in a company that if you start talking to a company about, it’s for the greater good of your company, it’s the same argument as it’s for the greater good of humanity.

[00:42:59] And I’ll just give you another number for example. Based on the Click Away Pound Report, and some other data that I have, I’ve been working on building a calculator. You tell me which country your web shop is in, you tell me how much turnover you have per year and then that calculator is going to tell you how much potential revenue you are walking away from by not making it accessible. I did this for very, very big supermarket chain in Sw?]4\]G ?itzerland, and the outcome was you could make 0.94% more revenue. And then you’re like, yeah, less than 1%. Yeah, sure. Ah, it’s still 350 million Swiss Francs.

[00:43:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Less than 1% but still that kind of money, wow.

[00:43:47] Anne Bovelett: Yes. And then you get this perspective thing. Because I’m pretty sure the day that this knowledge seeps through to the unions of the employees of this company, the employees are going to go like, why do we have to save money, or why do we not get a raise where you don’t take the opportunity to make that much more turnover? And then someone else with other interests in the company says, yeah, but the stakeholders, you know, or the investors, this is why this is not happening. I mean, we all think common sense is the greatest good in the world. People do not have common sense, period.

[00:44:33] Nathan Wrigley: It’s that sort of invisible layer to people who don’t experience any of the accessibility problems that the industry is trying to tackle. For example, you’re fully sighted, you can use your legs and walk about and use a mouse and use regular computer and use a regular screen and your ears are working fine and all those kind of things. All of that stuff is just sort of hidden from you, and so it just somehow doesn’t drive itself to the front of your consciousness.

[00:44:56] Which is why this is so interesting because, although you said you’ve kind of been berated in the accessibility community for banging the gong about money all the time, it’s a great way to cut through, isn’t it? You can go to the CEO of a company and make the economic argument, I would imagine, much more readily than you can do with the moral argument.

[00:45:16] Anne Bovelett: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, about writing up a profile for a position in companies that I don’t think exists yet. Because normally, we call it the sheep with five legs in Dutch. It’s very hard to find that sheep with five legs. If someone is an accessibility officer in a big company, they are being banged on for compliance. If someone is working on accessibility in a lower rank, they’re getting overworked because people have so many expectations or they just don’t do things.

[00:45:52] It’s always, this person is screaming in the desert like, hey, this is happening. I’ve seen this happen, I was guiding a company with more than I think 13 or 14 development teams, over 85 people, and they didn’t talk to each other. Design, didn’t talk to development, development didn’t talk to development in other areas, because that was how the company was structured.

[00:46:18] And I think people need to be educated in two ways to have this position that doesn’t exist yet. It’s a position where you are able to kick the shins of the C-suite in a professional manner, of course, but also sit down with development, design, and content teams and make them communicate with each other in a way that works.

[00:46:48] And for that, you have to understand these processes. And normally, I’m absolutely not for people in managing positions that know the job that the people they’re managing is doing, because they very often become that, how do you say that, the driver on the carriage running in front of the horses? You know, that’s really dangerous. You shouldn’t interfere into detail level too much.

[00:47:15] But if you understand it on a detail level, from design content and development, you can get these people to talk to each other and help each other. Because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a developer that sees a design and is like, woah, that design, the way that is made, that’s going to cause some accessibility issues. Those are issues.

[00:47:39] And normally they will just, no, no, I was asked to develop this. I’ll develop it. Instead, you need to raise a culture where people go to the designer and say, hey, I noticed this. What is your thought behind this? And they can’t. And if they had a middle person for that where they could go to and say, look, I got this, I’m not sure about it, then you would have a fantastic flow in a company to make things accessible.

[00:48:06] Because this goes through so much more. So an article that I published today is about how much money you lose in support. It’s the same thing. If a support, people doing support are not used to really listen and someone says, I’m hard of hearing, or someone says, I have dyslexia. When you’re saying, yeah, go read it, it’s on that page on our website. If this person calls you because he couldn’t find, or understand the page, and then you force this person into vulnerability by admitting that he or she has dyslexia. And that is going to leave a very bad taste in someone’s mouth. And what happens? They’re going to walk away. If you’re not some government thing that everybody needs like, I don’t know, taxes, because otherwise they’ll come and rob you.

[00:48:54] Nathan Wrigley: It is genuinely so interesting because a lot of the content that I’ve made in the past has been definitely about the ways to fix your website. So here’s the WCAG guidelines, go figure. This episode’s been really entirely different.

[00:49:07] So first of all, looking at Semrush, and the data. Just sort of painting the picture of the improvements that you can get in terms of traffic and visibility across search engines should you go down the accessibility route. But also then getting into the financial bit, which it sounds like is your thing.

[00:49:27] So I think that’s hopefully of interest to some people who perhaps have just always thought about accessibility as a, I’m a web developer, there’s another job that I’ve got to do. Well, now you’re kind of armoured with things that you could maybe even approach clients with. You know, you’ve got a website, we haven’t looked at it in a few years, you are always looking for ways to make more revenue out of your website. Well, look, I’ve got this thing in my back pocket. This is a really credible way that we can do some tweaks. I know what I need to do. There’s guidelines that I can follow. Let’s do that and see if we can improve the revenue.

[00:50:00] I think we’ve probably covered that. And so with that in mind, Anne, just before we end, I’m going to try and link to the piece that you mentioned. I’ll certainly, anything that we’ve mentioned in this podcast, I’ll try and link to in the show notes on WP Tavern. Do you just want to tell us where we can find you? I did reference your website at one point during the podcast, but do you just want to give us that again, or maybe social networks or something like that where you hang out?

[00:50:23] Anne Bovelett: If you remember how to spell my name, just put it in Google, you’ll find me everywhere. Okay. No. So it’s Anne and then Bovelett, which is B from Bernard, B-O-V-E-L-E-T-T. You can find me on LinkedIn a lot. I’m there a lot because I talk shop a lot.

[00:50:44] Very active on X, Twitter. So that’s where you find me. And don’t be afraid to approach me. Just, if you send me LinkedIn DMs, it can take a while because sometimes I get too many, and then I’m overwhelmed and, yeah. But the best thing is to send me an email. Just go to the contact page on my website.

[00:51:06] Nathan Wrigley: All that it remains for me to do is to say, Anne Bovelett, thank you for chatting to me today. That was really interesting. Thank you so much.

[00:51:12] Anne Bovelett: Thank you for having me and giving me the platform.

[00:51:13] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome.

On the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett.

Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then she’s become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place, especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne’s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.

This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you’re leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.

Anne talks about why accessibility hasn’t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared toward the real-world, bottom-line business benefits of accessible websites, reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.

If you’re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who’s ever wondered whether accessibility work is ‘worth it’ this episode is for you.

Useful links

Semrush

Accessibility Checker website

 Manuela van Prooijen’s Weblish

The e-commerce industry’s billion-pound mistake

Click-Away Pound Report

Anne on LinkedIn

Anne on X

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The shoemaker’s children go barefoot or, as we say in French, Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chaussés. That’s been me for years. As a developer working on WordPress, I’ve long neglected the design of my site. This ends today.

We’ve recently released a new tool called Studio Code, think of it as Claude Code but tailored for WordPress. A tool you can install by running npm -g install wp-studio and invoke using studio code locally. Or you can try directly using npx wp-studio code. I took this as an opportunity to see what it’s capable of, and oh boy! I’m mind-blown 🤯

It took me:

The whole process lasted about a couple of hours during the weekend, while watching yet another Sinner-Alcaraz match on TV.

(Ok, I’m lying a bit. The push didn’t work the first time because I had discovered a bug that had since been fixed.)

There are a lot of things that made the experience so enjoyable for me. I can see myself switching how I work with WordPress sites entirely to this process:

Nonetheless, the tool still has some rough edges, but we’re shipping early and iterating fast. We want you to test it and please share any feedback you have with us. We have a lot of ideas and you can also bring your own, it’s all Open Source.

I forgot, what do you think about my new design? I wanted something minimal but gives you a small “hacker” feeling. Don’t be too harsh on me.

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I’ve just released Media Picker for Immich on the WordPress.org plugin directory. It connects WordPress to a self-hosted Immich server so you can browse, search, and insert your photos and videos into posts without copying files around.

Immich

I run Immich at home. It’s where my photos now live. They’re organised, searchable, with facial recognition and AI search. My WordPress uploads directory is where photos used to go, and the two never talked to each other. This plugin fixes that.

How it works

Point the plugin at your Immich server and give it an API key. You can set a site-wide key or let each user configure their own to connect to their own Immich account.

Screenshot 1: Settings → Immich: Server address and blank site-wide API key, default cache settings

If the site-wide key is blank, each user adds their own key on their profile page. All Immich API calls happen server-side.

Screenshot 2: User Profile page, Immich API Key field showing *******.

Two ways to add media

Once configured, an Immich tab appears in two places.

The first is the Media Library grid. Switch to the Immich view and you can search, filter by person, and either Use or Copy assets into WordPress.

Screenshot 3: Media → Library, Immich view.

The same tab shows up in the “Select or Upload Media” dialog inside the post editor, so you can pull an Immich photo straight into a post without leaving the editor.

Screenshot 4: Select or Upload Media dialog, Immich tab.

A few details worth mentioning

Get it

Install it from the WordPress plugin directory or search for “media picker for Immich” in the plugins page in WordPress.

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Development is done on GitHub here.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 brought the global WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9–11, gathering contributors, organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,627 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event.

The event unfolded across Contributor Day and two conference days, with a program that moved from technical sessions and workshops to hallway conversations, shared meals, and joyful moments of connection across the venue. From first-time attendees to longtime contributors, WordCamp Asia 2026 reflected the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem and the many ways people shaped and sustained it.


WordPress is not a company. It is a shared commitment to keeping the web open.

Mary Hubbard, Executive Director, WordPress

Throughout the event, WordCamp Asia 2026 balanced formal programming with the conversations happening around it. Sessions and workshops set the pace, while morning networking, tea breaks, lunch, the family photo, the sponsor’s raffle, and the after party in Jasmine Hall helped make the event feel welcoming, social, and connected.

How WordCamp Asia 2026 Took Shape

Bringing together contribution, practical learning, and forward-looking conversation in one shared program. Across Contributor Day and the conference sessions that followed, attendees moved between hands-on work, technical talks, workshops, and broader discussions about AI, education, enterprise, community growth, and the open web.

The result was a WordCamp that felt expansive without losing its sense of connection. Different rooms with topics as themes, helping different audiences, and different forms of participation all fed into the same larger picture: a community actively building what comes next for WordPress as a feeling that something bigger was happening: not just a schedule being delivered, but a community showing up for one another and for the future of WordPress.

Contributor Day: Building WordPress Together

Contributor Day opened WordCamp Asia 2026 with one of the clearest expressions of what makes the project special: people coming together to move WordPress forward by working on it. More than 1,500 participants joined 38 table leads across more than 20 contribution tables, creating a day that was expansive in scale and grounded in real work. For some, it was a return to familiar teams and longtime collaborators. For others, it was the beginning of their contributor journey.

The day moved between structured learning and hands-on participation. Alongside contributor sessions, attendees joined workshops, visited the Open Source Library, took part in YouthCamp, and attended The Making of a WordPress Release: Conversations with Past Release Squad Members, a featured panel that added depth and perspective to the work of building and sustaining WordPress.

What made Contributor Day stand out was not only the number of people in the room, but the range of ways they could take part. Workshops created space for skill-building. YouthCamp brought younger participants into the experience and widened the event’s reach in a meaningful way. The day felt welcoming, energetic, and full of possibility.

By the end, the impact was already visible across teams. Polyglots contributors suggested more than 7,000 strings and reviewed 3,200 of them. Photo contributors uploaded 76 images. The Test team worked on more than 20 tickets, and 55 contributors joined Training. Those numbers told only part of the story, but they pointed to what Contributor Day continued to do so well: turn a large gathering into shared work that strengthened the project in real time.

Conference Sessions Take Shape

Across the conference days, WordCamp Asia 2026 covered a wide range of topics, from technical development and hands-on workshops to business strategy and the open web. Sessions took place across the Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tracks, with workshops running alongside the main program.

One of the opening sessions was James LePage’s WordPress and AI, which introduced a theme that appeared throughout the conference: how WordPress is responding to changes in AI, publishing, and developer workflows. That topic continued in later sessions focused on AI-driven development, autonomous testing, plugin maintenance, and automation.

Later that morning, a fireside chat with Mary Hubbard and Shilpa Shah shifted the focus toward trust, security, and the longer-term questions shaping open source publishing. Coming early in the program, the conversation gave the conference an important center of gravity, pairing technical change with questions of stewardship, resilience, and what people needed from WordPress as the web continued to evolve. Rather than pulling away from the event’s technical momentum, it deepened it, bringing a human perspective to the pace of change and reminding the audience that progress in open source is not only about what gets built, but about how communities guide, challenge, and sustain that work over time.

From there, the conference widened into a program that balanced developer-focused talks with sessions on the Interactivity API, the HTML API, AI-driven development workflows, education initiatives, observability, automation, and startup strategy. On the final day, those threads continued through talks on WP translation, community building, WordPress Playground, data engineering, enterprise WordPress, and journalism on the open web.

Together, the two conference days made clear that WordCamp Asia 2026 was designed not for one kind of attendee, but for many. Developers, founders, marketers, contributors, organizers, and people finding their place in WordPress for the first time all found something that spoke directly to their work and interests. The breadth of the program was striking, but so was the feeling that these conversations mattered now.

Building What Comes Next

WordCamp Asia 2026 closed with reflections from Mary Hubbard, following an opening announcement from Chenda Ngak that WordCamp India will join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship WordPress event.

Mary’s remarks tied together several threads that had already surfaced throughout the event: India’s long-standing role in the WordPress project, the growth of programs like Campus Connect and WordPress Credits, the energy of YouthCamp, and the significance of WordPress 7.0. One of the clearest ideas in the session was that WordPress is entering a new phase shaped by real-time collaboration, AI infrastructure, and global contributor growth. That framing gave the closing session a strong sense of direction without losing sight of the community work that made it possible.

The session then shifted into a panel discussion about the current state of WordPress and where the project is headed next. Peter Wilson and Sergey Biryukov joined Hubbard on stage, while audience questions brought the conversation back to many of the themes that had shaped the event across all three days. Even from afar, Ma.tt Mullenweg remained part of the discussion, following along remotely and sending written responses during the live Q&A.

Those questions touched on contributor growth, AI, plugins, local communities, product direction, and the long-term health of the open web. What stood out was how often the answers returned to the same core idea: WordPress continues to grow through open discussion, shared responsibility, and the people who keep showing up to build it together.

A Lasting Momentum

Over three days in Mumbai, WordCamp Asia 2026 brought together contribution, learning, and community. From Contributor Day through the closing keynote, the event balanced hands-on work with bigger conversations about publishing, technology, education, and the open w]Ng!^ k ?"eb.

The event also created space for many kinds of participation. Some attendees contributed to Core, Training, Polyglots, Photos, and other teams. Others came for the conference program, workshops, or the chance to reconnect with collaborators and meet new people. Across session rooms, tea breaks, shared meals, sponsor hall conversations, and the after party, the community side of the event remained just as important as the formal program.

Thank you to the organizers, volunteers, speakers, sponsors, attendees, and everyone who joined online. WordCamp Asia 2026 was a reminder that WordPress continues to grow through the people who show up to contribute and build together.

There is still more to look forward to this year. The community will gather again at WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków, Poland from June 4–6, followed by WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona from August 16–19.

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I’ve been taking an iterative approach to building Claudaborative Editing: build something to prove that the underlying concept works, then evolve on top of that. The first two iterations were answering a question I had: can an LLM genuinely improve the writing process? Along the way, I found a more important question: can it be done without contributing to the masses of generated slop we see?

Having seen the underlying idea working, I needed to answer the next question: can it be brought into the actual writing environment? Can it be useful, but keep out of the way?

Can you talk to an LLM from within WordPress, and have it talk back? I think I’m onto something, and it’s alot of fun.

Coming to a WordPress Near You

Naturally, the next step was to build a WordPress plugin that provided a straightforward interface to the LLM backend. You still install the tool to run with your local copy of Claude Code, but once it’s running, you can do everything directly from the block editor. The plugin is waiting to be approved for the WordPress.org plugin directory, but you can download it directly from the GitHub repo now.

A screenshot of the Collaborative Editing Menu. It shows 5 options: Compose, Proofread, Review, Edit, and Translate.
A screenshot of the Edit box, where a user can have the LLM make broad changes to their post.
A screenshot of the Translate box, where the user can have the LLM translate their post into other languages. Because this is a freeform field, they're not limited to the normal options: they can also translate into weird languages, like "pirate", or "emoji".
A screenshot of the pre-publish panel, showing the featured image, a suggested excerpt, and suggestions for new and existing tags and categories to use.

Tools are easily accessible when you need them, but otherwise stay out of your way. You choose how much input you want the LLM to have in your writing: it can fix things up for you, or you can ask it to just leave notes and you’ll decide how you want to proceed. Personally, I prefer to do the work myself, but everyone can choose their level of comfort.

That said, one of the things I often forget to do when writing a post is to tag it properly. If I do remember, I’m never sure what to tag it with. By the time I get to publishing, I’m impatient just to get it out in the world! So, now there’s a button that’ll give suggestions right before publishing, letting you pick and choose which suggestions to use, and what to drop.

Planning is a Conversation

I always start Claude Code in planning mode, and I wanted that for posts, too. That’s where I started this post, and I can absolutely see myself using this every time I need to write a post. Not to do the writing for me, but to help me organise my thoughts. I opened the Compose mode in the sidebar, I had it summarise the changes that I’ve made in the last 2 weeks, and present a few options for how to collate them. Some I kept, some I dropped.

In a lot of ways, it’s more like a very advanced ELIZA, though rather than just reflecting your words back, it reflects your ideas back in a more structured form.

What’s next

I’ll be honest, I’m really happy with how this has turned out so far! I’d love to hear your feedback as you use it. What would you like to see here? I’ve already noted down a bunch of ideas that came up just while I was writing this post, so there are definitely more things to come!

Go ahead and give it a shot now:

npx claudaborative-editing start

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I wanted to hook up Claude Code to be able to interact with my local wordpress-develop core development environment via MCP (Model Context Protocol). I couldn’t find documentation specifically for doing this, so I’m sharing how I did it here.

Assuming you have set up the environment (with Docker) and started it via npm run env:start.

1. Install & Activate the MCP Adapter plugin

The MCP adapter is not currently available as a plugin to install from the plugin directory. You instead have to obtain it from GitHub and install it from the command line. I installed it as a plugin instead of as a Composer package:

cd src/wp-content/plugins
git clone https://github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter
cd mcp-adapter
composer install

Next, activate the plugin. Naturally, you can also just activate the “MCP Adapter” plugin from the WP admin. You can also activate it via WP-CLI (but from the project root working directory, since you can’t run this command from inside of the mcp-adapter directory:

npm run env:cli -- plugin activate mcp-adapter

2. Register the MCP server with Claude

Here’s the command I used to register the wordpress-develop MCP server with Claude:

claude mcp add-json wordpress-develop --scope user '{"command":"npm", "args":["--prefix", "~/repos/wordpress-develop/", "run", "env:cli", "--", "mcp-adapter", "serve", "--server=mcp-adapter-default-server", "--user=admin"]}'

Here’s the JSON with formatting:

{
	"command": "npm",
	"args": [
		"--prefix",
		"~/repos/wordpress-develop/",
		"run",
		"env:cli",
		"--",
		"mcp-adapter",
		"serve",
		"--server=mcp-adapter-default-server",
		"--user=admin"
	]
}

You may want to remove --scope user if you just want to register the MCP server for the one project. I tend to re-use the same WP environment for multiple projects (core and plugins), so I think it may make it easier for me to install at the user level instead.

You will also need to change the --prefix arg’s ~/repos/wordpress-develop/ value to correspond to where the repo is actually cloned on your system. I include this arg here so that when I start claude inside of a plugin project (e.g. inside src/wp-content/plugins/performance), it is able to successfully run the npm command in the package.json in the ancestor directory. You can remove this --prefix arg if this is not relevant to you.

Change the user from admin according to your needs.

3. Expose all abilities to MCP

Registered abilities are not exposed to MCP by default. This is a safety measure so that AI agents have to be explicitly allowed to perform potentially sensitive actions. So without any plugins active other than the MCP Adapter, prompting Claude with “discover abilities” results in:

No abilities found. The MCP server connection may be unstable. Try reconnecting again with /mcp.

However, since this is a local development environment, there is no concern about this (for me at least). To opt in all abilities to be exposed to MCP by default, you can use the following plugin code:

add_filter(
	'wp_register_ability_args',
	static function ( array $args, string $ability_id ): array {
		if (
			// Prevent exposing abilities in MCP except on a local dev environment.
			wp_get_environment_type() === 'local'
			&&
			// Omit abilities which the MCP Adapter already makes available itself.
			! str_starts_with( $ability_id, 'mcp-adapter/' )
		) {
			$args['meta']['mcp']['public'] = true;
		}
		return $args;
	},
	10,
	2
);

This is also available in a gist to facilitate installation via Git Updater.

Note: This filter does not currently apply if your ability is registered by extending Abstract_Ability in the AI plugin.

At this point, I can now open Claude (or re-connect to the MCP server) and see that it is able to see all (er, most) abilities that are registered on my wordpress-develop env with the same prompt “discover abilities”:

3 WordPress abilities available:

core/get-environment-info — Returns runtime context (PHP, database, WordPress version) with the ability name.

core/get-site-info — Returns site information (all fields or filtered subset)

core/get-user-info — Returns current user profile details

When I prompt “what’s the environment info?” it executes the core/get-environment-info ability via MCP and prints out:

  • Environment: local
  • PHP Version: 8.3.26
  • Database Server: 8.4.8 (MySQL)
  • WordPress Version: 7.1-alpha-62161-src

Now the environment just needs more abilities! I’ve filed a Performance Lab issue for us at the Core Performance table to work on adding abilities during Contributor Day at WordCamp Asia tomorrow.

Where I’ve shared this:

The post Adding an MCP Server to the WordPress Core Development Environment appeared first on Weston Ruter.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 will be available to watch live across three days of streaming, making it easy for the global WordPress community to follow along from anywhere. This year’s live streamed programming begins with a special Contributor Day broadcast, followed by two full conference days of presentations from across the WordPress community.

This post gathers each official stream in one place so you can quickly find the right broadcast for each day. Bookmark this page and return throughout the event to watch live.

Day One: The Making of a WordPress Release

Go behind the scenes of a WordPress release in this special Contributor Day live stream from WordCamp Asia 2026. Past release squad members come together to share stories, reflect on their experience, and talk about what it takes to bring a WordPress release to life. The Panel will go live at 4:30 am UTC.

Day Two: Conference Livestreams

Watch the second day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live for a full day of presentations and sessions. beginning at 4:00 am UTC, including a Fireside chat with Mary Hubbard, which will begin at 5:00 am UTC over on the Growth Stream.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

Day Three: Conference Livestreams

Watch the third day and final day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live, beginning at 4:00 am UTC for another full day of presentations from across the community. Don’t forget to watch Ma.tt Mullenweg give the final keynote, which will begin on the Growth stream at 10:00 am UTC.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

You can also explore the full schedule to see what is coming up across the event and plan your viewing. However you join, we hope you will follow along and be part of WordCamp Asia 2026.

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If you’ve been paying attention to LLM-based coding tools in the past few months, you’ll have seen a seismic shift in how they’re being used. Even 12 months ago, they were little more than glorified auto-complete tools: useful for quickly repeating patterns, but terrible at producing well structured, thoughtful, maintainable code. More recently, however, there seems to have been a new equilibrium reached, where an experienced engineer can guide these tools to consistently produce high quality code. Small course adjustments seem to have an outsized effect, resulting in the “Human in the Loop” paradigm that’s become so popular.

Why It Works

“Code is Poetry” has been my approach to writing code for as long as I can remember. Software is a form of expression, and the way you create that expression is through code. So, to make beautiful software, you need to write beautiful code. But, what happens when you don’t need to write code to create the software?

Suddenly, the code becomes entirely about outcomes. It needs to be correct, functional, and maintainable, but it doesn’t need to be seen as a form of expression itself. Instead, the creative decisions move further up the stack, to the architectural level. You can write beautiful software by writing thoughtful specifications, instead.

That’s not to say that technical abilities are suddenly obsolete. You still need to know what’s possible and realistic to be able to tell the LLM what to build, and to redirect it when it goes in a different direction. You need to be able to read and comprehend the code, you just don’t need to memorise every function signature.

The Temptation

So, if an LLM can write code for me, what else can it do? Marketing copy? Emails? Opinion blog posts? I could ask Claude to write 10 paragraphs on the “The Human in the Loop”, but would you have even read this far if yo)2^?y$^ ?%u thought this post was LLM generated? Of course not! I can promise you that every word of this post (and every other post on my blog) was written by me.

Respect for the Reader

If I want you to read this post, and seriously consider the arguments I’m making, the least I can do is write it myself. It goes beyond that, however. LLMs can write functional code, but they can’t write beautiful software. When the text is the creative act, there’s no way for the LLM to write the text without compromising your creativity. If you’re the Human in the Loop for a blog post, you’re not injecting your voice, your perspective, or your personality into the post: you’re rubber stamping whatever feels good enough, and that’s a very low bar to clear.

“Good enough” isn’t actually good enough.

A measure of the complexity of a written piece of text is called “perplexity”. It measures the randomness of how the text flows, and it’s probably the thing you’re noticing when you know you’re reading LLM-generated text, but you can’t quite articulate why. It’s an uncanny valley thing: it looks like writing, it reads like writing, it might even flow like writing, but the vibes are off.

The good news is, you’re not going insane, recent research shows that there is a measurable difference between human written text, and LLM generated text. LLM generated text is inherently less random, which makes sense when you remember that LLMs are, at their core, giant statistical models that are really good at figuring out “what’s the most likely bit of text to come next”.

The LLM as the Assistant

That’s not to say that LLMs are completely useless when it comes to writing, but we need to use them the right way. While they shouldn’t be generating text, they can absolutely be used to help you write. Over the last month or so, I’ve been working on Claudaborative Editing, an experiment to see exactly how much they can help with the writing process. I’ve been building it directly into the WordPress editor, allowing me to plan, write, review, and publish this post from the one place. An LLM assisted, but every word of it was written by me alone. My goal isn’t to replace the author, or to make it easier to fill the web with LLM-generated dreck, it’s to help me (and hopefully you, too!) improve your writing, while still keeping it fundamentally yours.

Where Does Creativity Live?

When you’re evaluating these tools, “can an LLM do this?” isn’t the question you need to ask. Instead, think about where the creative part of the process lives. For software, that’s in the design decisions and the architecture, the final product is the expression of that creativity. The specifics of the implementation don’t really matter. For a blog post, or any writing for that matter, the creativity lives in the act of writing. To delegate that to an LLM is to delegate your own creativity.

Here’s what I believe: the best uses of LLM tools are when they augment humans, rather than try to replace them. They enhance the inherent creativity of their human operator, they don’t suppress it.

This belief guides how I use LLMs, and how I build tools that help others use LLMs, too. I’ll be pushing out a new release of Claudaborative Editing in the next few days, I hope you’ll give it a go!

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It’s very cool to see Theo / t3.gg‘s open source arc.

Just in general, with people creating more software than ever, it’s so exciting to see an explosion of open source and a growing understanding of why working together on open source makes so much sense for the future we want to build.

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You call yourself a Christian engineer, but you haven’t given your life to Open Source? Huh.

What license would Jesus choose? I don’t know if it’s GPL or MIT, but sure as heck it isn’t proprietary.

Letting proprietary code dictate your life is like following a Bible you’re not allowed to read. Beware those who would seek to mediate your relationship to the divine.

Happy Easter, y’all. 🙏🐰🌈

Update: BTW, the above would probably be a lot better if I spoke it, because people would hear a very humorous tone, but that’s not clear from the text! So some have said I come off pretty jerky, and some said blasphemous. Fair! I’m also not saying it’s literally funny, it just would be a little clearer I was trying.

Also, I mean examples as possible metaphors or parallels and not literally, but never say that up front. Also as thought experiment, not literally as judgey. “No” or “it is totally fine” are valid answers to the first question, lots of more possibilities — the “Huh” is meant more out of curiosity than judgment, a conversation starter, not an ender.

Finally the ender “Happy Easter, y’all)” in my Houston culture and context / the South would be pretty clear as actually happy, friendly and playful. But said in a different tone or without that context, the opposite! I have friends in NYC for whom that would read deep sarcasm, a big FU and rude bye. I didn’t think of that!

Anyway, I’ve learned a lot from the feedback, will probably still learn more, and want to deeply appreciate the people who care enough to give it to me and spend time explaining and answering my questions. Thanks, y’all! (Not sarcastic 🙂 🙂 🙂 <— Real smiles and gratitude, not smug.)

I’m not thanking all the Twitter / X trolls, though, and I’m not going to engage any more because the real or perceived trolling makes it almost impossible to change, nor do I harbor any illusions of changing some minds. I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to it in the past, but it didn’t help, and that took a lot of time away from my favorite people and loved ones.

(Also, I think something has changed; in open source and WordPress, we’d fight like crazy, but ended up coming together or having a meal afterward before diving back in. Social media I think has made that rarer and harder.)

(and the new Spring colors are on the site.)

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If you’re looking for a good watch this weekend, I couldn’t recommend more the documentary Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb. The craft of research, writing, and editing is presented in the most beautiful way possible. Around 400,000 words were removed from The Power Broker, which was ultimately published as 1,162 pages.

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This Ashlee Vance interview of Pedro Franceschi from Brex contains so many interesting stories it might cause you to reconsider what it means to be a CEO.

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So, two other Matts at Cloudflare announced EmDash — the spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security.

(Is it nominative determinism or a simulation glitch that everyone trying to terraform the web has some variation of “Matthew” in their name? I was in a call set up by Matthew Prince, talking to Matt Taylor and Matt Kane, with my right hand there, Matías.)

First, I’m going to tell you why this isn’t spiritually tied to WordPress at all, then why they haven’t solved plugin security, and finally offer some suggestions.

The Spirit of WordPress

WordPress exists to democratize publishing. That means we put it everywhere. You can run WordPress on a Raspberry Pi, on your phone, on your desktop, on a random web host in Indonesia charging 99 cents a month, and you can run it scaled up on AWS or across multiple datacenters.

The same code. When you download WordPress Playground you’re running the same code that’s being attacked a thousand times a second at WhiteHouse.gov. That’s what we mean when we say democratization.

It’s all built on open source and web standards. You can run it anywhere; there’s no lock-in.

That’s why we do what we do. It’s really hard. You can come after our users, but please don’t claim to be our spiritual successor without understanding our spirit.

The Spirit of EmDash

I think EmDash was created to sell more Cloudflare services. And that’s okay! It can kinda run on Netlify or Vercel, but good stuff works best on Cloudflare. This is where I’m going to stop and say, I really like Cloudflare! I think they’re one of the top engineering organizations on the planet; they run incredible infrastructure, and their public stock is one of the few I own. And I love that this is open source! That’s more important than anything. I will never belittle a fellow open source CMS; I only hate the proprietary ones.

If you want to adopt a CMS that will work seamlessly with Cloudflare and make it hard for you to ever switch vendors, EmDash is an incredible choice.

Claimed Plugin Security

In another example of them not understanding the spirit of WordPress, the fact that plugins can change every aspect of your WordPress experience is a feature, not a bug! And their sandboxing breaks down as soon as you look at what most WordPress plugins do.

I know we get a bad rep because there are 62k plugins with wildly variable engineering quality, and more every day, and when one installed on 0.01% of our user base has a vulnerability, a bunch of websites write breathless articles that get clicks saying “122,000 WordPress Sites Vulnerable!”

That, by the way, I think we’ll be able to fix in the next 18 months with AI. The plugin security only works on Cloudflare.

Critical Feedback

As I said, we had a call with Cloudflare on March 23rd, where they asked for feedback on this thing they built but didn’t tell us the name, said it would probably launch in their developer week towards the end of April, and some top colleagues and I offered to help. I wish I could say the things I’m saying in this blog post on that call, and if they had just shared the announcement post I could have, but in the spirit of open source here’s what I would have said:

  1. If they had said the name I would have asked if they had any other options because I have an amazing colleague named Emdash who is doing some of the most exciting stuff with WordPress and AI. (BTW I think our Em will have more impact on the web than this in five years.)
  2. I actually think the product is very solid, there’s some excellent engineering, migration tools, it’s very fast, and the Astro integration is nice.
  3. I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get tens of thousands of sites on it.
  4. The UI is in the uncanny valley of being sorta-WordPress sorta-not. I know it wasn’t a weekend vibecode project, but it has some of that smell. Stuff breaks at the edges.
  5. I think using TinyMCE is a regression, and they should adopt Gutenberg, which we licensed and created to be used by other CMSes. (Correction: They use Portable Text not TinyMCE, but same UI criticism applies.)
  6. The Skills are amazing, a brilliant strategy, and we need to do the same as soon as possible. I’ve been working on something similar and got some good ideas from their implementation.
  7. I’m not going to say which parts, but they copied a lot of things we’re planning to kill. Build from first principles. Make it better. Skate to where the puck is going.

There’s a new CMS every other day. And that’s great! I love building CMSes and I totally get why other people do, too.

In Conclusion

Some day, there may be a spiritual successor to WordPress that is even more open. When that happens, I hope we learn from it and grow together. [removed “out of your mouth” sentence, too spicy for Western palates.] I’ve mostly focused on this post on just the software, but WordPress is also so much about the community — the meetups, the WordCamps, the art, the college programs, the tattoos, the books… The closest thing I’ve seen to a spiritual successor isn’t another CMS, it’s been OpenClaw.

Thanks to colleague Batuhan İçöz for helping review this.

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April 9-11, 2026 | Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai, India

WordCamp Asia 2026 brings the WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9 to 11, with a schedule shaped around artificial intelligence, enterprise WordPress, developer workflows, product strategy, and open source collaboration. For attendees planning their time, the program offers a useful view of the ideas, tools, and practical challenges shaping WordPress today.

Get Your Event Pass
WC Asia Schedule
About WordCamp Asia

Keynotes to Set the Stage

The keynote sessions at WordCamp Asia 2026 help frame some of the biggest conversations at this year’s event.

Ma.tt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, is expected to speak about the future of the open web and the ever-evolving role that WordPress plays.
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, will also join a fireside chat moderated by ShilpaV__L^&_X ?@ Shah, focusing on leadership, education initiatives, artificial intelligence, and community growth.

Together, they offer an early view of the themes and discussions unfolding across WordPress in 2026.

AI, Automation, and the Future of WordPress

Artificial intelligence is one of the clearest threads running through the program. Sessions from Fellyph Cintra, Fumiki Takahashi, and Nirav Mehta examine how AI is already influencing WordPress through Core discussions, testing workflows, plugin development, and day-to-day implementation. That same theme continues in sessions on marketing and content strategy, including Adeline Dahal’s work on structuring WordPress content to make it more machine-readable. 

This cross-section of presentations shows how automation is moving from concept to practice. From autonomous testing with WordPress Playground to AI-supported development workflows, these sessions highlight applicable tools and skills that teams can start using right away, not just concepts. For attendees interested in where WordPress is heading, this is one of the strongest themes across the event.

Enterprise WordPress and Scalability

Enterprise sessions take that discussion further by focusing on scale, architecture, and operational complexity. Rahul Bansal, James Giroux, Anirban Mukherji, and Abid Murshed are among the speakers exploring how WordPress supports larger organizations, more complex commerce systems, and demanding digital environments. Their sessions look at growth, implementation, and the kinds of decisions that matter when WordPress is supporting business-critical work.

Other talks in this track focus on the realities of enterprise operations, including migration risk, observability, and long-term performance. Together, they show how WordPress continues to adapt to larger systems and more complex digital ecosystems without losing the flexibility that makes it widely used in the first place.

Developer Experience and Modern Practices

The developer track stays grounded in both Core tools and everyday engineering practice. Ryan Welcher will cover the Interactivity API, Jonathan Desrosiers will look at automation in open source, and Takayuki Miyoshi will introduce a schema-sharing approach to form management. These sessions point to a broader shift toward building WordPress systems that are more dynamic, maintainable, and easier to scale over time.

These more technical presentations also include sessions on the WordPress HTML API, Content Security Policy, open source data pipelines, and evolving plugin standards. Rather than focusing on a single type of builder, this part of the schedule addresses developers working across infrastructure, security, front-end experiences, and long-term platform health.

Community, Education, and Open Source

The schedule also makes space for the people and ideas that support WordPress beyond engineering alone. A panel featuring Anand Upadhyay and Maciej Pilarski, moderated by Destiny Kanno, looks at education initiatives and student pathways into open source. Kazuko Kaneuchi will reflect on the story of Wapuu and the culture of contribution around WordPress. At the same time, Kotaro Kitamura and Chiharu Nagatomi will share how WordPress and its community shaped their professional journeys.

That wider perspective continues in sessions on product thinking, marketing, career growth, and business strategy. Speakers, including Nabin Jaiswal, Himani Kankaria, Julian Song, Karishma Sundaram, Sandeep Kelvadi, Aviral Mittal, Anh Tran, and Anna Hurko, explore how WordPress works and connects with decision-making, discoverability, professional development, and organizational growth. Taken together, these sessions reflect one of WordPress’s long-standing strengths: its ability to connect software, learning, and community in the same space.

Hands-on Workshops

Hands-on workshops round out the schedule, offering practical sessions for attendees who want to move from ideas to implementation. They include:

Explore the full schedule to plan your sessions, and get your event pass to join WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai.

Mumbai is calling. See you at WordCamp Asia 2026!

Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.

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I’m really excited to introduce a project I worked on with various AI agents the other night, which I think represents a new way we might build things in the future.

First, the problem: My WordPress site has 5,600+ posts going back decades, and I had some categories that were old and I didn’t really use anymore, and I wasn’t happy with the structure. Every time I made a new post, it irked me a little, and I had this long-standing itch to go back and clean up all my categories, but I knew it was going to be a slog.

Let me present Taxonomist, a new open-source tool you can run with one copy-and-paste command line that solves this problem. Here’s the idea:

  1. You run this code in your terminal, and it spins up a Claude Code instance that asks you for your URL.
  2. Then it takes that and figures out what type of site you have, which APIs are available, and starts downloading all your posts locally for analysis.
  3. Sub-agents analyze every post against your current categories and thinks about suggesting new ones.
  4. It previews all the changes.
  5. Tries a variety of ways to authenticate against your site and make all the changes.
  6. Logs everything locally, so anything is reversible later.

THIS IS VERY ALPHA. PROBABLY BUGGY. BE CAREFUL WITH IT. PATCHES WELCOME. MAYBE MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SITE BEFORE YOU CHANGE IT.

It kind of just worked. I ran it live against ma.tt and it cleaned up a ton of stuff pretty much exactly how I wanted. But there’s a lot of weird stuff happening here, so I don’t know quite what this is yet.

  1. It’s very non-deterministic! There is some pre-written code, and probably could be more, but a lot of the code is generated on the fly by your agent. This creates interesting bugs where people testing with less powerful models had some odd behavior.
  2. I kind of want a directory of these useful AI agents on WordPress.org, but also, there’s something a little strange about trusting a remote shell script to run on your machine.
  3. I tested this with Claude, but there’s no reason Codex couldn’t use the repo in the exact same way, and I’d love to improve the quick start script to start by detecting all the agents you have, asking which you’d like to use, and also which directory you’d like to work in. I think we could kill the cd taxonomist-main && claude "start" part of it.
  4. Because much of the code and commands are generated on the fly from prompts, it’s very resilient! I’ve seen people try it, and it ran into errors with libraries or whatever, but it just figured out how to work around them.
  5. I’d love it if, at the end of every session, there was a moment for self-reflection where the agent would take the repository and suggest upstream issues and PRs based on anything that went wrong. Then this could recursively self-improve very quickly.
  6. There are some obvious improvements to this, for example, doing this for tags. Sometimes it creates too many categories when you might only want 3-5 for your theme.
  7. One fun thing is a bunch of the work of this just uses public WordPress APIs, so you can run it against any site! I like using distributed.blog as a demo. It’ll still do all the fun downloading and analysis and everything, you just won’t be able to make changes.
  8. I now have a local cache of all my WordPress posts I can do other interesting things with, and that’s cool.
  9. The logging and reverting probably still has some bugs in it.
  10. You can riff with it along the way, so for example, it suggested I get rid of my Audrey category because it didn’t have enough posts, and I asked it to look at all the companies on Audrey.co website and categorize any posts that talk about them as Audrey, which created like 50 more.
  11. I want to check the GitHub repo for any updates before it starts, and maybe periodically, because it’s iterating and improving really fast.
  12. It’s not the default but the entire thing is way more pleasant if you run it with skip-permissions. So testing I usually run the one-liner, exit, resume with skip.
  13. You can see some of my prompt history in the Github but I apologize it’s not comprehensive, I also used Gemini and Codex with this and got lots of value from them.

So, not sure what this is, but please check it out, play with it, submit improvements or ideas, and think about what’s next. Might host a Zoom or something to brainstorm.

The final thing I say is that this was a very different process of writing software for me. Instead of staying at the computer the entire time, I found myself going away for a bit, napping and dreaming about the code, coming back with new ideas and riffing on them. Maybe I’ll return to my Uberman polyphasic sleep days? Nap-driven development?

BTW I have lots of thoughts and feedback for Emdash but I thought this was more interesting, will try to get that out later tonigL^_XQ@_ ?Aht. One preview: TinyMCE is a regression; they should use Gutenberg! We designed it for other CMSes and would be fun to have some common ground to jam on.

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Transcript

[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, WordPress content creation, education, and the unexpected diversion into a pizza plugin.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.

So on the podcast today we have Elliott Richmond. Elliott’s been deep in the WordPress community for over 20 years, developing since the early days, back when WordPress was yet to be forked from b2. He’s freelanced, built with multiple CMS systems, and has contributed creatively to the community, including releasing a WordPress advent calendar way back in 2013.

He is an active WordPress developer, content creator on YouTube, and unexpectedly a part-time pizza vendor running a thriving pizza business powered entirely by WordPress tools.

Many listeners will know Elliott for his technical videos, but today we discuss how WordPress has served as the glue for unexpected ventures, like scaling a local pizza business during lockdown, using WooCommerce, Jetpack, and custom plugins. Elliott’s experience showcases just how flexible WordPress can be, whether for websites, unique ordering systems, or even streamlining business processes for other niches.

Recently, Elliott has been asked by Automattic to create content around wordpress.com, giving him early access to features, and allowing him to share his workflow and insights with a broader audience. He talks about his approach to content creation, balancing scripting versus improvisation, and details his low tech kit from iPhone cameras to DIY lighting.

Throughout the episode, Elliott shares how community connections and feedback loops, especially via YouTube comments, shape his work, and he discusses the new opportunities for content creators within the WordPress ecosystem.

If you’re interested in WordPress beyond websites, curious about how to turn technical, know-how into educational video content, or just want to hear about WordPress powered pizza, and who doesn’t, this episode is for you.

If you’d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

And so without further delay, I bring you Elliott Richmond.

I am joined on the podcast by Elliott Richmond. Hello Elliott.

[00:03:35] Elliott Richmond: Hello. How you doing? Thanks for having me.

[00:03:37] Nathan Wrigley: You’re so welcome. Elliott and I have had a little bit of a chat prior to hitting the record button.

Elliott’s one of those people who has been in my world for many years, because I’ve been vicariously watching what, this is going to sound a rather sinister. I’ve been watching what Elliott’s been doing for several years. And we’ll get into some of that in a moment. It’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast anyway. I feel like I know more about you than you will do about me, that’s for sure anyway. But welcome to the podcast.

[00:04:08] Elliott Richmond: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. I think if you put yourself out there, you are bound to attract stalking of some form.

[00:04:14] Nathan Wrigley: That’s right. Okay. I hope it doesn’t come across as that.

[00:04:18] Elliott Richmond: No, not at all. Not at all.

[00:04:19] Nathan Wrigley: But will you just give us a little bit of your background? Obviously this is a WordPress specific podcast, so you can dip into your early childhood if you like, but maybe if we constrain it to WordPressy things.

How long have you been using WordPress? What do you do at the moment? And then we can get into some of the fun things you’re going to be doing.

[00:04:36] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, sure. So I’ve been using, or developing with, wordPress for over 20 years. So pretty much as old as WordPress is, but I was developing before that, building stuff. I’m self-taught developer, but I was building stuff in the early nineties for bands and stuff that I was in, creating music and just putting stuff out on the web.

But then I realised, when I was working at an agency, it was a design agency, that there was definitely a market for the web effectively, but the company I was working for didn’t really want to get into it. So eventually when I went freelance, I was able to sort of self-teach myself all of the things I was interested in, which was web development. So I used all of the kind of CMSs like Joomla, Drupal, and eventually found b2 which was forked, ended up being WordPress.

So, yeah, started seeing lots of communities popping up, meetups and I just reached out to people. And I’ve actually featured on WP Tavern before because of releasing an advent calendar I think it was, back in 2013, I think it was Christmas time. And it was basically just reaching out to other developers and asking them for code snippets. It was back in the day when WordPress was kind of, it was a blog but developers were using it in really creative ways like portfolios, and product databases where you had to use the category and tagging system to actually make things work, and then manipulate the templates.

So there was lots of code snippets sort of flying about. So yeah, I just reached out to community and got about 30 developers submitting code, and then just released them as advent calendars.

So, today I am still a developer and develop for WordPress, very passionate about WordPress. I’m a content creator, create stuff on YouTube, and I’m also a part-time Pizzaiolo. And if you don’t know what that is, that’s basically somebody who makes pizzas.

[00:06:22] Nathan Wrigley: I can’t ignore that, and we’re going to get into that in a moment. But I’ve been having people on a variety of different podcasts for over a decade now, and you are the first, actually, that’s not true. I was about to say that you are the only person that I’ve ever interviewed who’s actually used b2 prior to it becoming WordPress. You are not, because I interviewed Matt Mullenweg once, and of course he, along with Mike Little, definitely used b2 because they forked it to become WordPress.

But that really does give me an illustration of, you are right at the beginning. So you were one of the kind of founding members of the community, if you like, and goodness only knows, I’m sure you had no anticipation of what it was going to become.

[00:07:02] Elliott Richmond: No, not at all. Yeah, Kubrick.

[00:07:05] Nathan Wrigley: Old school. If you know what Elliott’s talking about, you can join the, what’s the word for somebody who’s been around in the community for a really long time? Well, anyway, one of those.

So tell us a little bit about the pizza thing. I don’t want to dwell on it for too long, if you don’t mind, but this is such an interesting little story. And curiously, it does have a WordPress spin at the end. So yeah, make sure to get that in as well because that’s fascinating.

[00:07:28] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so during COVID, during lockdown, my wife and I just started a pizza delivery thing. Because all the kind of delivery shops were closing down and we have a community in our village and it was like, they’ve tried my pizzas before. So we thought, well, we’ll just roll it out and set it up. And people were saying, yeah, send me a pizza. So we thought, okay, well we can sell them to the rest of the community as well. And it was just going to be a temporary thing. Five years later, we employ five staff and it’s still going strong and we sell it as a licence to other people.

But the WordPress thing is, I mean in a million years I wouldn’t know that I’d be doing this five years later, but it’s all because of WordPress that has allowed me to do this. You know, it uses all WordPress products, it’s WooCommerce, WordPress itself, and some Jetpack stuff with the WooCommerce app. It glues everything together and it helps us to run a sort of micro business like that. And what has turned into a weekend, temporary thing has turned into a full-time business. So, yeah, it’s a, I don’t know if I can tell you any more about it really.

[00:08:28] Nathan Wrigley: Well, you can, you mentioned that you’ve got a plugin that’s coming out fairly soon, aligned with people who wish to replicate your pizza business, but in their own locale.

[00:08:40] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so to just give you the bigger picture, my wife is kind of like a bit of a marketing guru, and she sees opportunities where I can’t see them. She sees all the blind spots. So this whole model can be replicated by anybody. She didn’t force me, I was willing to do it, but she made me film all of my steps to make pizzas. So if you don’t know how to make pizza, there’s a full course to make it. There’s a whole module of the marketing that we use. There’s all secret little tips in there about doing stuff on social media, which I don’t do. My wife does all that.

But I’ve developed a plugin that works with WordPress and WooCommerce and it stitches everything together. So it’s got an ordering system, it’s got a slot system, it’s got a time-based system, so you can only put certain slots within certain times, and then it’s got a radius distance. So if you were outside of that radius based on your postcode, you can’t order pizzas, but you can collect them. And we do get people collecting from miles away that were passing last year, and they’ve driven a hundred miles to come down for the weekend because they’re passing to pick up a pizza. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe it. But I think the furthest somebody’s come is something like 120 miles. It’s crazy.

Yeah, so people have been in touch with me like from, last chap was in Norway asking about his, could he use it for his brother’s bakery? And I said, yeah, absolutely. So anything that’s got like a restricted delivery zone, and maybe you want to just do it at certain times, you can do it. But you don’t even need to use the slot system, but you can set the radius distance. So if you want to do local deliveries, you can set a four mile radius, five mile, ten mile, whatever you want to set. Anything is doable really. Yeah, you can use the plugin.

So that’s kind of like the freemium Pizza Pilot. And then there’s a Pro version that we actually will bundle with our licensees. And we’ve got, it’s not like a franchise, it’s, you know, they buy the whole model once, and then they get the plugin bundled in. And, yeah, I’m just kind of like fine tuning it so that I can manage it. So if pizza does take over my life, I’m still, got my foot in WordPress and developing this product. So I’m happy about that.

[00:10:37] Nathan Wrigley: That’s so interesting that you have WordPress as the sort of fulcrum of this entirely different side of your life, really. And it feels like it’s more than like a hobby project at the moment. It feels like it’s the underpinnings of a lot of what you do, albeit maybe the WordPress community don’t know about it.

But also curious that, and again, I might be reading between the lines, maybe you launch the pizza business and then kind of retrofit your procedures into your own dog fooding plugin, which now you are deciding to sell.

But the fact that the technology stack that you knew inside out was able to facilitate that, you know, and a website can handle things like geolocation, that a website can handle things like payment, and the ability to add ingredients and things like that. All of that enabled you to launch that business, which is just so interesting.

Because most people who use WordPress, I doubt ever have that experience in life. You know, maybe they’re building things for clients, or they try a little hobby project. But you’ve got, I don’t know, it just sort of perfectly slotted in and, well, serendipity seems like the right word. Everything just sort of seems to slot in perfectly, and how wonderful.

[00:11:46] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, I think it all kind of haQ_R6A_ ?Bppened at the same time, because I just mentioned to Rachel about, you know, during lockdown these businesses are shutting down and people are going to pivot. Because I was talking to the WordPress community and they were talking about how their businesses were pivoting, like their restaurants. And I said, I could set this up as a website. So it all came together kind of all at once really.

One thing I’d have to say is that I like doing complex things with WordPress, and I’m really interested in the way that people do stuff with WordPress. So we have somebody that comes to our Meetup that is a gardener, and they come religiously to our Meetup. You’d think, well, why is a gardener coming to the Meetup? Well, it’s because they run their whole invoicing system and business, the gardening business, through WordPress.

So it’s like, oh, that’s interesting. So there’s so many different things you can do with WordPress. So the one thing I’m grateful for is all of my experience that WordPress has given me and the opportunities in terms of my career, being able to sell, you know, development packages to clients, and picking up complex jobs in that sense. Because without, it wouldn’t be the glue for the pizza thing, and it wouldn’t have happened that easily.

[00:12:49] Nathan Wrigley: Right. Genuinely, absolutely fascinating. I think we could probably do the entire podcast about that, but there is another story to tell. As I said, I’ve been looking at Elliott online for quite a while and then, I don’t know when it was, but it was certainly quite recently, we are recording this in March, 2026, quite recently that I learned that you are going to be working with Automattic. I don’t know if it’s for Automattic, but certainly for the wordpress.com side of things. I could spoil what you are doing and misrepresent what it is. Probably best to just hand it over to you, and tell us what this gig is, this project that you’ve got running through 2026.

[00:13:27] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so I have to shout out to Michelle Frechette because she basically reached out to me and suggested an introduction with Stacey Carlson, who is Automattic’s Affiliate and Influencer Director. And she’s obviously picked up some of my videos and she just said to me that, do you fancy us sponsoring a video or two about wordpress.com and how I felt about Automattic products? I said, yeah, why not? I use them all the time, every day. So it’s definitely up my street.

So I put some stuff together and she basically just told me that the Automattic leadership team, which directly is Matt down, were broadly supporting content creators. So yeah, I was on board with it.

And my mind just went on overdrive. Basically, Stacey said to me, would you like to do this thing? And I was like, yeah. She said, okay, well, we’ll have a chat in a couple of days or whatever. And I was like, I put concepts together and I sent about three or four different ideas. And it was like, yeah, okay, let’s do this. And it’s basically how I use WordPress, what I did, the whole pizza thing, what I do from day to day.

And I put these videos together and then it created another opportunity and another introduction to a lady called Brit Solata, who’s head of Influence Marketing. Big inspiration for me is another guy called Jamie Marsland, who’s actually the head of the wordpress.com YouTube channel, because he basically raised his profile by using WordPress and turning hard concepts like using the Block Editor into really easy to understand videos.

And he had the genius idea of creating the speed challenge, which was kind of viral. Again, he lives down the road from me, believe it or not, less than five, six miles away. So there’s a funny story behind that. We’ve known each other for like 15 years, connected through social media and whatever channels there are that we used to use. And we actually met for the first time, face to face, at WordCamp Europe in Greece. And it always tickles me because the first thing he said is like, we’ve known each other for years, but this is the first time we’ve met, and we have to come over the other side of Europe. So it’s not great for our carbon footprint, which always makes me chuckle.

Yeah, he was a great inspiration. And since then we went out for a coffee or two and he inspired me really to start doing my YouTube stuff. And I think that’s really what got me recognised through Michelle, Stacy, and Brit. And then Britt suggested that we do something for the rest of this year. So I’m going to be doing videos about wordpress.com, what’s coming up.

WordPress has always been a moving target. It uses multiple different types of technology, right? So there’s always different things happening and changing. And with the advent of AI, there’s a lot of stuff coming into the whole project. So, yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at.

[00:16:09] Nathan Wrigley: I have a lot of questions around that actually. So the first thing I’m going to ask is, is the intention to make long form content, or are you hoping to make more short form content? And really behind that question is what you just said about the fact that WordPress is in a real period of flux. On the .org side, we’ve got WordPress 7 coming around, which is going to be transformational, but I also feel that any video that gets made to coincide with 7 is quickly going to go out of date because we’re in such a rapid period of flux.

So just conscious about that, really, whether or not the content that you are going to be creating, and forgive me for using this word, is more disposable, if you know what I mean? So the kind of content that you’ll throw together in the anticipation that in 4, 3, 2 months time, you might have to reshoot it again. So, yeah, just wondering what the constraints are on the kind of content that you’re going to be making?

[00:17:01] Elliott Richmond: There aren’t really constraints in that sense, but I think the whole nature of WordPress is ideal for that kind of scenario. So we are going to do long form content and then spinoff of that is going to be the short form as well, because you can just do that with the modern tech that you can use today anyway.

But yes, I think if you’re working in the Core team and you’re doing documentation, and it’s always been a thing, getting documentation out has always been a problematic thing. And if you’re working on something and you’re deep into it, it’s difficult to get that stuff out.

I think over the years it’s got better because you’ve got prominent people in Core, in the team, working at Automattic that are pumping stuff out. Justin Tadlock and the other chaps and Birgit is putting stuff out with Gutenberg Times and things like that. So it has got a lot better, but definitely there is an opportunity for content creators to fill a gap in terms of new things that are coming, what’s going to be changing.

And also the way that people consume that content because YouTube and all the social, other social platforms, not that they’re great, TikToks and all that, but there’s definitely an opportunity for that content to be absorbed by different people. So there’s definitely a gap there for content creators to make people aware about those changes and new developments that are coming to WordPress.

[00:18:22] Nathan Wrigley: I’m in the lucky position in that for this podcast there isn’t really a laundry list of things that I have to cover. It’s very much up to me what I wish to have on the podcast. So you are an example, you know, decided to do this, and here we are doing it.

But I did wonder if you were, you know, you mentioned some names there over at Automattic. I don’t know if there’s going to be some things that they will require you to do because that’s in line with what .com has just released or what have you. Or if you really are, you know, the reins are off, do what you like Elliott and just make sure that you post us and tell us what’s going on.

I’m imagining there will be some sort of guidance and, okay, this thing’s about to launch, it would be really welcome if you produce the piece of content explaining why we’ve done it, and how it works and so on.

[00:19:03] Elliott Richmond: There’s no guardrails in that sense. It feels very fluid and flexible. Yes, there are kind of like things, we’d love you to do this, and I’m more than happy to do that because it’s definitely on my street anyway.

The products that are sort of being talked about are products that I use every day, so it has synergy, you know? It’s not like I’m having to do something that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing. It’s stuff I love doing and I love teaching other people anyway. So in terms of that whole community thing, I think when communities come together, the most I get out of it is actually learning from other people, not just teaching them.

And actually just by teaching somebody, or telling somebody about something, they give you feedback and the feedback loop there is super important, especially for a project like WordPress. Without that feedback loop, potentially, it’s not going to be a thing that anyone will use anyway. So just by doing something with the community or publishing something is useful feedback.

There may be something that is sort of created and developed that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can still put it out there, say whether I like it or don’t like it, and then ask somebody, you know, what’s your feeling? Have you used it? What’s your feedback? Get some comments. That is feedback. And that’s how you improve things.

[00:20:14] Nathan Wrigley: YouTube is a phenomenal feedback loop actually. I mean, I know you’ll probably be getting feedback from within Automttic and what have you as well, but I long for the comments on a WordPress blog to be like the comments on a YouTube video. It seems that everybody’s quite willing to get the keyboard out and hammer out thousands of replies on a YouTube video. It really does capture that.

And so, especially if during the content you provoke the audience to comment, and to give you feedback, because you may well be making another piece of content, which will be guided by the comments and what have you. I think it’s amazing for that. And kind of like pretty, pretty untapped. Usually when you watch content, it is just, okay, I’ve decided what I’m going to do. There it is. It’s an isolated, atomised piece of content. But the idea of going and asking for, what shall I do next? Or something akin to that is really great. And I hope that works out for you. I fully anticipate that it will, because like I said, the comments are usually fairly voluminous.

[00:21:09] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, it’s interesting because some of the comments actually inspire you to create your next piece of content. So it’s always good. Sometimes it is difficult because you can see that it’s negative feedback. But actually I think that negative feedback is a positive thing because you can respond in a positive way. Or you can just take that feedback and then feed it back into the ecosystem and that’s how things get changed. So any negativity is a positivity in my book.

[00:21:35] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, nice. I think you have to armour yourself with things like that when you go on social media and post content, don’t you? Because it doesn’t matter how perfect it is, and how well aligned it is, there’s always somebody lurking somewhere who is willing to derail your day with a comment like that.

Are you going to be doing this then on official, so you’ve made the content, you’ve created the video, and yada yada. We can get into the process of that in a moment. I’d be kind of interested to know what you do. Are you going to be posting this on official WordPress channels, or is this that you are being hired to create the content and then put it out on your own channels? Or is it, does it come with the official stamp of the wordpress.com YouTube channel or something like that?

[00:22:13] Elliott Richmond: No, it’s on my channel for my audience. So I’m free to do whatever I want really. I can do my own stuff but there is a, kind of an agreement we have to meet certain months and content that will be aligned with whatever’s happening at wordpress.com or at Automattic. But yeah, there’s no restriction. It’s kind of on my channel to my audience.

[00:22:33] Nathan Wrigley: Is it very much then going to be YouTube, like screen shares of the kind of things that you’ve been doing with a code editor or in the backend of WordPress, or a plugin that you’ve installed and have played with or what have you? But obviously on the .com side of things as opposed to the .org side of things.

[00:22:47] Elliott Richmond: I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m given kind of a little bit of early access to stuff that, I found it difficult to find it but it is available, you can get to it, but I needed some pointers. But it’s going to be a mix of technical stuff. You’ve seen my stuff, I’d like to get technical content simplified and I use graphics. And, I mean, if I look at my first stuff, it was nowhere near as polished as it is today. but I like to use animation.

There’s difficult concepts to get over, especially with templating and patterns and template parts and things like that. And if you can simplify that to users, to use this stuff with more knowledge. But there’s also stuff about AI that’s, I mean it even confuses me today, like MCPs and, what’s that? And it’s like large language models and things like that.

So there’s complex stuff that I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into because I can try and simplify it. And that’s what I like doing in terms of like graphics and analogies. And hopefully it makes sense to people.

[00:23:46] Nathan Wrigley: So it’s going to be, I guess the one word that maybe I would encapsulate it as is educational. The idea is that you come in, learn a thing, or multiple things, and then go away. It’s not just that, oh look, here’s the latest new feature that’s shipping. It’s more, look, here’s the feature, but also here’s how you get to it and how you navigate it and what it does. And R6_gJ߉B` ?Cif you want to implement it, you must do this, yada, yada, that kind of thing. So educational.

[00:24:12] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. There’s lots of other things happening as well that are specifically for developers and not necessarily for wordpress.com. But yeah, engineering those things and putting those together to make something work in the way that you want it to, there is a technical barrier to that. So if I can simplify that and help others to get up and running, then great.

But there’s things like Xdebug that are not enabled by default in the Studio app that I think are really useful. Now I’ve used Xdebug for debugging my code for many years and I honestly cannot do without it. And I didn’t even know it was there, you know, that’s how hidden it was, until I saw a tweet like the other day, and it was, I think it’s recently been rolled out, but I’m like, I am itching to do a video on that, so that I can just let people know how to use it and what it’s beneficial for.

[00:24:56] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you strike me as the kind of character that’s not going to be short of things to do content about. It’s more, which comes first. And I think that’s such a nice gig for you as well, in that you’re obviously a very curious individual. You know, you’ve been making videos for, this is going to come out the wrong way, but, you know, for no reason, if you know what I mean? You know, there was nobody prodding you with a stick saying, Elliott, we need another video now because you’ve been paid for it.

You were doing it because that’s something that you found enjoyable, and you like the experience of doing all of that. And then somebody comes along and says, you know what? I think we could well do with paying you for this. That must have been kind of, almost manna from heaven in a way.

[00:25:34] Elliott Richmond: Absolutely. I mean, I feel so fortunate. I’m so grateful to Michelle Frechette for reaching out to me and making that contact because, yeah, I mean, it’s right up my street. You’ve seen, I’ve got guitars around the studio and I think it’s like, I’m the sort of person that I think it’s good to learn something new every day, regardless of what it is. And yeah, you have to be intrigued by something.

And particularly with code and technology, it’s changing all the time. You can do things in different ways. Very much the same as just fingering around a fretboard and trying to find that lick, or that nice harmonic tone that you never found before. And you think, ah, I can do this. I’m going to show my bass player that I can do this, or my guitar player, or whatever. You know, it’s a bit like that.

And you get excited about the littlest things that maybe are not so exciting to a lot of people, but they are to me, and that’s why I do it. And if I can just impart that on somebody, that’s a bonus to me. And I do get that feedback on YouTube. So I’m always so grateful when I get positive feedback like that. So, yeah, long may it continue. And I’m not going to stop doing it because I find it fascinating and I really enjoy it.

There are many stages to doing a video. You have to figure out what you’re going to talk about, the script, which I didn’t used to do. It was just kind of like, I know this thing, so I’m just going to jump on. But I now script things, break things down into concepts, and then know when I’m going to do some motion graphics. Then I do the headshots, and then I do the editing.

And when I’m done editing, I’m not done editing in like one day, I just do a couple of hours and I go back into the house and I just tell Rachael, I say, I absolutely love editing. It’s just like, it just really excites me. So it is just these little things. Not necessarily about WordPress, but yeah, figuring out how to get a concept across. And then I’ll sit and I’ll bore the tears off Rachael, try and explain this stuff to her, and she’s just patiently listening to me, you know, so I can get it out of my head.

[00:27:19] Nathan Wrigley: No, I think that’s the most credible way of getting to the perfect simulation of what it is you’re trying to educate people with. Because you trip over yourself, don’t you? And you realise, okay, that second point should have been the third. And the third should have been the second. And there was a better way of explaining that. I think it’s great that you do it that way.

And I’m also, pleased is the wrong word, but I’m curious that you script it as well. Because I know that the temptation is often easy, isn’t it? It’s just, okay, I know this stuff inside out, I’ll just go for it. That extra hour, two hours, three hours, whatever it may be, of disciplining yourself to write it down, I think you go a million more miles with that content. You know, you refine it, you work it through, you cut out the additional words that are not needed, that just sort of demonstrates to me that you are really, really serious about it.

[00:28:06] Elliott Richmond: I say scripted, loosely scripted. It’s scripted not to the absolute T. It’s kind of like flashcard prompts.

[00:28:10] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, no. No, no, no. Sorry. Yeah.

[00:28:13] Elliott Richmond: But there’s the structure, let’s say. And sometimes I do word for word. But if I go off piste, if I’m recording, I’m like, yeah, I’m just going brush over that. It’s not that important. It’s just an um or an ah, or an and and a the that shouldn’t be there, but whatever. I mean, if I watch back some of my stuff, I’m like, oh, did I really say that? I’m my worst critic, I guess.

[00:28:31] Nathan Wrigley: The trick there is never to watch or listen to your own stuff.

[00:28:35] Elliott Richmond: Yeah. Yes.

[00:28:37] Nathan Wrigley: The problem is, if you are self editing, you have to listen to yourself, you know, for every hour that I record, I end up listening to myself for probably about four hours. It is purgatory. For example, the sentence that I’ve just said, I will listen back to and I will be ruing the day that I said it. It’s curious.

Given that it’s on the .com side of things, and if, dear listener, you’re not familiar, we have sort of like this bifurcation, if you like, of WordPress. We have the .org side, which is the way you can go, wordpress.org, and you can download it and put it on a server and put it on your local machine and do what you like with it. And then the .com side, which is where Elliott’s work is going to be mostly living I guess, is the hosted side. So you go and you pay a monthly fee and you have access to WordPress over there, so you don’t have to think about the hosting or anything like that, that’s just taken care of.

Do you get a sense that there’ll be like commercial pressure there? That’s maybe getting to territory that you don’t wish to get into, I don’t know. But will, for example, you have to create content around certain features because it’s shiny and new? So instead of it being educational, it might slip into the more promotional, and I’m doing air quotes as I say that.

[00:29:45] Elliott Richmond: In my experience, little experience working with the guys at the moment, there’s been none of that. It’s literally, you have the free reign, do what you want. There is a benefit of putting a script together in that sense, because you can iron things out if you need to. But in all honesty, of the 10, 15 scripts I’ve already sent through, I’ve only had minimal feedback. They said, great, it looks great. Let’s go with it. And also, if it’s a new shiny thing, show me. I want to know about it. I want to tell others about it as well, you know?

[00:30:11] Nathan Wrigley: Right. So the overlap there is welcome to you, which is quite nice, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s interesting. I would like to mention it anyway.

[00:30:17] Elliott Richmond: There is also another point. I think there’s a misconception between wordpress.com and WordPress, the standalone software. Because effectively it’s the same thing. When you use something like the Studio app, you’ve still got your local files and you can still develop your own stuff. You can get as complex as you want. You are just literally hosting it with the people that make this software. And you then know that you’re going to get the performance, you’re going to get all of the security stuff, you’re going to get all the benefits of hosting with a, on a platform that know the software. So there’s a win-win situation there in my opinion.

[00:30:52] Nathan Wrigley: So you were mentioning earlier, Jamie Marsland, just down the road from you, who’s the head of WordPress YouTube. Obviously kind of a prolific content creator himself, and then got taken on by Automattic to carry on that journey. There’s obviously now you. I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts on how WordPress, and you might read Automattic in here or .com or whatever the right word is. I wonder how you view the seriousness with which they’re taking content creator content.

Because again, if I rewind the clock three or four years ago, it felt that there really wasn’t much coming out that had that kind of official stamp. We were kind of left to our own devices. We were going into Slack and reading comments, or we were going into GitHub queues for plugin developers and things like that.

But it does seem that at some point in the last four or five years, somebody somewhere said, wait, no, video is it. We really have to invest in video. And it feels like you’ve been caught up in that.

There’s no real question there. It’s more just an observation that video content by people who obviously are out in the community doing this with a serious intention. It’s more than just a hobby. It’s something they’ve got a track record of doing seriously. I wonder if you’ve spotted that trend as well.

[00:32:05] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I often look up stuff on YouTube. It used to be Google. How do I, I don’t know, mitre some wood together? You can go to YouTube now and you can find all of this stuff. Or how do you make the perfect naan bread or the perfect pizza, let’s say? So yeah, YouTube is definitely, in the last, I actually don’t think it, it’s always been there, but it’s probably, it’s only become sort of more prominent on my radar, I guess. So if that’s a result of what’s been happening organically, then yeah, I’ve just been sucked into it. But, yeah, I think it’s always been there.

You always get from YouTube content creators about how much more difficult it is, I guess, because there’s more people doing it, so they’ve got less money to give people. But honestly, I’m not in it for the financial reward anyway. I mean, I do get paid ads and stuff, but it’s peanuts every three months, so I’m not in it for that at all.

So yeah, it’s definitely on my radar basically. I mean, in terms of editing and software, I still look up stuff. You know, even whether it’s WordPress or whether it’s command line stuff. Particularly now, if you drop AI into the title, you’re going to get loads of stuff.

[00:33:10] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I mean, more and more if you go and ask a question of Google, you’re going to get the AI answer first, but then you’re just going to get like a big row of YouTube videos. You know, if you ask it a question beginning, how do I, or something along those lines, the AI often comes first.

I’m actually using a different search engine now. I use one called Kagi, which was actually by coincidence developed by the guy who used to run Manage WP, who then sold it and moved on to make this search engine. There’s another success story coming from the WordPress space. But if you ask it a question, you get the AI generated sort of response over three or four lines, and then after that, just a cavalcade of YouTube videos. And it really, I think, has become the default.

What I’m finding interesting about that is, I think that wordpress.com in this case, but you could read Automattic, are kind of putting their money where their mouth is and doing it in an interesting way.

So rather than, let’s say, employing a team of content creators to do this, this, this, this, and this, they’re asking people like you to just get on with it. Just do what you were doing. I think that’s really interesting. And it’s hard to encapsulate what I’m saying there, but there’s a real level of trust. You know that you’ve got to do things, but nobody’s micromanaging you to tell you what to do. It sounds like nobody’s giving you, okay, we want this piece of exact content, and this one and this one and this one. It’s more, Elliott, you’ve got a track record, you’ve proven yourself, now crack on, but we’ll assist from the financial point of view. I think that’s a really nice model of allowing people like you to do what you do, and the trust that you’ve built up is all that was needed to get you started on that journey.

[00:34:47] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, there are kind of, who this is for, what’s good to do, what isn’t great to do. So there is, not guardrails as such, you’re given complete flexibility, but you are given a kind of like a brief, not template, it’s not template, it’s a, what’s this for? What’s the target?

[00:35:03] Nathan Wrigley: Like an avatar kind of, something like that.

[00:35:05] Elliott Richmond: Yeah. Yeah, an avatar. I don’t find that restrictive in any way. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing it.

[00:35:10] Nathan Wrigley: No, that’s really helpful.

[00:35:11] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:12] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. But you’re given a lot of rope. It does sound like you’ve got a lot of leeway to do what you like. I mean, maybe there’s constraints around, yougJ߉`vzUC`` ?D know, let’s not make content about the UI of Wix or Squarespace or anything like that. You know, that’s probably out remit.

[00:35:28] Elliott Richmond: That goes without saying.

[00:35:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, yeah. But certainly from my point of view, doing this podcast, WP Tavern, I can’t really sum it up, but I have that same freedom. I can have who I like on, nobody’s telling me what I can do and when it should be done. It was just a case of, okay Nathan, you’ve done podcasting, we would like you to do this one. And it sounds like a similar kind of offer was made to you, but on the video side. The trust behind that is hard to communicate, but it feels so nice.

[00:35:57] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve always said, because I’ve worked on my own for such a long time, since I was in my twenties, and I won’t tell you how old I am, but it’s been a few decades now, I literally am unemployable. I do work on a remote basis for a company, but it’s on a very minimal tech lead responsibility kind of arrangement. But I could not go into an office. I’m just conditioned not to be, someone breathing down my neck. I’ve just been conditioned to have that freedom and creativity that I love. And definitely without a doubt, I’ve been given this opportunity in the same respect. So I’m absolutely stoked about it.

[00:36:34] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think that’s really lovely. You’ve got that history. And I think we see that in the community a lot. You know, you’ve got a history, and it’s your turn to shine, if you like.

Okay, now the nerdy bit, right at the end. I want to know what your process is. Obviously being a content creator myself, I’ve got a whole load of software that I use and I flit around, but I’ve kind of stabilised on a few key pieces of software, which enabled me to do that journey.

I’m sure that there’s going to be people listening to this who have thought to themselves, I too would like to make videos, and I’m curious, what is your tech stack? I mean, we don’t need to go into absolutely everything, but I’m curious, what are the 3, 4, 5, whatever it may be, essential things that are either on your desk, or on your computer that make the whole thing easy and possible?

[00:37:18] Elliott Richmond: My tech stack is so low key, it’s unbelievable. My lights, if I explain my lights to you, I’ve got basically a cat food pouch box, which is like six inches by four with a hole cut out of it, resting on an LED light with a bit of tissue paper over it. It’s that low key, low tech.

[00:37:34] Nathan Wrigley: So it’s like a small shoebox with a hole cut in with tissue paper diffuse the light.

[00:37:39] Elliott Richmond: Yeah.

[00:37:40] Nathan Wrigley: That’s so great. That’s so cottage industry. I love that. Yeah, because you could of course buy the $150 equivalent, but you know, the cat food box is lying around. That’s brilliant. Oh, I hope this keeps going. I hope you got more of these.

[00:37:55] Elliott Richmond: If I could just turn the camera round. And the other thing is just an iPhone. I just use my iPhone. My iPhone is literally sitting on my computer now. So it’s good enough to do what I need to do with it. At some point it will upgrade, but for anybody who wants to do this out there, you know, you don’t need much kit.

In terms of the software, I just use the Notes app and I just jot down my ideas. I actually use the accessibility keyboard shortcut. So I literally, what I do is tap the key and just speak into my mic about the idea that I want to get across. And then that’s my brain dump. And then I’ll take that, read it back, break it down. It’s all in my own words, I then just get AI to polish it a little bit, so it kind of gives me the bare bones of my script. And then that gets me like 60, 70% there. But it’s literally my brain dump that’s polished, and then I repolish it again. So that’s one key bit of legwork that gets me going quickly.

I’ve picked up a lot of kit over the years from just producing music. I’ve got some NS-10s in front of me, studio monitors, so I can do all my sound balancing and stuff. The other key bit of software is DaVinci Resolve, which is, it’s got all of the motion graphics in it. It is a bit of a head spinner to get into it, but there’s lots of resources out there that can help you get to where you want to be.

There’s lots of stuff out there that you can, like library stuff that you can subscribe to and pull in. But I’m always reluctant to do that because I’m the sort of guy that, I want to, even if it’s code, I want to get into it. I want to understand exactly how it works and do it myself. So working with nodes and animation in that sense has been, it’s been a big learning curve, but I’ve absolutely loved it.

And then just the editing is like DaVinci Resolve. And it has everything in it. I pay a licence for it because I want all the whistles and bells, but you can use the free version and I just cannot believe what you can get away with, with the free version. You get all of the motion graphics, you get all of the audio, you get the colour correction, plus all of the editing suite. It’s incredible.

I’m just looking around to see what other stuff I’ve got, but yeah, that is literally about it.

[00:39:52] Nathan Wrigley: I think you’ve encapsulated perfectly. I mean, really you need a computer with a bit of editing software, and there’s many. Some free, some much more expensive. You can certainly pay a fortune for some editing software. But also camera, a little bit of lighting, I guess a backdrop and a quiet room would help. But that’s kind of really all that it takes. The key bit, of course, the bit that you are not mentioning of course is that script bit. That’s where the magic happens.

And people like you are able to turn difficult things into easy to consume things. For people like me who consume it, it all just looks so straightforward and easy. But I’m well aware that in the background there’s probably quite a lot of soul searching and rehashing and rethinking and you were saying, explaining to your wife and re-explaining to your wife and so on.

And so whilst the software and the iPhone camera and all of that are necessary to make it happen, I think the bit which makes your stuff, and people of your calibre’s stuff, stand out is that bit inside your head. The bit which only you can do in the way that you do it, you know? I’m grateful for all the stuff that you’ve done for many years, and long may it continue. You’re carrying on throughout 2026, I think is how it’s framed at the moment.

[00:41:02] Elliott Richmond: Yep, or up to December at least that’s the arrangement. But I’m also allowed to do whatever, you know, my own stuff as well. So if you spot a video about me making pizza or preparing dough, somehow I can thread WordPress into that, I will. I probably can actually because I’ve got a dough calculator.

[00:41:20] Nathan Wrigley: With your pizza plugin, I’m sure that there’ll be ways of getting those messages across. I think we’ll knock it on the head there, as we say in the UK. Best of luck. I’m sure luck is not the thing that you need, but I hope it goes well, and I hope that you enjoy it and that obviously the crowd of people who come along gain a lot of knowledge from everything that you’ve done.

Just before we go, I think we should probably say where we find you online, where that YouTube channel is, or your website, whichever you prefer. Both if you like.

[00:41:46] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, you’ll find me on YouTube, which is elliottrichmondwp. I do have an Elliott Richmond, which is all of my personal stuff, so don’t get that confused with the WordPress stuff. It’s elliottrichmondwp. And you can find my blogs and my brain dumps on elliottrichmond.co.uk. And that is double L, double T by the way.

[00:42:07] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, as I was typing your name in, subconsciously it always ended up with one T. I don’t know what was going on there. But all the Elliots in my life have got a single T. E-L-L-I-O-T-T, and then Richmond, as you might imagine.

If you go to wptavern.com and you look for the Elliott Richmond episode using the search functionality, then you’ll get that episode, I’m sure. And all of the links for anything that we have mentioned, so the YouTube channel and the website, what have you, that will all be in there, one click. Along with a transcript of everything that we’ve talked about as well. So Elliott Richmond, thank you. Good luck with 2026 and thanks for coming on the podcast.

[00:42:46] Elliott Richmond: You’re welcome and thank you so much for having me.

[00:42:48] Nathan Wrigley: You’re very welcome.

On the podcast today we have Elliott Richmond.

Elliott’s been deep in the WordPress community for over twenty years, developing since the early days, back when WordPress was yet to be forked from b2. He’s freelanced, built with multiple CMS systems, and has contributed creatively to the community, including releasing a WordPress advent calendar way back in 2013. He’s an active WordPress developer, content creator on YouTube, and, unexpectedly, a part-time pizza vendor, running a thriving pizza business powered entirely by WordPress tools.

Many listeners will know Elliott for his technical videos, but today we discuss how WordPress has served as the glue for unexpected ventures, like scaling a local pizza business during lockdown using WooCommerce, Jetpack, and custom plugins. Elliott’s experience showcases just how flexible WordPress can be, whether for websites, unique ordering systems, or even streamlining business processes for other niches.

Recently, Elliott has been asked by Automattic to create educational content around WordPress.com, giving him early access to features and allowing him to share his workflow and insights with a broader audience. He talks about his approach to content creation, balancing scripting versus improvisation, and details his low-tech kit, from iPhone cameras to DIY lighting.

Throughout the episode, Elliott shares how community connections and feedback loops, especially via YouTube comments, shape his work, and he discusses the new opportunities for content creators within the WordPress ecosystem.

If you’re interested in WordPress beyond websites, curious about how to turn technical know-how into educational video content, or just want to hear about WordPress-powered pizza (and who doesn’t), this episode is for you.

Useful links

Elliott featured in WP Tavern before: 24 WordPress Snippets ’til Christmas, Submissions Open for 2019

 Jamie Marsland on YouTube

 Gutenberg Times

 Xdebug

Kagi Search Engine

 DaVinci Resolve

Elliott’s YouTube channel

Elliott’s website

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Since he spoke to Dean Baquet in 2017, JAŸ-Z hasn’t done an interview. Hov’s back! He sat down with GQ, and it’s a lovely listen and read.

We played enough defense, 2026 is all about offense.

Your morality defines who you are, not what you’ve attained.

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In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack welcomes Beth Soderberg to discuss key updates in WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8. They kick off with small talk about shifting seasons in Munich and Virginia before diving into the new content guidelines in Gutenberg 22.7, focused on standardizing editorial voice across AI and human content contributors. Both speakers express healthy skepticism about AI-generated content, stressing that while AI assists with research and “grunt work” like alt text or excerpts, the core value in writing remains human expertise and review. They caution about automation pitfalls and emphasize validating all AI outputs.

The discussion shifts to the new WordPress AI connectors, which let users connect to services like OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic Claude, and others—including local providers such as Olama and European alternatives like Mistral. Birgit Pauli-Haack explains the evolving infrastructure allowing developers to add and switch connectors with ease, and encourages the community to experiment and test.

A central topic is the release of WordPress 7.0, with a highlight on the increased minimum PHP requirement to 7.4, likely to disrupt agencies with older sites. The admin’s new look-and-feel is poised to confuse some clients, demanding extra support from agencies. Beth Soderberg also celebrates practical improvements: cover block video embeds using external sources, block visibility by screen size, pattern overrides, breadcrumbs block, and streamlined font management. Both speakers note the importance of hidden, friction-reducing features and the advancement of developer-facing infrastructure. The episode closes with a preview of ongoing enhancements in Gutenberg 22.8 and beyond.

Show Notes / Transcript

Show Notes

Special Guest: Beth Soderberg

AI in WordPress

WordPress Core and Gutenberg

Dev Notes

Stay in Touch

Transcript

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Welcome to our 129th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today’s episode we will talk about WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8. I’m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator of the Gutenberg Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project sponsored by Automattic. With me today, and I’m really happy about that, is again Beth Soderberg, founder and CEO of Bethink Studio, a full-service boutique agency and of web experts to tackle any project. Beth has been a longtime WordPress theme builder and WordCamp speaker. She’s also been an early adopter of the blog editor and block themes. Beth, how are you today? Welcome to the show.

Beth Soderberg: I am well. How are you today? Thank you for having me.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I’m good, I’m good. We have winter in Munich again. It was spring and now it’s back to winter. So I’m happy to get out of the town for WordCamp Asia next week. So yes, I’m rJ]<`.E`, ?Feally happy about that.

Beth Soderberg: We’ve been switching from winter to spring every day here. Every day in Virginia. Yep. It’s different every day.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So what’s the weather doing? Well, I don’t know.

Beth Soderberg: No, I’ve had to look every morning because it’s in the last week I’ve been outside in a winter coat and a tank top and rain boots and you just don’t know. You wake up and it’s a surprise.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, it’s the beauty of surprises. But who likes surprises? I want my spring be steady.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I agree.

Announcements

Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, so under the announcements we have one thing that’s that content guidelines landed in Gutenberg 22.7. We didn’t really talk about it with Maggie Cabrera at the last episode, but the WordPress AI team has launched guidelines. They are live experiments in the Gutenberg 22.7 or Gutenberg plugin and this project creates a single source of truth for site standards and ensures that everyone, humans and AI tools, follow the same editorial voice and content rules. By providing this infrastructure layer, WordPress can finally maintain a consistency across content contributors. So that’s so far from the experiment post that I’m definitely going to share in the show notes. When you want to use AI for helping you produce content, you definitely want to store some of the standards somewhere. And the experiment lets you do this on your website in your interface with a nice interface for that. I don’t know how I feel about this because I have been using AI quite a bit in the last two years and some of it was for content creation ideas. But the writing is still kind of mostly a human factor. But it helps me for research and it helps me for learning. So I’m not quite sure how that translates to a WordPress site, but I guess if you have ongoing content reproduction that is more service oriented, then you might want to use the help of LLMs or something like that. What do you think?

Beth Soderberg: I’m skeptical for the same reasons. I think that I have had clients ask for something like this. But the more those clients have actually used AI to create content, the more those very same people who had announced that they were going to create all of their content through AI decide that they are going to use AI for research and then create their content. So the AI in actual practical use has been more about reducing friction in that discovery research phase of writing and less about creating the writing itself until you get to the editing part when it becomes helpful again for grammar. But that actual connecting ideas and proving expertise piece is where AI can’t do it. And you need something, somebody who actually understands what they’re reading to piece together the logic of it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I can also see, and we will see this in that you use AI to write an excerpt or to give you suggestions for titles or make sure that there’s an alt text on the image. I think these grunt work tasks kind of thing of AI is really helpful, but I think the human ideas are still. Well, humans hallucinate so much better than AI can ever can. Right.

Beth Soderberg: How can we possibly replicate that? And I think there’s also a place for it with things like you mentioned the alt text. Right. Having it generate them all and then validating that it did it correctly is much faster than writing it all yourself. That is where we’re going to see these things actually become practical. Right. There’s a lot of big ideas about it, which makes sense when you’re dealing with a new technology and an innovation in a major workflow. But in actuality, I think that’s more how people are going to use it. And I think if people set it up to automate everything and then never look at it, never validate it, that’s people are just going to get in trouble over that.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And I, you know, I use it a lot to generate fake content so that I can show someone what something will look like knowing that the content I’m showing them is not real. Right. But when you’re dealing with real content, the biggest mistake I’ve seen over and over again, and humans will learn because we always eventually do. But the mistake is not reviewing what AI has done.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It’s not a replacement. It’s a tool that you need to validate like any other tool you have to do. I can see that if you have a longer text like for 4,000 words or something like that, you could actually use AI to identify the gaps. If a reader goes through it and say, okay, there is a gap because it didn’t explain why something happens. I think those tips are really helpful, especially when you have longer text or you want to focus on one problem and just kind of figure out what’s in scope and out scope. But I think that’s more like an advisory kind of thing and not a doer.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, validating. Because sometimes I love Grammarly Pro. Grammarly the free version is very annoying, but if you pay it becomes a really useful tool. But even then, the content suggestions it makes, sometimes they tighten up your language and they make it. They add the commas, which is the thing that I don’t do naturally on my own apparently. But sometimes they change the meaning completely.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s when you’re like, nope, thanks for the suggestion. That’s a no.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah.

Beth Soderberg: I think how this type of thing used well, will make people more efficient. But I also can see it creating a mountain of work for somebody who doesn’t actually need to go through all of these ridiculous suggestions about it. And I think that deciding when to use it, when it makes sense, those strategic decisions about how to use it are going to be what makes it either something that really helps somebody in their publishing workflow or really hinders somebody else.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, if you’re a single blog blogger having a little editor go through that and give you some tips that might not be a bad idea, but sometimes. But right. If you have been blogging for many, many years, you don’t need things like that. It changes your voice and it changes the outlook. That’s what the guidelines are actually for that you can create some of the guidelines as it meant to be to help AI to streamline some of that stuff and also to know about what you want to do. And that certainly helps.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, yeah.

Community Contributions

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Speaking of AI, what I found in so in 7.0 WordPress. So getting closer to that release, there is now a new connectors page that you could connect to an OpenAI to Google Gemini or to Anthropic Cloud from your site. And if you have certain tools that help you with those connections. So there are AI providers for other AI systems like I just discovered three of them. One is the AI provider for Open router or router depending on which English speaking country you go to. It’s a little bit different. So open, I say Router is a service that lets developers use many different AI models like those from Google OpenAI but also others through one simple connection. And the provider was developed by Jonathan Bossenger who is on the AI team and talks about AI on the developer blog. There’s also an AI provider for Ollama, and Ollama is a local system where you can connect local LLMs so you can download an LLM set and Ollama helps you connect that with the task that you want to do. The benefit of Ollama is that it’s on your server and it doesn’t go out to the third-party services, but you still need a provider and connector to it. You can do this on any VPS connection or virtual private server system because you have room and space there to download and add certain things. But it’s definitely important for companies that want to not get data outside of their system.

And the last one is for Europeans. The AI provider for Mistral. Mistral AI is a French AI company founded in 2023 by a former Google DeepMind and Meta researchers and they built and publish large language model and be a respected independent AI in Europe. Speaking of this, what that all comes together is that the AI team and with that Lauri Saarni published a call for testing for community AI connector plugins. There are certain links to the plugins and the connectors, so it would be really cool if you’re interested in that part of it, to actually go ahead and test things and report back what you find and what you didn’t find and how it all works for your site. It’s a totally different approach for working with the site using AI as we discussed. But it might be pretty interesting for developers to connect with all those AI providers and provide services in a plugin or something like that.

And if you are not a developer, you can install the AI Experiments plugin that also comes from the core AI team and it will show up on the Connectors page with a link to the plugin and what you can do with it. And it has these things like create an excerpt or check the alt text or create a featured image just so you can kind of get a feel for these kinds of works on the WebPress site. Do you have, do you think you have a need for. To kind of use some of the providers for your agency or for some clients?

Beth Soderberg: I think for some clients it has started. I think that for the agency itself, not yet. We have started to do more writing publicly, but really what we’re doing is turning internal communications to clients into public facing documentation so that we can point to them more easily. So it’s not something we need help with. In the same way, I think for some clients we have started to integrate things like this in an experimental way. Right. And there are, as with anything that’s new, people don’t know how to use these things yet. And I am not against experimenting with a new thing. I love the new stuff, but at the same time I’m cautious about putting new things into a production environment without really making sure that it makes sense. Some of these, in terms of experimentation, like I will install them and actually Grammarly is a great example. It took me several years to decide that I was fine with it because I tried it and it was annoying. And then a few years later I tried it again and it was still annoying. And then one day I realized that it really was like their premium suggestions really were fixing my comma issue, which is a known issue I have with writing and grammar. I just don’t put commas anywhere.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I put them in randomly and so there’s a few commas.

Beth Soderberg: But you know, I experimented with the tool probably three times before I was like, you know what, let me try the premium version and see how that goes. And I tried it and a few days later I was like, yeah, this is actually making my writing better. But it was one of those, like I was monitoring over time if it really made sense with my workflow.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. And that’s how I approach it too.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s how I felt about these. And I think what’s exciting about it is that the infrastructure to do it is becoming more full fledged. But that does not mean people know how to do it yet.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: And so that’s the next step is that experimentation phase collectively of how, what. How can we make these tools that we’ve now created function in the best way.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I really appreciate that the WordPress core developers think about the plumbing of all these services and putting it all the foundation in to open up that total space for freedom for the developers. And there’s a standard there on how to approach certain. So if you are as a site owner, don’t have a plugin that kind of taps into LMMs and you open up Gemini for it, you couldn’t switch just easily to Claude when you think that’s a better fit for that problem, but the plugin will still work. So that’s actually what this whole connector thing is about. And it just came up as for the AI providers, but actually the connector API is for any external service standard. So a standard for any external service. So if you need the OpenStreetMap on your site and you have an API key, the plugin can actually use the connectors API to monitor those API keys and just put it in there. The plugin doesn’t have to come up with its own interface for that, which a lot of plugin developers did for the last 15 years. Yeah. But now they can could actually throw away that piece of the plugin and just tab into the connectors API and don’t have to maintain that piece of the code.

What’s Released – WordPress 7.0 RC2

But anyway, so that’s kind of the bigger picture behind it. And that’s all coming with WordPress 7.0, which we are now getting to the more practical stuff of WordPress 7.0. So first of all, the WordPress 7.0 release candidate 2 has been published this week. It’s crunch time. The final release is only two weeks away. So if you haven’t tested it, now is really the time to get in there and figure out if your theme plugins and sites actually still work with 7.0, and the developer notes are published. The field guide is in the works and I will continue the list of dev notes in the show Notes like we did the last two episodes. I also know because I have been working on it. The Gutenberg Times Source of Truth is almost done and will be published before this episode actually hits your favorite podcast app. So you get an additional link there. So, Beth, did you get a chance to look over the WordPress 7.0 features? What are the most important ones for you and your fellow agency owners and developers? Is there anything that you are really excited about?

Beth Soderberg: Yes and yes. So the first thing that I think is going to be honestly hugely problematic for a lot of agencies is the change in PHP minimums, because I think that there are. I know that there are a lot of folks sitting on older sites, older themes, maybe they’re stuck at PHP 7.1 and there are old things out there. And I think that this PHP requirement jump is going to catch some people off guard. So it jumps from it’s we’re now requiring 7.4.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And if you do, it’s already 6.9.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right?

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. But I think this is going to hit harder. Okay. Because people are going to want the new stuff. Like there’s a lot in here that is really great and I’m starting with the thing that I think is going to be most disruptive because I think that people are going to want the other stuff, right? And so I think that that’s going to catch some people off guard. The other thing that I think is going to be really important is the new admin look and feel because people have been training their clients for many, many, many, many, many years with what it looks like now. And there is a client education need here because when the admin changes, even in minor ways, you get clients that come back and say, what happened? I don’t know how to do it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Okay, Even if nothing changes except the color, right?

Beth Soderberg: Where did it go? Why is this different? And did I do something? Did I write the, that human element of like, hey, you’re okay, it’s gonna look a little different, but I promise you’re gonna be able to do it. Just holler if you have any questions. Right? Because I think that there’s a lot of at least working with long term clients where you become sort of an advisor on the technology rather than a day to day implementer. And for those folks with something like this, I, what I like to do is say, hey, heads up, we are doing, we never do the major core updates right away. I am a let me see how it goes for everyone else.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: Type and then if it seems okay, then I’ll go for it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So you’re one of the ones who wait for 7.0.1.

Beth Soderberg: Absolutely. Unless it’s been like three weeks and there isn’t one. Yeah, right. So I either wait for a period of time or I wait for a point release. And if there’s a point release, I wait at least 24 hours to make sure there’s not another point release. But point being though, that this is a big enough shift in terms of what people will see and what people can do.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which part of the admin is actually the one that will disrupt people’s minds.

Beth Soderberg: Just I think it looking different at all.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, okay. So we should never change that. Is that what you’re kind of thinking?

Beth Soderberg: No, we should absolutely change it. But because we have not changed it for many, many, many years, it will be a surprise. And I think that it’s easy as folks who are in these systems every day to be like, wow, they finally fixed that. That’s great. That might be my reaction to many of these changes. Right. But I also know when I log in to pay my credit card. And they’ve changed it all. And even though the buttons are the same, it looks different. I don’t have as much confidence about clicking the button. And there’s this. The vast majority of people who are maintaining the contents on these sites day to day are marketing people, communications people, regular everyday writing people. And they are not sitting there thinking about how the structure of the software works all the time the way we do.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. But they still get their work done.

Beth Soderberg: They still get their work done. What I like to do with clients is just reduce friction by increasing confidence.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Right. And so, like, my message to them is going to be, hey, you need to know that this is going to look different, but your workflow in terms of the things you know how to do is the same. Don’t let it freak you out. You’ve got this. Keep going. Right. But like, just that little bit, because that’s. That is 100% what gets people. It’s the smallest stuff. They just need to know, like, hey, the problem’s not me. Oh, wait, there’s not a problem. It’s fine. And then they’re good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. It’s the first five seconds. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: It’s that psychological adjustment. And I think because it hasn’t changed for so long that it’s just going to be something that I mentioned.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Is there anything else that you are really excited about or is it just.

Beth Soderberg: I know. Okay.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Things change. Okay. I don’t like it to change.

Beth Soderberg: Things change. I’m really, really excited about the cover block video embeds.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: That is really, really going to reduce the size of things as they load for a lot of websites. And that is fabulous. In addition to improving workflow, all of the things around block visibility by screen size make me really happy. I’m really happy about the changes in the header block. And I’ve been building this into themes for years. And the only thing that makes me nervous about it is that I need to go back and see how it impacts the things I’ve already built that replicate this feature.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: But you mean the navigation overlays?

Beth Soderberg: The navigation overlays. Yeah. Because you’re going to have such increases in both accessibility compliance and SEO optimization just by virtue of having the option to manage your headings visually versus syntactically. So I’m very excited about that. I love that our revisions menu now has visual changes.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Because I know that most people looking at the markup that’s been in there lately are like, I don’t know.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I have to squint so much to look through the code to find things. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And then there’s a few exciting changes to the navigation and the better workflows for pattern overrides. Yeah, it was there before, but it was one of those mystery off menu features if it was there, if you knew how to find it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. Right.

Beth Soderberg: So those are the things I’m most excited about. I think there’s some other cool stuff in there and I am excited about the general infrastructure that we were just referencing that is being solidified with this release. And I think that piece may not be as exciting on the outset because it’s infrastructure. It’s like nonprofits have a hard time funding infrastructure process projects. It’s the same reason. But it lays the groundwork for a whole new level of experimentation. I’m excited to see where that goes and I recognize I think you said it very well a few minutes ago the thoughtfulness to create an extensible infrastructure that has gone into these features in the roadmap and sort of planning moving forward.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: You mentioned the cover block video embeds. That means that you can have a video just to catch up with our listeners. It’s to use a URL to YouTube or to Vimeo and pull that in into a cover block instead of uploading the video to the website because that reduces the cost of hosting and bandwidth for the website. Definitely. And it also you don’t have to maintain the speed and all that on your own server. So it’s always good to offset that into a different service. How are you feeling about the manage the fonts from the appearance menu directly instead of hunting it down under the fonts typography menu on the slobber styles,

Beth Soderberg: I’m feeling really good about that. It remains to be seen for me the biggest issue I have with font management. I am not sure it might be addressed here, but I need to experiment. When you get a font from a total third party non-standard like independent type foundry place getting those integrated, there has still been some friction. So I’m excited about it being easier to find in general. I think that’s great. .

I will be experimenting a little bit with if it reduces friction in some of these more edge cases. Because if you’re using a Google font it’s great and it’s been pretty good for a while. But if you are integrating something from another provider, if it’s a big provider the friction is not as bad. But if it’s like this obscure type foundry that makes like only these little types of historic fonts, which I run into recently, getting it actually integrated properly, it’s really hard because you’re dealing with not the most sophisticated type foundry in terms of the format of their files and they’re not necessarily plugging in as best as the totally optimized stuff from the more common sources. So, yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Is it more a format issue or is it more kind of how it scales in different font sizes and different typography features?

Beth Soderberg: It’s a format issue with the font files themselves. And so I think some of it is probably an education piece for people who make fonts, but I also know that most developers don’t know that much about how fonts are made. And so when you put those two things together, you create some problems. But I think this is a huge step towards getting to the point of being able to solve the edge cases. Right. Because right now finding where you manage the fonts is difficult.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: We’re going in a great direction, getting into the nitty gritty of which font providers are supported and that I think that’s the next step from here, personally, because I do think there’s a homogeny that started from a type standpoint around everyone’s using Google fonts because they. It’s easy.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. But it’s also problematic for European sites.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right, yeah. Because the different requirements over whether you’re hosting the font files or Google is hosting the font files, like, then you’re getting all into all of these legal technicalities of where the font is and who owns it. And I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, me too. So, all right, so there are a few developer goodies coming, so to speak, down the pipeline. The PHP-only block registrations and then the pattern overrides for custom blocks that you already mentioned. Those. I think there are a few smaller stuff like the HTML block enhancements where you can put the CSS separately from the JavaScript and the HTML. You could actually kind of create your own little app there, depending on what privileges you have. I found that there are some problems when you don’t have admin privileges. The HTML block really gets scrambled, but that’s an overall kind of problem with the capabilities, I think. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Oh, I forgot the breadcrumbs block. That. That’ll help a lot of things.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So. Yeah, yeah. I’m also sure that a lot of agencies and site owners already had that problem solved through like for instance, the Yoast SEO plugin had already programs for many, many years. Yeah, yeah.

Beth Soderberg: But I like my websites to be as lean and efficient as possible. And this feels like when, for a long time I was using Coblox for accordions. Right. And in the beginning, coblox had a lot of things that Core didn’t. And so you were using a bunch of things. And eventually it became that I was only using the accordion everywhere. And then one day it became possible to do the equivalent in Core and I was like, great, I can get rid of this plugin that’s only doing this one thing, but has all this other stuff. And I think that’s what makes me excited about this. Yeah. You can do it through Yoast. There’s a number of ways to do it. There’s some independent breadcrumbs block plugins that are really good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I know that Justin Tadlock had a very good breadcrumbs plugin and he was advising on the core implementation there.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right. Yeah. And I’ve used Justin Tadlock’s breadcrumbs plugin for a long time, and I’m not going to rip it out of something just because it’s there. It works. It’s good. But for something else where, like, you only have this one thing that you’re really using in this big suite of plugins. Yoast is one of them. Jetpack is one of them. Any sort of like cadence blocks, code blocks, any collection of a large number of things when you’re only using one of them, you should be considering the idea that maybe you shouldn’t use it at all. And that’s what makes me excited about the ability to do this through Core, because it allows for some of that extra bloat to be stripped away in some circumstances.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. All right. Anything else that you want to kind of cover on 7.0 for your agency of developing theme building needs?

Beth Soderberg: I think that the PHP-only block registration, we sort of glanced over it, but I think that’s a very exciting big deal. It opens up, you know, the whole challenge. I think from a developer standpoint, the whole time with Gutenberg has been, how do I level up to do this new thing? How do I level up to do this new thing? And this opens that door wider. And anything that we are doing to open that door wider is great. Similarly, there’s a few things in here that are just really tiny that I think will help people. They’re not like, again, reducing friction. So little enhancements to the query loop, adding some new navigation stuff that is just really tiny, but really Helpful dimension support for width and height. That sounds crazy, right? Like it’s little tiny stuff that reduces friction and stuff. So there’s more of that in here. Like the concept of the grid block being responsive is really great.

Bsa'C GaiZ ?Hirgit Pauli-Haack: Well, it was responsive before, but there was a setting where it wasn’t and that’s kind of changed now, right? Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: So, yeah, I just. There’s a lot of hidden goodies in here that reduce friction. I do think the biggest things to look out for are if your themes are compatible, if your plugins are compatible, and if you have built in things that replicate some of this functionality. How does that work? Because we’re starting to enter, at least for how I’ve been building themes, a zone where things I have done historically to account for some of these needs are being subsumed by core, which is great. I just don’t know how it’s going to work. So, you know, I think that’s going to be different for everyone in terms of which things it is. But hopefully, and I say hopefully because I know that we have a unified development philosophy about how we build our themes and there’s sort of a continuous logical thread for our themes as they’re built over time. Hopefully agencies who have an internal logic to how they have been building themes can look at this list and say we should look at how we do that and make sure it still works. Yeah, right. Because there’s also going to be agencies where they have a mishmash of things and they don’t know and it’s going to be a one off for each site to see what happens. And you know, that goes for anybody who’s inherited themes too.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, but that’s also for any of the WordPress releases. Yeah, you have to go through a certain testing phase there.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I think that’s true. And I think some of this is honestly that it’s been a while since we’ve had a major release and so the quantity of little things feels more.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, absolutely.

Beth Soderberg: And I think that’s part of why my reaction is this way, because I haven’t had this thought process.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: At least five months.

Beth Soderberg: At least.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, six months. Nine came out December 2nd.

Beth Soderberg: Right. And so as somebody who was used to the four times a year cadence, it is longer and what’s packed into it is greater. And so I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, but it is an adjustment in terms of absolutely how you review things and what you’re looking for. And it’s more of a. This one feels more like a surprise. Not that it is a surprise, but it feels more like a surprise because it is not on this schedule that I had come to expect. Right. And I think we’re getting towards a new schedule, which is really great. But until we are all psychologically adjusted to whatever that new schedule is, it’s going to be a slightly bigger task to review because there’s more. And psychologically it’s going to be like, oh, right, I guess that’s happening and you’re, you know, you got to go do it. Yeah. So I just think it’s just. There’s a little more and the timing is not as predictable.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And I think that the break that was in Twenty Twenty-Five kind of skewed that anyway. Yeah. So we had an April 25, we had a release, and then the last. The next one wasn’t until December. Yeah. So there were eight months that kind of 15 Gutenberg plugin releases. It didn’t feel that much that it is now in 7.0, because that was just kind of coming up out of that pause. And now there’s a real excitement about the Real Time collaboration. There’s excitement about AI. Yeah. So, yeah, it feels that there are quite a few heavy new features in there that also kind of drown out some of the really quality of life things that we have been waiting for quite a bit here.

Beth Soderberg: Right. Yeah. And I. I think it’s like coming back from a long vacation, like, oh, ooh, this is really exciting, you know, but that’s how. That’s how it feels and it’s good. But it is, absolutely. I think that Twenty Twenty-Five, you didn’t have to be as vigilant because it wasn’t happening.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yep, it was a good break.

Beth Soderberg: I think everyone needed it. Honestly, I think everyone really needed it. I know I needed it. But it is, you know, getting back into the. The groove of things is. Is where we are now.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: For which I am thankful, but it’s still an adjustment.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Me too. Yeah. And now with 7.0 kind of out the door almost. Yeah.

Gutenberg 22.8

We are looking at Gutenberg 22.8 that has been released. Was released this week also kind of what comes into 7.1. It’s already starting and people are discussing things. So although there were quite a few PRs that were either all part of the new WordPress UI package that hasn’t been merged into Core yet, or it’s bug fixes for the connectors or the Real time collaboration for 7.0, so some of the PRs are actually backported to the release candidates and the beta to the release candidates.

But let’s talk about some of the things that will not be in 7.0, but definitely in 7.1 and what’s new in the Gutenberg plugin. So the first thing is the navigation support for the current menu item. So in theme JSON, meaning when you have a navigation and you’re on a current page that’s part of the navigation, how do you signal that you are at the current page right now in the navigation? And that has been missing for quite a while or people have just did some CSS workaround of that, but now you can actually style that in theme JSON. And so this is cool. What’s also cool is that there is an interface for the states like Hover Focus current. I’m not sure if that’s going to be in there, but it’s also part of making the navigation and the hover states and the pseudo support that comes into 7.0, but now it comes also to the interface. So that’s pretty cool.

Beth Soderberg: That’s my favorite part.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which one?

Beth Soderberg: The navigation stuff again. The interface around the navigation has gotten a lot better in various iterations of Gutenberg, but there’s still some stuff that you’d think you would be able to do that you can’t. And that’s what some of this is filling in.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: There have been some great work. Some of it gets into 7.0 and some of it is still ongoing. So I really like the navigation that’s actually in 7.0, that you can create pages and publish them and have them in the navigation in one workflow kind of thing. You don’t have to get out of it. You may have to think about it. You just kind of create the page and then you fill it in with content later.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. And I’ve seen that in other systems. I don’t remember what that is. One of those things where some of these changes, you’re like, you know, I saw that once somewhere. Was it Joomla? Was it Drupal? Was it whatever? I don’t know. But I liked it. And now it’s here. And that’s good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Absolutely.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s how I feel about that because I do appreciate the tiny little decisions that are being considered here by the core team because it seems very small. But the amount of friction you’re reducing and the amount of time you’re saving for people is huge.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s huge. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s millions of millions of site owners that kind of have advantage. Yeah. Do you want to take the next

Beth Soderberg: thing, the tabs menu. So I think this is going to be fun too. So basically we’ve got a refactor of the tabs menu block. So it’s basically making this more efficient and making some templating changes to how the tabs block works. And if you look at the actual PR for it, there’s really good, very detailed descriptions of how. So it’s making it very clear of it’s no longer using the template block duplicated in PHP and instead it’s rendering with per tab context.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s like all gobbledygook to some listeners. Maybe, but like really what it’s doing is making it more efficient and making it more extensible from a code perspective.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: And also for theme developers.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right. And making it more possible again, opening that door a little wider for more people to be able to work within the code infrastructure. Because that has been the thing that’s been the biggest challenge in terms of developer adoption of Gutenberg.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And the refactor was also necessary to bring it in line with the approach for the accordion block so that certain methods and certain functions can be replicated in a similar way for the TAPS block. I was actually sad to hear that very early that it won’t make it into 7.0, but I think that was one of the reasons where they said, okay, let’s, let’s see if we can kind of align it a little bit more with the accordion block. And it’s no surprise that Sarah Norris, who has been a guest here at the Changelog quite a bit, she also created the accordion block and she has been now instrumental on the restructure of the tabs menu and inner blocks to get it in line and we have make it more streamlined for developers and theme builders.

Beth Soderberg: The one thing to add that is an exciting piece for especially theme developers is the addition of anchor support for the tabs. So that’ll help a lot in terms of things like navigation structures and feasibility. Yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: And also to kind of interlink different pages. You can link to some of the tabs if it’s interesting enough. Yeah. So I know that WooCommerce is using that for their products template. So they have built their own one back then and now they get a little bit closer to core, which makes it more extensible and also appreciative they don’t have to maintain the code for it.

Beth Soderberg: Yep, absolutely.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which is quite a bit. So right now I’m fishing around on my computer to find my notes again. So here we are. All right,

Beth Soderberg: the next one, the showing one’s own presence and collaborative editing sessions is I think existentially important and just is really going to help this UI experience from the baseline that’s being released in 7.0.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So yeah, I’m pretty sure that it will actually come to 7.0. That made it into the release. That’s good. So the next piece is the one that you can have the site logo and icon screen in the design panel. So in the site editor there’s another menu item now to update the site logo and the icon screen directly from the site editor. So you don’t have to go out into the settings page and upload everything that you need or into the site logo block or header. You can do it right there from, from the menu. So it’s really an interesting update to change the site logo and the site icon directly in the design site editor.

Beth Soderberg: It’s reducing friction. I think that there’s a workflow confusion. There’s the customizer that has become this vestigial organ that sometimes you need, sometimes you don’t need. Where’s this? Wait a minute, where do I add css? Is it over here? Is it over here? Is it over here? Could it be here? And I think that we’re pruning what we need to do through alternate interfaces through changes like this. And the more we can streamline, the better because the biggest confusion I’ve seen is actually with brand new or like more junior developers who do not know the quote old way. And so the idea that it’s even there, like they’ll get stuck because they can’t figure out where it could possibly be coming from. And then some old timer is like, oh, it’s over here in this menu that you can’t see anymore.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Or yeah. So the site icon at the site logo has been a hidden place and only until now it’s kind of coming into the forefront. Yes. So the next thing is another one for the collaboration. I just wanted to point out that by default the collaboration on shared hosting is only. It’s limited to two users and there is also a method for the hosts to either enable that or disable the real time collaboration. So it might not be as obvious when you go on your site and looking for it. You might not be able to get real time collaboration out of the box. You might need to connect with your host to let that enabled because it’s such an additional load on a server. That certain server configurations are not meant for it to be in yet. So if you’re on a virtual private host, I think I mentioned it before, it wouldn’t. It was a different scenario. But it’s probably easier to get the collaboration working than if you are on a shared hosting with 10,000 websites on a. On a server where the hosting company will probably restrict that.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I think that there’s going to be a lot of shifts in hosting, either requirements, configuration, pricing options, etc. as a result of all of these changes. And I don’t know what they’re going to be yet, but we do need to collectively remember that the AI features, the collaboration components, all of those things are resource intensive and are going to shift how hosting is being utilized and therefore the hosts are going to need to respond in order to account for the actual cost of that change. So I think that’s a big unknown right now and I think it’s, you know, there’s a few hosts where they’re locking in pricing for a few years, which is cool, but at the same time I’m like, I don’t know, in three years is this going to be enough to pay for that? What will it be in three years?

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: So I think there’s a shift coming there and I am not gonna even pretend to know enough about all the details to know exactly how that’ aiZ]Haq ?Is going to play out, but I think that there’s enough shift in what types of resources we need from our hosting that there will be a shift. There has to be, because it’s just so much more resource intensive than what we’ve been doing in the past collectively.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And that is in line with what you said at the beginning, that the PHP requirements. Yeah, it always is also contributing to that because all the newer features. So there might be a. You can’t upload upgrade to 7.0 until you update your PHP. That’s totally sure.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. And I’ve read that somewhere. Somewhere I did read that there’ll be security releases on 6.9 for sites that can’t go, you know. But then you end up with a situation where you’re gonna. How many sites are gonna be stuck on 6.9 forever?

Birgit Pauli-Haack: But that has been a problem. Yeah. Because the security team is actually backporting, although officially the release is only supported to 6.8 or something like that, but security team actually backported all the security updates that came with 6.3 or 6.4 to 4 point something. WordPress 4 point something is probably 15 years old. So it’s still getting security updates. So that definitely is a backwards compatibility promise that even the security team there. It takes a lot of time to backport that. And John Blackburn, one of the leads on the security team, has actually done a retrospective of the latest security updates because you saw that too. It was a. It’s kind of a galore of releases. 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4 beta. Yeah, it kind of was in within three days, I think there were four releases.

Beth Soderberg: It was a lot. Yes. All at once.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I had a meetup here in Munich and we talked about it. I think the day the 6.4 came out that they were saying, well, is it all hacked or what happened here? Kind of how often do I have to update my WordPress site in a day? And he did a nice retrospective or explaining what happened and what was the reason for that. I’ll link it in the show notes if you’re interested. To listeners, it will probably be a little bit less prominent because of all the death notes that came out, but it’s on the blog on Core.

Beth Soderberg: I’m going to go back and listen to that because that hit during a particularly busy time, just for me personally in general. And so it was a little whiplashy to be like what is going on over there? And I think it will be good to be able to go back and just review so that I am aware moving forward of what exactly happened there.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And back to Gutenberg 22.8. I mentioned it before. There is a feature that implements the state UI for sudo selectors in the global styles. Maggie Cabrera mentioned that in the last episode. It’s now available in the Gutenberg plugin so you can test it out. It gives you a. In the global styles on the right hand side you can select the design for your pseudo selectors like hover and focus and all that. It’s really cool. Hover, focus, Focus, visible and active. Yeah, so you can change all those settings for buttons, for instance. And you don’t have to use theme JSON for it anymore. So this is pretty cool.

Beth Soderberg: Yes. And then this one, I think this is fascinating. There is a PR adding client side navigation block with interactive features. That just sounds really fun to experiment with. So what it’s doing is adding a variant to the Create Block interactive template that allows you to add client side navigation. So this is starting to support the again supporting the infrastructure that exists with actual tooling and UI to use it. So the way that it describes it, this variant provides a self contained working example that mirrors real world patterns, query parameter navigation for pagination, search results, filtered archives and works immediately after scaffolding with no posts or setup required. That’s really cool. That’s a really nerdy and very arcane and wonderful. So I’m excited about that.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And that variant is for the Create block scaffolding feature, if I understood this correctly. Yeah, it’s a create block latest. So if you create a custom block, you can have the variant for your client side navigation and scaffold that up. That’s really cool. Yeah. Well, our developer advocacy team, we are working on a so-called showcase for all the good things that you could do with a website or theme, including some of the interactivity API features. And we will probably release that someday in the next two months I would think. And it will be a music site with albums and musicians and artists and using the tabs and using the playlist and block and then also kind of have some interesting changes in the theme. So it’s for custom post types and all that. So it’s going to be really cool. I know that Juan Ma Garrido who put the client side navigation template into the gray block scaffolding, he’s also creating a plugin to have the music play even if you navigate away from that page that had the list of the music. So it’s kind of really interesting to see. So you could use it for video and music. So things stay on the forefront on your browser even if you look at other pages on the website. So that’s one of the features.

Beth Soderberg: The person, the, the part of me that likes to listen to podcasts from the website themselves really appreciates this.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So I, I definitely, once it’s out, I definitely gonna adopt it for the good changelog podcast.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I think always through, we are through with booked. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Lots of little, little things, but those are the big exciting things, I think.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And there were actually 38 PRs that were backported as bug fixes to 7.0. So it’s still an ongoing work that is coming out in two weeks and people are still fixing it.

All right, well, I wish you and your agency all the best for that release that all the things that come in don’t disrupt your work or the work of your clients.

Beth Soderberg: We have a list. We know where to look for the problem.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Yeah. Well, I’m so happy that you were on the show with me. And as always, dear listeners, the show notes will be published on GutenbergTimes.com podcast this is episode 129 and if you have questions and suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to changelogutenbergtimes.com that’s changelogutenbergtimes.com so thank you for listening and I wish you all a great weekend. Well, or next week. And also toy, toy for the WordPress 7.0 release updates. We will hear each other again in four weeks once I get back from WordCamp Asia. And then we’ll tackle what’s coming in 7.1 and what has been in. Good work. Plugin 22.9 and 23.0.

Thank you so much. Beth Soderberg, it was wonderful to have you and your perspective and your opinions on the show.

Beth Soderberg: Thank you for having me. It was great to be here and to see you again and I wish you safe travels on all of your continuing travels.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Thank you. All right. Yeah, and you take care. And I’ll put in the show notes how people can connect with you.

Beth Soderberg: Sounds good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Of course. All right, you take care. Bye Bye.

Beth Soderberg: Bye bye. Thanks, everybody.

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First, I want to say how great the jazz scene is in New York. I caught a little Latin at my go-to Guantanamera last night, but the band seemed to be phoning it in a bit, so I walked over to Dizzy’s and heard an amazing big band performance by the Diva all-women Jass Orchestra, they had Clint Holmes leading vocals and I got Frank Sinatra / Count Basie vibes, so great to see such a tight big band.

In WordPress, last week it was fun to see the company some call parasitic WP Engine acquire WPackagist. So a popular way to use WordPress with Composer, previously maintained by an awesome co-op agency in London, was now in the clutches of a company using its capital advantage to try to openwash its alleged bad behavior, probably in a process that wasn’t ideal for the sellers.

Four days later, an awesome independent organization roots.io released WP Composer (renamed to WP Packages, in OpenClaw fashion) with 17x faster cold resolves than WPackagist. Check out their comparison page.

It’s beautiful to see how resilient and nimble the antibodies in the WordPress community are. Major hat tip to Ben Word.

In another type of antibody, Sid Sijbrandi, whom I previously talked about going into founder mode on his cancer, gave an incredible presentation at the Open AI Forum about how he ran a bunch of N-of-1 experiments and therapies to cure his terminal osteosarcoma. He’s also open-sourced 25TB of his data for cancer research. Incredible!

If you want to see the future of health care, give Sid’s presentation a watch.

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Nobody is arguing that Stockfish is conscious, but Stockfish would kick Claude’s ass at chess.

Kevin Lincoln in AI Perfected Chess. Humans Made It Unpredictable Again.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Mar 2026 20:57:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"Gary: Claudaborative Editing 0.2: now with 500% more collaboration!";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://pento.net/?p=5697";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"https://pento.net/2026/03/28/claudaborative-editing-0-2-now-with-500-more-collaboration/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5416:"

A week ago, ]aqAIa ?JI put together a quick tech demo, showing how an MCP server could be created for Claude Code that hooked directly into Gutenberg’s Collaborative Editing feature, allowing it to act as a digital collaborator on a post. The demo focused primarily on text generation, but that’s not really the benefit that I see coming with this kind of tool. Anyone can generate text, then copy/paste it into the editor. The real power comes from directly hooking into the entire post creation and editing process.

What’s New?

A screenshot of the /review tool running on this post, prior to publication.
A screenshot of what Claude was doing behind the scenes when it was generating the review notes.

Since last week’s release, I’ve added a host of editing and review tools:

On top of that, I’ve also added an experimental /translate tool, to automatically translate a post into a different language. LLM translation quality varies significantly, though Claude is regularly considered to be quite good. It’s worth remembering that, like any LLM, the output is only as good as its input. If you’re translating to a language that it didn’t have much training data on, it’ll do a lot worse.

Behind The Scenes

The MCP server now does a much better job of making use of the REST API, too: it now handles all block types (and does a pretty good job of guessing how to use blocks provided by plugins!). It can upload media, and it can handle all the post metadata, like categories, tags, excerpt, etc.

Getting It Running

Inspired by the recently released WordPress.org MCP server, the install process got a refresh, too. If you’re running WordPress 7.0, you won’t even need to copy/paste the application password to connect to your site: just click the connect button in your browser, and your site will send credentials back to the installer! And if you’d prefer to avoid the magic, there’s still a --manual option to let you set it up the old-fashioned way.

A screenshot of the initial installation of the claudaborative-editing MCP server, prompting the user to enter a site to connect to.
Connect
The authorisation screen of the site that the MCP server is connecting to.
Authorise
After authorisation, this screenshot shows the continu
Install

What’s Next?

This release shows how easy it is for an LLM to talk to your WordPress site. What about the other way? If you’re working on a post, you don’t want to have to switch to a terminal to get spell checking done, so how can we provide this kind of functionality directly from the block editor? Let’s experiment and find out!

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Hi,

In less than two weeks, WordPress 7.0 is scheduled to be released. Are you ready? Or are you someone I used to be who waits two to three weeks to see what quirks early adopters find and if they warrant an early point release? Be that as it may, waiting only delays the inevitable, though, sooner or later you get to benefit from the new features and quality of life improvements to the Admin, Editor and Blocks.

The first version of the WordPress 7.0 Source of Truth has been published. It’s again a mammoth post of 4500 words, including 21 images and ten videos. I hope you enjoy the list of all the big and small feature and updates.

Next week, I will be on my way to Mumbai. The next weekend edition will arrive in your inbox after WordCamp Asia, on April 17th, 2026.

Yours, 💕
Birgit

PS: Should you be in Mumbai, grab a coffee of lunch spot from my public calendar, I’d love to meet you!

WordPress 7.0

Highlight grid WordPress 7.0

WordPress 7.0 Release candidate 1 was moved to this week. The WordPress 7.0 RC2 was still on schedule for Thursday, though. Meanwhile, more Dev Notes were published.

Pattern Overrides in WP 7.0 is your heads-up to act before the release lands. WordPress 7.0 lifts the old restriction — Pattern Overrides now work with any block attribute that supports Block Bindings, not just a hardcoded Core block list. You opt in via the block_bindings_supported_attributes filter, and the post walks you through edge cases for static blocks where a render_callback may still be needed.

Pattern Editing in WordPress 7.0 explains that ContentOnly mode for unsynced patterns is now the default, meaning block structure and style controls are hidden from editors by default. Block authors need to audit "role": "content" attributes in block.json, theme authors should test their patterns, and plugin developers should verify UI components still render correctly under the new, more broadly applied editing modes.

Block Visibility in WordPress 7.0 dev note is relevant if your theme or plugin touches block markup server-side. The new viewport key inside blockVisibility metadata lets users show or hide blocks per device — mobile, tablet, desktop — via CSS, not DOM removal. If your code assumes blockVisibility is always a boolean, you’ll need to update it to handle an object too. No changes are needed if your blocks don’t interact with markup server-side.

Anne McCarthy walks through one of WordPress 7.0’s most-requested features: viewport-based block visibility. You’ll see exactly how showing or hiding any block by screen size works in practice — no extra plugins or CSS workarounds needed — and why it is relevant for responsive design. If you’ve been waiting for a native way to tailor content for mobile, tablet, and desktop separately, this is your preview before the April 9th release.

The Dimensions Support Enhancements in WordPress 7.0 comprise width and height as first-class block supports. Block builders and theme designer opt in with a single line in block.json, set defaults in theme.json, and the sidebar UI comes for free. Themes can also define named dimensionSizes presets, giving users a consistent palette rather than free-form inputs. If your block has custom width/height attributes today, this is a good moment to consider migrating.

A long-requested feature finally lands in WordPress 7.0. The dev note on Custom CSS for Individual Block Instances hold all the details. The new customCSS block support — enabled by default for all blocks — adds a Custom CSS field in the Advanced panel of the block inspector, scoped automatically to that instance via a generated class. Block authors whose blocks wrap raw or opaque content should explicitly opt out via block.json. If your render_callback is in play, make sure your block’s outermost element is a standard HTML tag.

A typography feature requested since 2021 finally arrives in WordPress 7.0, the dev note on the new textIndent block support has all the details for developers working on blocks or themes. Opt in with a single line in block.json, and a Line Indent control appears automatically in the Typography panel. Theme authors get theme.json configuration too, including a thoughtful subsequent vs all toggle that respects both LTR and RTL typographic conventions. No breaking changes — purely additive./

WordPress 7.0 ships a new Connectors API — and if you build AI-adjacent plugins, this dev note belongs on your reading list. The new framework standardizes how WordPress registers and manages connections to external services — starting with AI providers — giving you a consistent admin UI, API key management, and auto-discovery via the WP AI Client. Three providers ship out of the box: Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. The wp_connectors_init action is your hook for registering additional connectors or overriding existing metadata.

Felix Arntz details the new AI Client landing in WordPress 7.0 — a provider-agnostic PHP API that lets your plugin send prompts for text, images, speech, or video without touching credentials or provider logic. You chain methods on wp_ai_client_prompt(), declare model preferences, and WordPress routes to whatever the site owner has configured. Three official provider plugins cover Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. Client-side JS exists but remains admin-only for now.

Jorge Costa details the client-side Abilities API arriving in WordPress 7.0, the JavaScript counterpart to the PHP Abilities API introduced in 6.9. Two new packages handle it: @wordpress/abilities for pure state management and @wordpress/core-abilities for the WordPress integratAam!?Jb/ ?Kion layer that auto-fetches server-registered abilities via REST. You can register abilities with input/output schemas, permission callbacks, and annotations — laying the groundwork for browser agents and WebMCP integration.

Gutenberg 22.8

Gutenberg 22.8 release lead Dean Sas highlighted in his post What’s new in Gutenberg 22.8? (25 March) the following features:

The real-time collaboration improvements and the Connectors extensibility will make it into the WordPress 7.0 release.

I had a blast chatting with Beth Soderberg from Bethink Studio on the recording of Gutenberg changelog 129. We dove into some cool stuff like using AI, WordPress 7.0, and Gutenberg 22.8. It was such a fun convo, and we even touched on that little mental block some users might hit when they see the fresh new look of the wp-admin screens and try to wrap their heads around the change. The episode will drop into your favorite podcast app over the weekend. The 130th episode will be recorded after I return from WordCamp Asia.

🎙 The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #129 Artificial Intelligence, WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8 with Beth Soderberg, of BeThink Studio

Beth Soderberg and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording the Gutenberg Changelog 129

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Courtney Robertson at GoDaddy breaks down what WordPress 7.0 brings when it ships April 9 at WordCamp Asia. Your editor finally gets real-time multi-user collaboration powered by Yjs, alongside visual block-level revisions, a Breadcrumbs block, Icon block, and customizable navigation overlays. Developers gain a provider-agnostic WP AI Client with a Connectors UI, PHP-only block registration, and Interactivity API improvements. The minimum PHP requirement bumps to 7.4 — worth flagging for clients on older hosting now.

A little over a month ago, Johanne Courtright, founder of Groundworx, launched r/WordPressBlocks, a dedicated Reddit community for developers and builders working with the block editor. A longtime block developer and free plugin author, Courtright created the space because scattered conversations about custom blocks, theme.json, full site editing, and Gutenberg’s direction deserved a proper home. All skill levels welcome — come share tips, tools, wins, and frustrations.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

If you’re finding it a drag to edit theme.json, check out Sérgio Santos‘s creation, WP Theme JSON Editor. It’s a VS Code and Cursor extension that makes dealing with JSON way easier with its cool visual interface. You can easily tweak colors, typography, spacing, and block settings using the official WordPress JSON Schema. Plus, it’s got handy features like CSS variable autocomplete, CodeMirror 6 syntax highlighting, drag-and-drop for palettes and font sizes, and real-time validation, and you even get to play with some experimental WP core properties. I’m not sure if it’s really easier than writing JSON from scratch, but hey, that’s just a personal choice, right?

You can now generate a block theme with Telex, Automattic’s experimental AI theme builder. You describe your site, hit “Enhance Prompt” to let Telex flesh out the design brief, optionally upload a reference image, then pick from four generated variations. From there you build out additional page templates, refine typography and colors conversationally, and download a ready-to-install ZIP containing your templates, styles, and theme.json — no PHP or CSS knowledge required.

“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2026”
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Troy Chaplin launched Veils of Fate, a choose-your-own-adventure game built in WordPress using the Interactivity API, post types, and taxonomies. Spanning 3 acts, 18 quests, and 112 scenes, the story was co-written with Claude AI. If you love interactive storytelling, this one’s for you. Nano banana handled the pixel art, Miles created the theme, and Kinsta provides the hosting. A family-inspired project: Troy’s kids are avid readers and his wife is a librarian.

WordPress Studio is a free, open-source local development tool powered by WordPress Playground that has been around for two years now. The team has now published wp-studio the CLI installer you can use to spin up local sites instantly — no Docker, NGINX, Apache, or MySQL required — sync them with WordPress.com or Pressable, share live preview links with clients, and tap into a built-in AI assistant that runs WP-CLI commands natively. It’s only early access to there might be dragons. 🐉 Also available in WordPress Studio you can use phpMyAdmin to access the database and use it dark mode.

Carlo Daniele at Kinsta walks you through building PHP-only Gutenberg blocks, a feature introduced in Gutenberg 21.8 that lets you register blocks entirely in PHP—no React, Node.js, or build steps required. Using the new auto_register support flag, your attributes automatically generate inspector controls in the editor. You’ll build a pricing card block and learn how to wrap legacy shortcodes as proper blocks, finally giving your PHP-side clients and developers a gentler path into the block editor. It will also come to a WordPress instance near you soon with WordPress 7.0.

If you’d rather watch a video for education, Brian Coords demonstrates how PHP-only block registration in WordPress 7.0 removes the build-tool barrier entirely You’ll see a Hello World block built with custom fields, a WooCommerce integration using the Store API, and how to handle frontend JavaScript when backend JS has limitations. The real payoff comes when you combine PHP-only blocks with Claude Code skills, letting you generate blocks through conversation rather than scaffolding. The code is on GitHub.

Playground News

On this episode of The WP Minute+, Eric Karkovack sits down with WordPress contributors Alex Kirk and Brandon Payton to explore my.WordPress.net, a browser-based WordPress sandbox built around privacy, portability, and AI. Think personal CRM, private family blogging, chat-to-blog workflows, and an AI playground — all running in your browser without a server. The demo shows how plugins become app-like modules, how messaging apps like Beeper can feed content in, and how AI can modify plugins live. Your data stays yours, portable across devices.

AI in WordPress

Fellyph Cintra announces that AI coding agents can now connect directly to WordPress Playground via MCP, thanks to the new @wp-playground/mcp package built by Berislav Grgicak. One command wires up Claude Code or Gemini CLI to a browser-based Playground instance over WebSocket, letting your agent read and write files, execute PHP, manage sites, and navigate pages — all locally, without touching WordPress admin. Think plugin testing, live database debugging, and theme scaffolding driven entirely by conversation.

Gary Pendergast, long-time core committer, introduces claudaborative-editing, an MCP server — written by Claude Code, fittingly — that lets Claude edit WordPress posts live alongside you in Gutenberg. Built on WordPress 7.0’s Yjs-powered collaborative editing protocol, your changes and Claude’s sync in real time with no conflicts. A single npx claudaborative-editing setup gets you started. Claude appears in the collaborators list, edits at the block level, and even streams text character by character as it types.

Darin Koster, developer at Fueled, walks you through how AI featured image generation works inside the WordPress AI plugin. One button click kicks off a five-step chain built on the Abilities API: gather post context, generate an image prompt via an LLM, generate the image, optionally create alt text, then import and set it as the featured image — all in about 30 seconds. The post doubles as a practical demonstration of how WordPress’s AI building blocks can be composed into real editor workflows.

In this lively WP Builds debate on AI, content, and the future of WordPress, Jamie Marsland — Automattic’s head of YouTube and prolific WordPress educator — squares off against a gleefully curmudgeonly Nathan Wrigley. Marsland champions the new Claude–WordPress.com integration, which gives AI full context of your site for content, branding, and SEO. Wrigley pushes back on authenticity, AI slop, and eroding community skills. You’ll find both sides genuinely persuasive — and probably switch teams more than once.

As an example of how AI might change how you use WordPress, Jamie Marsland demonstrates that You can now Vibe Code with WordPress.com. on YouTube. He shows what’s possible once Claude is connected to your site via MCP, from building full landing pages and wiring up contact forms with a single prompt to running promotions across multiple sites, generating downloadable SEO reports, auditing for accessibility, and tracking activity with visual dashboards. Think of it as your WordPress workflow, but driven entirely by conversation.

You can learn more about the official WordPress.com connector for Claude in below blog post and video.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

Featured Image:

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Welcome to the Source of Truth for WordPress 7.0!

Before you dive headfirst into all the big and small changes and pick your favorites, make sure to read these preliminary thoughts about this post and how to use it. If you have questions, leave a comment or email me at pauli@gutenbergtimes.com.

Huge Thank You to all collaborators on this post: Anne McCarthy, Sarah Norris, Ella van Durpe, Maggie Cabrera, Ben Dwyer, Jonathan Bossenger, Justin Tadlock, Dave Smith, Courtney Robertson and a lot more. It’s takes a village…

Estimated reading time

21–31 minutes

at

4,869 words

Table of Contents

Changelog

Any changes are cataloged here as the release goes on.

Important note/guidelines

Try not to just copy and paste what’s in this post since it’s going to be shared with plenty of folks. Use this as inspiration for your own stuff and to get the best info about this release. If you do copy and paste, just remember that others might do the same, and it could lead to some awkward moments with duplicate content floating around online.

Overview

Highlight grid WordPress 7.0 (still a work in progress)

Note: 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 7.0.

WordPress 7.0 introduces several new features and performance enhancements.

Key new features include:

Furthermore, WordPress 7.0, entails:

Many more quality of life changes for workflow and design tools made it into this release. You’ll find the complete list below.

WordPress 7.0 is set to be released on April 9, 2026 at Contributor Day of WordCamp Asia.
The new release date will be announced no later than April 22. (see Ventura’s announcement)

Of note, this release consists of features from the Gutenberg plugin version 22.0 – 22.6. Here are the release posts of those plugin releases: 22.0 | 22.1 | 22.2 | 22.3 | 22.4 | 22.5 | 22.6. Later Gutenberg releases contain bug fixes, backported to WordPress 7.0. release branches.

Assets

In this Google Drive folder you can view all assets in this document.

Tags

To make this document easier to navigate based on specific audiences, the following tags are used liberally:

How can you use these? Use your browser’s Find capability and search for the string including the brackets. Then use the arrows to navigate through the post from one result to the next.

Short video on how to use the tags to navigate the post.

Priority items for WordPress 7.0

Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) [enterprise][site admin]

Multiple users can now work on the same page at the same time, seeing each other’s changes as they happen. No more “someone else is editing this” warnings. Whether you’re co-writing a post, reviewing a layout, or making last-minute edits before publishing, everyone stays in sync without leaving the editor.

It represents the biggest step toward achieving full collaborative editing, not only for newsrooms and big publishing houses. It also simplifies working on a site editing for agencies and their clients as well as designers and writers working together on a post.

A presence indicator in the editor header shows who’s currently editing. Under the hood, title, content, and excerpt now sync via Y.text for more granular conflict resolution, and numerous reliability fixes address disconnection handling, revision restores, and performance metrics. (75286, 75398, 75065, 75448, 75595).

You can enable the feature via Settings > Writing. Check the box next to Enable early access to real-time collaboration, in the Collaboration section.

The infrastructure implementation uses HTTP polling for universal compatibility, CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type) update data is stored persistently in post_meta on a special internal wp_sync_storage post type (one per “room”/document).

The sync provider architecture is designed so that the storage and transport layer can be swapped out. Updates are batched and periodically compacted. WordPress code initially limits simultaneous collaborators to two to protect hosts. (64622).

Hosting companies have the option to add a different provider. There will be a wp-config constant that can be used to change the defaults.

Introduces JavaScript filters to allow third party developers to slow down or speed up polling via the RTC client. (76518).

For more details, check out the Dev Note Real-Time Collaboration in the Block Editor.

Update:

Since October, WordPress VIP beta participants — spanning newsrooms, research institutions, and enterprise publishers — tested the real-time collaboration against live editorial workflows, reporting back what worked, what broke, and what they couldn’t live without. Their voi~ bkv|Mb ?Nces didn’t just validate the feature — they shaped it.

Matias Ventura explains why the WordPress 7.0 cycle is being extended by a few weeks: the real-time collaboration feature needs more time to nail its data architecture. After Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, expressed a preference to revisit the proposed custom table for syncing presence and content changes, the team is refining the design before committing.

The proposal for custom table to keep a record of the changes to a post/page from each browser window, was discussed in the trac ticket (64696)

Plugin developers relying on metaboxes will want to take note — collaborative editing is disabled when metaboxes are present, making this cycle your window to migrate.

Navigation blocks now have customizable overlays and give user full control over mobile hamburger menus. A prominent Create overlay button in the side bar guides you through the setup, providing a selection of patterns to achieve various designs for your overlay. WordPress 7.0 comes with multiple built-in patterns including centered navigation, accent backgrounds, and black backgrounds. New blocks default to “always” showing overlays. The Navigation block sidebar section also shows a preview of the selected overlay template parts. You can also access the list of Navigation Overlays via Appearance > Editor > Patterns > Template Parts.

To make it easier for users to create custom overlays for their mobile navigation, four new patterns are now available for the navigation overlay template parts:

Treating patterns like a single block [all]

Get ready for a smoother, more intuitive experience when using patterns in WordPress 7.0. It’s becoming much easier to customize your site’s design sections with a simplified editing workflow and an improved content-focused mode.

Users naturally stay in the safe lane without accidentally breaking designs. Agencies can hand off a site knowing clients can’t wreck the layout by default — they’d have to deliberately choose to go deeper.

What’s New for Patterns:

Head over to the dev note Pattern Editing in WordPress 7.0 for the full picture.

AI in WordPress [enterprise][developers][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 ships with a WP AI client API and a built-in Connectors screen — a centralized hub for managing all kinds of external service integrations, not just AI providers. Connect to OpenAI, Claude, or Gemini and WordPress automatically installs the right plugin and prompts you for your API key. Developers get a consistent framework to build on—enabling features like content generation, block building, and theme creation without reinventing the plumbing every time.

The new Connectors page also sports a shout-out to the AI Experiments plugin if users want to see AI features, like title, excerpt, or alt-text generation, in action.

But the real value of this Connectors API is broader: any plugin that needs to connect to an outside service via API keys or other credentials can tap into this standardized connection management system. Users get one place to maintain all their integrations. And plugin developer a standardized way to tap into the plumbing.

Visual Revisions [all]

How revisions work for the block editor was completely reimagined. The visual Revisions screen keeps you in the editor the entire time, activating a subtle revision mode right where you work, eliminating the need to jump to a separate screen. A timeline slider in the header allows you to browse through different versions, seeing content updates in real-time.

The system highlights visual differences, showing added and removed text, formatting changes, and outlining modified blocks instead of raw code. For long documents, a mini-map along the scrollbar indicates where changes exist, letting you jump directly to them, and the sidebar remains useful with a summary of the changes for the current revision. To simplify reverting, the “Update” or “Publish” button is replaced by a “Restore” button when you are browsing the history (74742).

Yellow marks a changed section/block, in red you’ll find deletions and green are additions compared to the early version.

Wes Theron has a short video on How to restore previous versions of a page or post in WordPress.

Anne McCarthy also gives a great walk through the screens on Youtube:

New Blocks

The new native Breadcrumbs block in WordPress 7.0 provides dynamic navigational trails for the Site Editor. It automatically generates paths from the homepage to the current page, adapting to context.

The block handles hierarchical pages (e.g., “Home / Services / Web Design / Portfolio”) and includes taxonomy for blog posts (e.g., “Home / Technology / Your Post Title”). Beyond simple pages, it correctly constructs paths for archive pages (category, tag, author, date), search results, and 404 errors. For Custom Post Types, it includes the post type archive in the trail.

Breadcrumbs block displaying post categories WordPress 7.0

The block offers alignment options (left, center, right, wide/full), as well as other block design options. Additional settings are available for showing the last item as text or a link and consistent homepage handling (72649).

The dev note Breadcrumb block filters has the details.

Icon Block [all]

The new Icon block empowers users to add decorative icons from a curated collection to their content. It utilizes a new server-side SVG Icon Registration API, ensuring icon registry updates propagate without block validation errors.

The initial release is limited as it doesn’t yet allow registering third-party icon collections. Extensibility for third-party icon registration is planned for future release in 7.1, following further development on the Icon registry API architecture. A REST endpoint at /wp/v2/icons supports searching and filtering. The initial set draws from the wordpress/icons package (71227, 72215, 75576).

List of directions, illustrated with the icon block

Block Editor enhancements

Custom CSS for Individual Blocks [enduser][site admin] [theme builder]

Previously, applying custom CSS to a block instance required adding a custom class name and then writing a rule in the Site Editor’s global Custom CSS. This two-step process was complex for most users and inaccessible to content editors without Site Editor access.

A new custom CSS block support introduces a Custom CSS input to the Advanced panel within the block editor sidebar, conveniently placed next to the familiar “Additional CSS Class(es)” field. You only need to add the CSS declarations (no selectors!) If you do need to target nested elements, use the & symbol (for example, & a { color: red; }). This field is focused purely on styling and will reject any HTML input. The field is guarded by the edit_css capability to see and use this powerful new field. The editor automatically adds a has-custom-css class for styling consistency. #73959, #74969.

Dive into the dev note Custom CSS for Individual Block Instances for the complete rundown.

Control viewport-based block visibility [all]

When you’re editing a post or page, you can now choose to show or hide any block depending on the visitor’s screen size. Select a block, click Show in the toolbar, and pick which devices — desktop, tablet, or mobile — should display it. You can also hide a block from the document entirely through the same modal.

For the nitty-gritty, see the dev note Block Visibility in WordPress 7.0.

Anne McCarthy walks you through the feature:

Anchor support for dynamic blocks [developer][plugin author]

Dynamic blocks now support Anchor (id attribute) functionality. The anchor reference is consistently stored within the block comment delimiter, enabling dynamic rendering on the front end. (74183)

Paste color values in the color picker [end user][theme builder] [site admin]

Color pickers throughout the block styles sidebar, now offer support for pasting complete color values. You can now copy/paste the brand colors from a design document or website into the color picker box and don’t have to go through the process of selecting the right color and hue (73166).

Dimension support for width and height [theme builder][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 expands the Dimensions block supports system with three significant improvements: width and height are now available as standard block supports under dimensions, and themes can now define dimension size presets to give users a consistent set of size options across their site.

The Dev Note Dimensions Support Enhancements in WordPress 7.0 has the details for block.development and theme builders.

Email notifications for Notes [all]

Collaborators can now get notified when someone leaves a note on their content. No more checking back constantly (73645).

Block Attributions Groups in the sidebar [all]

The block editor sidebar is being reorganized to make controls easier to find. Block settings will be grouped into four clear sections:

  • Content (text, images, captions),
  • List (reordering and nesting for blocks like Lists and Social Icons),
  • Settings (block-specific options), and
  • Styles (typography, colors, spacing).

This means you won’t need to hunt through toolbars or scattered panels — everything will live in a predictable place in the sidebar. Connected data sources will also appear directly next to the attributes they affect, so you can see at a glance what’s linked and where. It also means that for the transition a reordering of the sidebar and controls to be in different place than before. For instance. For an image block that includes the “Alt” text setting is now to be found in the content tab rather than the settings tab. (73845)

Here’s an example of the implementation for Patterns:

The Link Control component in Gutenberg now validates the URLs, you enter helping to avoid broken links (73486).

Improved Blocks and Block handling

Pseudo Styles for Button Blocks [theme builder][site admin]

Theme designers and developers can now style button states (hover, focus, active, and focus visible) directly within the theme.json, making it much easier to keep all design controls centralized and consistent. This reduces the reliance on custom CSS for things like button hover states (71418).

JSON
{
    "styles": {
        "blocks":{
                "core/button":{
                    "color":{
                        "background":"blue"
                    },
                    ":hover":{
                        "color":{
                        "background":"green"
                        }
                    },
                    ":focus":{
                        "color":{
                        "background":"purple"
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
    }
}

More details are available in the Dev Note: Pseudo-element support for blocks and their variations in theme.json.

Extra divs removed from blocks in the editor [theme builder][developer][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 introduced a new HtmlRenderer component, which renders HTML content as React elements with optional wrapper props. For theme authors, this means that several blocks will no longer have an extra wrapping <div> in the editor, allowing for consistent styling with the front end (74228).

Blocks that have been fixed are:

Universal Text Alignment [all]

Nearly all text blocks now support the standardized text-align block support system, including Paragraph, Button, Comment blocks, Heading, and Verse. Plus, text justify alignment is now available. See tracking issue to follow along on the progress (60763).

Cover Block Video Embeds [site admin][end user]

For the Cover block this release comes with the ability to use embedded videos (like YouTube or Vimeo) as background videos in the Cover block, rather than being restricted to locally uploaded files. Offloading video to 3rd-party services helps reduce hosting and bandwidth costs. Also, the focal pointer is now available for fixed background. (#73023, #74600).

The Gallery block’s “Enlarge on click” lightbox now lets you navigate between images. When you click a gallery image, back/next buttons appear so you can browse through the rest of the gallery without closing the lightbox. Keyboard navigation (arrow keys) and screen reader announcements are fully supported. It also works with swiping on mobile, however the swiping isn’t yet vWc7<Ocz" ?Pisual/animated. (62906) and lightbox items still miss captions.

Content Tab in sidebar [site admin][end user]

For fast access to Alt text box the sidebar of the Gallery block shows a new content tab in the sidebar.

Responsive Grid Block [site admin][end user][theme builder]

The Grid block is now responsive even when you set a column count. Previously, you had to choose between setting a minimum column width (responsive, Auto mode) or a fixed column count (Manual mode)—a binary toggle that confused many users. Now you can set both: when you do, the column count becomes a maximum, and the grid scales down responsively based on your minimum column width.

You can set neither, either, or both—the block handles all combinations gracefully. The confusing Auto/Manual toggle is gone entirely, replaced by clearer “minimum width” and “columns” labels with a plain-language description explaining the relationship between the two controls.. (73662)

Heading block variations [site admin][end user]

Each heading level (H1-H6) is now registered as a block variation on the Heading block. These do not appear in the inserter, but the change does add icons to the block’s sidebar for transforming it between variations (73823).

HTML Block Enhancement [site admin] [themebuilder] [end user]

The HTML block was redesigned to work now as a modal-based editor featuring separate tabs for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Admin can now use it for more powerful customizations, when HTML JS and CSS work on a single block. (73108).

Image block inline editing and controls [site admin][end user]

WordPress 7.0 comes with a revamp of the image editing feature in the editor. It’s now easier to crop, rotate or zoom in on a particular image corner. (#72414) (#73277).

Advanced Image Controls [site admin][end user]

Image block now supports the focal point control and aspect ratio adjustments for wide and full alignments, plus reorganized inspector controls with a dedicated content tab. #73115, #74519, #74201

Math Block Improvements [end users][site admin]

LaTeX input now uses a monospaced font, and style options are available for better mathematical expression editing (72557, 73544).

Paragraph [all]

A new typography tool has been added for specifying the line indent of paragraph blocks (73114, 74889). Users and theme creators can specify line indentation rules for a single paragraph block and also at global styles / theme.json level for all paragraph blocks. For global styles and theme.json, it’s possible to choose whether all paragraphs or only subsequent paragraphs are indented, which accounts for different indentation standards around the world.

The dev note on the new textIndent block support has all the details for developers working on blocks or themes.

The example code sets a default indent value of 1.5em globally for paragraphs:

JSON
{
  "settings": {
    "typography": {
      "textIndent": "true"
    }
  },
  "styles": {
    "blocks": {
      "core/paragraph": {
        "typography": {
          "textIndent": "1.5em"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

More details can be learned in the Dev Note: New Block Support: Text Indent (textIndent)

Columns in Paragraph blocks [all]

Now that there is block support for typographical columns, the paragraph block can now handle text columns by default (74656).

On the front-end only, the Paragraph block now has a .wp-block-paragraph class. This change doesn’t affect global styles, which still use the p selector.(71207)

Query Loop Enhancements [all]

Query loops now support excluding terms. When the block is locked it now hides design change and choose pattern options. #73790, #74160

Verse Block, renamed to Poetry [all]

The Verse Block has been renamed to Poetry block (74722) Also it now utilizes border-box for its box-sizing, which guards against overflow issues and should make it easier to style without additional custom CSS.

Admin / Workflow updates

Manage fonts for all themes in a dedicated page [site admin][theme builder] [enterprise]

A dedicated Fonts page is now available under the Appearance menu for all themes. Until now, font management has lived deep inside Global Styles, requiring navigation through several panels to install or preview a font. This new standalone page lets block theme users browse, install, and manage their typography collection in one dedicated space.

Under the hood, this page is built on a new routing infrastructure for the Site Editor, designed to improve navigation and support new top-level pages in wp-admin. View transitions are now wired into this routing layer, providing early zoom/slide animations when navigating between pages (73630, 73876, 73586).

The Font Library and Global Styles also work with classic themes (#73971, #73876). Like the Media Library, you can access the Font Library as a modal or through a dedicated admin section—regardless of your theme type.

Command Palette in Adminbar [all]

Instantly access all the tools you need with a single click using the new Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar! In 7.0 Beta 5, logged-in editors will see a field with a ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol in the upper admin bar that unfurls the command palette when clicked. The new command palette entry point streamlines navigation and customization, giving you full control from anywhere on your site – whether you’re editing, designing or just browsing plugins.

View Transitions [all]

View transitions have been integrated into the WordPress admin in 7.0, enabling smooth transitions between screens. The implementation for the front end is slated for the next WordPress 7.1 (64470) The result is a smoother page-to-page transitions using the CSS View Transitions API — no markup or JavaScript changes required, just a progressive enhancement you’ll notice immediately when navigating between admin screens.

Improved screens across WP-Admin [all]

WordPress 7.0 is getting a CSS-only “coat-of-paint” visual reskin of the wp-admin, bringing the classic admin screens closer to the visual language of the block and site editors — no markup changes, no JavaScript, no functional changes, and all existing CSS class names and admin color schemes preserved. (64308)

  • New default color scheme: “Modern” replaces “Fresh” as the default admin color scheme (#64546)
  • Updated buttons and input fields: primary, secondary, and link buttons, plus text inputs, selects, checkboxes, and radio buttons, now align with the WordPress Design System (#64547)
  • Updated notices: info, warning, success, and error notices refreshed for clarity and consistency (#64548), including on the login screen
  • Updated cards and metaboxes: dashboard widgets and metaboxes get modernized styling (#64549)
  • New wp-base-styles stylesheet handle: consolidates admin color scheme CSS custom properties into a single reusable stylesheet, available across the admin and the block editor content iframe
  • Login and registration screens: the WordPress logo updated from blue to gray to match the new design, and scheme styles now apply to login, install, database repair, and upgrade screens

Developer Goodies [developer][enterprise]

Client-side Abilities API

WordPress 7.0 ships a JavaScript counterpart to the server-side Abilities API introduced in 6.9. The Client-Side Abilities API arrives as two packages: @wordpress/abilities for pure state management usable in any project, and @wordpress/core-abilities, which auto-fetches server-registered abilities via the REST API. You can now register browser-only abilities — navigation, block insertion, and more — opening the door to browser agents, extensions, and WebMCP integrations directly in the client.

WP AI Client

WordPress 7.0 ships a built-in AI Client, that gives your plugin a single, provider-agnostic PHP entry point — wp_ai_client_prompt() — for text, image, speech, and video generation. You describe what you need; WordPress routes it to whichever AI provider the site owner has configured via Settings > Connectors. Official provider plugins cover Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. No credential handling, no provider lock-in, and graceful feature detection before any UI is shown.

PHP-only block registration

Developers can now create simple blocks using only PHP. This is meant for blocks that only need server-side rendering and aren’t meant to be highly interactive. When possible this feature also auto-generates sidebars for user input for suitable attributes and design tools.

To do so, call register_block_type with the new autoRegister flag. A render_callback function must also be provided. (71792)

Dev note with all the details. PHP-only block registration

Pattern Overrides for custom blocks

Since WordPress 6.5, Pattern Overrides let you create synced patterns where the layout stays consistent but specific content can change per instance. The catch? Only four core blocks supported it: Heading, Paragraph, Button, and Image.

Not anymore. Any block attribute that supports Block Bindings now supports Pattern Overrides by default. Block authors can opt in through the server-side block_bindings_supported_attributes filter. This closes a long-requested enhancement and opens up synced patterns to custom blocks (73889).

DataViews, Data Form components and Fields API

A substantial API update introduces new layouts, validation rules, grouping options, and picker improvements affecting plugins using wordpress/dataviews. The Dev Note has all the pertinent details: DataViews, DataForm, et al. in WordPress 7.0

UI Primitives and Components

The WordPress UI package just got a significant update, adding multiple new components and tools to help developers create more polished and accessible interfaces for WordPress users.

A list of all the dev notes can be reviewed from the Make Core blog

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The second Release Candidate (“RC2”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 7.0 RC2 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC2
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required – just click and go!

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC2?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights. For technical information related to issues addressed since RC1, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute.

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

What else to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. If you haven’t yet, make sure to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC2) also marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

An RC2 haiku

At first just a dream,

RC2 flows like a stream

with seven-oh gleam.

Props to @amykamala @annezazu for proofreading and review.

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learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,281 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event. The […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brett McSherry";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64464:"

WordCamp Asia 2026 brought the global WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9–11, gathering contributors, organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,281 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event.

The event unfolded across Contributor Day and two conference days, with a program that moved from technical sessions and workshops to hallway conversations, shared meals, and joyful moments of connection across the venue. From first-time attendees to longtime contributors, WordCamp Asia 2026 reflected the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem and the many ways people shaped and sustained it.


WordPress is not a company. It is a shared commitment to keeping the web open.

Mary Hubbard, Executive Director, WordPress

Throughout the event, WordCamp Asia 2026 balanced formal programming with the conversations happening around it. Sessions and workshops set the pace, while morning networking, tea breaks, lunch, the family photo, the sponsor’s raffle, and the after party in Jasmine Hall helped make the event feel welcoming, social, and connected.

How WordCamp Asia 2026 Took Shape

Bringing together contribution, practical learning, and forward-looking conversation in one shared program. Across Contributor Day and the conference sessions that followed, attendees moved between hands-on work, technical talks, workshops, and broader discussions about AI, education, enterprise, community growth, and the open web.

The result was a WordCamp that felt expansive without losing its sense of connection. Different rooms with topics as themes, helping different audiences, and different forms of participation all fed into the same larger picture: a community actively building what comes next for WordPress as a feeling that something bigger was happening: not just a schedule being delivered, but a community showing up for one another and for the future of WordPress.

Contributor Day: Building WordPress Together

Contributor Day opened WordCamp Asia 2026 with one of the clearest expressions of what makes the project special: people coming together to move WordPress forward by working on it. More than 1,500 participants joined 38 table leads across more than 20 contribution tables, creating a day that was expansive in scale and grounded in real work. For some, it was a return to familiar teams and longtime collaborators. For others, it was the beginning of their contributor journey.

The day moved between structured learning and hands-on participation. Alongside contributor sessions, attendees joined workshops, visited the Open Source Library, took part in YouthCamp, and attended The Making of a WordPress Release: Conversations with Past Release Squad Members, a featured panel that added depth and perspective to the work of building and sustaining WordPress.

What made Contributor Day stand out was not only the number of people in the room, but the range of ways they could take part. Workshops created space for skill-building. YouthCamp brought younger participants into the experience and widened the event’s reach in a meaningful way. The day felt welcoming, energetic, and full of possibility.

By the end, the impact was already visible across teams. Polyglots contributors suggested more than 7,000 strings and reviewed 3,200 of them. Photo contributors uploaded 76 images. The Test team worked on more than 20 tickets, and 55 contributors joined Training. Those numbers told only part of the story, but they pointed to what Contributor Day continued to do so well: turn a large gathering into shared work that strengthened the project in real time.

Conference Sessions Take Shape

Across the conference days, WordCamp Asia 2026 covered a wide range of topics, from technical development and hands-on workshops to business strategy and the open web. Sessions took place across the Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tracks, with workshops running alongside the main program.

One of the opening sessions was James LePage’s WordPress and AI, which introduced a theme that appeared throughout the conference: how WordPress is responding to changes in AI, publishing, and developer workflows. That topic continued in later sessions focused on AI-driven development, autonomous testing, plugin maintenance, and automation.

Later that morning, a fireside chat with Mary Hubbard and Shilpa Shah shifted the focus toward trust, security, and the longer-term questions shaping open source publishing. Coming early in the program, the conversation gave the conference an important center of gravity, pairing technical change with questions of stewardship, resilience, and what people needed from WordPress as the web continued to evolve. Rather than pulling away from the event’s technical momentum, it deepened it, bringing a human perspective to the pace of change and reminding the audience that progress in open source is not only about what gets built, but about how communities guide, challenge, and sustain that work over time.

From there, the conference widened into a program that balanced developer-focused talks with sessions on the Interactivity API, the HTML API, AI-driven development workflows, education initiatives, observability, automation, and startup strategy. On the final day, those threads continued through talks on WP translation, community building, WordPress Playground, data engineering, enterprise WordPress, and journalism on the open web.

Together, the two conference days made clear that WordCamp Asia 2026 was designed not for one kind of attendee, but for many. Developers, founders, marketers, contributors, organizers, and people finding their place in WordPress for the first time all found something that spoke directly to their work and interests. The breadth of the program was striking, but so was the feeling that these conversations mattered now.

Building What Comes Next

WordCamp Asia 2026 closed with reflections from Mary Hubbard, following an opening announcement from Chenda Ngak that WordCamp India will join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship WordPress event.

Mary’s remarks tied together several threads that had already surfaced throughout the event: India’s long-standing role in the WordPress project, the growth of programs like Campus Connect and WordPress Credits, the energy of YouthCamp, and the significance of WordPress 7.0. One of the clearest ideas in the session was that WordPress is entering a new phase shaped by real-time collaboration, AI infrastructure, and global contributor growth. That framing gave the closing session a strong sense of direction without losing sight of the community work that made it possible.

The session then shifted into a panel discussion about the current state of WordPress and where the project is headed next. Peter Wilson and Sergey Biryukov joined Hubbard on stage, while audience questions brought the conversation back to many of the themes that had shaped the event across all three days. Even from afar, Ma.tt Mullenweg remained part of the discussion, following along remotely and sending written responses during the live Q&A.

Those questions touched on contributor growth, AI, plugins, local communities, product direction, and the long-term health of the open web. What stood out was how often the answers returned to the same core idea: WordPress continues to grow through open discussion, shared responsibility, and the people who keep showing up to build it together.

A Lasting Momentum

Over three days in Mumbai, WordCamp Asia 2026 brought together contribution, learning, and community. From Contributor Day through the closing keynote, the event balanced hands-on work with bigger conversations about publishing, technology, education, and the open web.

The event also created space for many kinds of participation. Some attendees contributed to Core, Training, Polyglots, Photos, and other teams. Others came for the conference program, workshops, or the chance to reconnect with collaborators and meet new people. Across session rooms, tea breaks, shared meals, sponsor hall conversations, and the after party, the community side of the event remained just as important as the formal program.

Thank you to the organizers, volunteers, speakers, sponsors, attendees, and everyone who joined online. WordCamp Asia 2026 was a reminder that WordPress continues to grow through the people who show up to contribute and build together.

There is still more to look forward to this year. The community will gather again at WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków, Poland from June 4–6, followed by WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona from August 16–19.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 will be available to watch live across three days of streaming, making it easy for the global WordPress community to follow along from anywhere. This year’s live streamed programming begins with a special Contributor Day broadcast, followed by two full conference days of presentations from across the WordPress community.

This post gathers each official stream in one place so you can quickly find the right broadcast for each day. Bookmark this page and return throughout the event to watch live.

Day One: The Making of a WordPress Release

Go behind the scenes of a WordPress release in this special Contributor Day live stream from WordCamp Asia 2026. Past release squad members come together to share stories, reflect on their experience, and talk about what it takes to bring a WordPress release to life. The Panel will go live at 4:30 am UTC.

Day Two: Conference Livestreams

Watch the second day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live for a full day of presentations and sessions. beginning at 4:00 am UTC, including a Fireside chat with Mary Hubbard, which will begin at 5:00 am UTC over on the Growth Stream.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

Day Three: Conference Livestreams

Watch the third day and final day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live, beginning at 4:00 am UTC for another full day of presentations from across the community. Don’t forget to watch Ma.tt Mullenweg give the final keynote, which will begin on the Growth stream at 10:00 am UTC.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

You can also explore the full schedule to see what is coming up across the event and plan your viewing. However you join, we hope you will follow along and be part of WordCamp Asia 2026.

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April 9-11, 2026 | Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai, India

WordCamp Asia 2026 brings the WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9 to 11, with a schedule shaped around artificial intelligence, enterprise WordPress, developer workflows, product strategy, and open source collaboration. For attendees planning their time, the program offers a useful view of the ideas, tools, and practical challenges shaping WordPress today.

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WC Asia Schedule
About WordCamp Asia

Keynotes to Set the Stage

The keynote sessions at WordCamp Asia 2026 help frame some of the biggest conversations at this year’s event.

Ma.tt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, is expected to speak about the future of the open web and the ever-evolving role that WordPress plays.
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, will also join a fireside chat moderated by Shilpa Shah, focusing on leadership, education initiatives, artificial intelligence, and community growth.

Together, they offer an early view of the themes and discussions unfolding across WordPress in 2026.

AI, Automation, and the Future of WordPress

Artificial intelligence is one of the clearest threads running through the program. Sessions from Fellyph Cintra, Fumiki Takahashi, and Nirav Mehta examine how AI is already influencing WordPress through Core discussions, testing workflows, plugin development, and day-to-day implementation. That same theme continues in sessions on marketing and content strategy, including Adeline Dahal’s work on structuring WordPress content to make it more machine-readable. 

This cross-section of presentations shows how automation is moving from concept to practice. From autonomous testing with WordPress Playground to AI-supported development workflows, these sessions highlight applicable tools and skills that teams can start using right away, not just concepts. For attendees interested in where WordPress is heading, this is one of the strongest themes across the event.

Enterprise WordPress and Scalability

Enterprise sessions take that discussion further by focusing on scale, architecture, and operational complexity. Rahul Bansal, James Giroux, Anirban Mukherji, and Abid Murshed are among the speakers exploring how WordPress supports larger organizations, more complex commerce systems, and demanding digital environments. Their sessions look at growth, implementation, and the kinds of decisions that matter when WordPress is supporting business-critical work.

Other talks in this track focus on the realities of enterprise operations, including migration risk, observability, and long-term performance. Together, they show how WordPress continues to adapt to larger systems and more complex digital ecosystems without losing the flexibility that makes it widely used in the first place.

Developer Experience and Modern Practices

The developer track stays grounded in both Core tools and everyday engineering practice. Ryan Welcher will cover the Interactivity API, Jonathan Desrosiers will look at automation in open source, and Takayuki Miyoshi will introduce a schema-sharing approach to form management. These sessions point to a broader shift toward building WordPress systems that are more dynamic, maintainable, and easier to scale over time.

These more technical presentations also include sessions on the WordPress HTML API, Content Security Policy, open source data pipelines, and evolving plugin standards. Rather than focusing on a single type of builder, this part of the schedule addresses developers working across infrastructure, security, front-end experiences, and long-term platform health.

Community, Education, and Open Source

The schedule also makes space for the people and ideas that support WordPress beyond engineering alone. A panel featuring Anand Upadhyay and Maciej Pilarski, moderated by Destiny Kanno, looks at education initiatives and student pathways into open source. Kazuko Kaneuchi will reflect on the story of Wapuu and the culture of contribution around WordPress. At the same time, Kotaro Kitamura and Chiharu Nagatomi will share how WordPress and its community shaped their professional journeys.

That wider perspective continues in sessions on product thinking, marketing, career growth, and business strategy. Speakers, including Nabin Jaiswal, Himani Kankaria, Julian Song, Karishma Sundaram, Sandeep Kelvadi, Aviral Mittal, Anh Tran, and Anna Hurko, explore how WordPress works and connects with decision-making, discoverability, professional development, and organizational growth. Taken together, these sessions reflect one of WordPress’s long-standing strengths: its ability to connect software, learning, and community in the same space.

Hands-on Workshops

Hands-on workshops round out the schedule, offering practical sessions for attendees who want to move from ideas to implementation. They include:

  • From On-Demand to Cloud: Automate WordPress Installations Like a Pro
  • AI + MCP to build, manage, and automate WordPress end-to-end
  • Building AI Agents with self-editing memory
  • Building Better WordPress Experiences with AI-Driven Development Workflows

Explore the full schedule to plan your sessions, and get your event pass to join WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai.

Mumbai is calling. See you at WordCamp Asia 2026! 

Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20341";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:75:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:33:"WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wordpress-7-0-release-candidate-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:37:28 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}W/MT:xQYT: ?Z}s:8:"category";a:7:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"General";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:2;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:3;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3:"7-0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:4;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:5;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"general";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:6;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20324";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:367:"The second Release Candidate (“RC2”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing! This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site. Reaching this phase […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mary Hubbard";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8740:"

The second Release Candidate (“RC2”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 7.0 RC2 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC2
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC2?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights. For technical information related to issues addressed since RC1, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. 

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

What else to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report.  You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. 

Curious about testing releases in general?  Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. If you haven’t yet, make sure to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC2) also marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

An RC2 haiku

At first just a dream,

RC2 flows like a stream

with seven-oh gleam.

Props to @amykamala @annezazu for proofreading and review.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20324";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:57:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49:"WP Packages is Working the Way Open Source Should";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wp-packages/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:27:24 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20214";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:395:"When WP Engine acquired WPackagist on March 12, the WordPress developer community faced a familiar question: what happens when critical open source infrastructure ends up under corporate control? The community already had an answer in progress. Four days later, WP Packages (formerly WP Composer) launched as a fully independent, community-funded alternative, with some neat additional […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Jonathan Bossenger";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8351:"

When WP Engine acquired WPackagist on March 12, the WordPress developer community faced a familiar question: what happens when critical open source infrastructure ends up under corporate control? The community already had an answer in progress. Four days later, WP Packages (formerly WP Composer) launched as a fully independent, community-funded alternative, with some neat additional features.

Built by Ben Words from Roots, the team behind Bedrock, Sage, and Trellis, WP Packages is a new open source Composer repository for WordPress plugins and themes. Composer is PHP’s dependency manager, and it is how many professional WordPress developers install and update plugins and themes in their projects. Every free plugin and theme in the WordPress.org directory is available through WP Packages. Migrating from WPackagist can be done via a single script or a few terminal commands.

What Happened and Why It Matters

WPackagist was created in 2013 by Outlandish, a UK-based digital cooperative, and it served the WordPress Composer ecosystem for over a decade. In its later years the project suffered from deferred maintenance, slow update cycles, and little to no community input. When WP Engine announced the acquisition, developers raised immediate concerns about a private-equity-backed corporation controlling infrastructure this foundational to the WordPress developer workflow. WP Engine immediately updated the Composer info field to display a “WPackagist is now maintained by WP Engine” notice in every developer’s terminal. A small thing, but telling. That’s how corporate ownership changes the relationship between a tool and its users.

Ben had already started building a WPackagist replacement last August, long before the acquisition made headlines. When WP Engine’s deal landed, he accelerated the launch, going live on March 16 with a fully open source repository on GitHub.

Open source repo ≠ transparent system. WP Packages makes everything public, including infrastructure and build process. – Ben Word on X

It’s also just a better tool. WP Packages supports Composer v2’s metadata-url protocol, which lets Composer fetch metadata only for the packages a project actually needs. WPackagist still relies on the older provider-includes approach, forcing Composer to download large index files before resolving dependencies. Cold dependency resolves on WP Packages are roughly 17x faster: 0.7 seconds for 10 plugins compared to 12.3 seconds on WPackagist.

WP Packages also uses CDN caching with public cache headers and serves immutable, content-addressed per-package files. Package naming is cleaner (wp-plugin/ and wp-theme/ instead of wpackagist-plugin/ and wpackagist-theme/), metadata includes plugin and theme authors, descriptions, and homepage URLs that WPackagist has been missing for years, and updates sync every five minutes rather than WPackagist’s roughly 90-minute cycle.

How to Switch

Switching from WPackagist to WP Packages requires just a few terminal commands.

  1. Remove your existing WPackagist packages:
composer remove wpackagist-theme/twentytwentyfive
  1. Remove the WPackagist repository and add WP Packages:
composer config --unset repositories.wpackagist && composer config repositories.wp-composer composer https://repo.wp-packages.org
  1. Require packages with the new naming:
composer require wp-theme/twentytwentyfive

Alternatively, use the migration script to automatically update your composer.json:

curl -sO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/roots/wp-packages/main/scripts/migrate-from-wpackagist.sh && bash migrate-from-wpackagist.sh

Roots also provides a WP Packages Changelog Action for GitHub workflows that tracks dependency updates using the new naming format. Projects using Bedrock already ship with WP Packages configured out of the box.

Open Source Wins

The entire WP Packages project is public. The application code, documentation, and even the full Ansible deployment configuration are available on GitHub. Anyone can fork the repository and run their own WordPress Composer registry. Ben has also committed publicly that WP Packages will never use the Composer info field to push messages, ads, or upsells into developer terminals. That kind of restraint is easier to promise when a project answers to its community rather than to a corporate parent.

WP Packages is funded through GitHub Sponsors. Current sponsors include Carrot, Kinsta, WordPress.com, and Itineris. The WordPress ecosystem has always been at its strongest when the community builds the tools it needs in the open. Ben saw a gap forming months before anyone else was paying attention, built something better than what existed, and released it for everyone. No acquisition required. No boardroom decisions about availability or pricing. Just developers solving a problem for other developers and sharing the result. Open source wins.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20214";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:72:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:33:"WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wordpress-7-0-release-candidate-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:32:15 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:6:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:2;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3:"7-0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:3;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:4;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"release";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:5;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"release candidates";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20229";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:364:"The first Release Candidate (“RC1”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing! This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site. WordPress 7.0 RC1 […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Amy Kamala";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11508:"

The first Release Candidate (“RC1”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.

WordPress 7.0 RC1 can be tested using any of the following methods:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC1
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC1?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and WordPress 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights.

RC1 contains more than 134 updates and fixes since the Beta 5 release. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 5 using these links:

New Features since Beta 1

The release squad in conjunction with project leadership identified additional features that were not ready for beta 1 but are included in RC1 as supporting requirements for flagship features of the release.

Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These tickets and pull requests are just some of the latest updates:

  • #GB-76700: Client Side Media as plugin only
  • #GB-76722: Add support for non-AI providers on Connector’s Screen
  • #GB-76736: New activation hook to enable RTC by default
  • #64904: WP_ALLOW_COLLABORATION constant for RTC
  • #GB-76704: Increased polling intervals for RTC
  • #GB-76643: Real Time Collaboration is opt-in by default
  • #GB-76460: Toggle to turn RTC session notifications on/off
  • #62046: Update PHP AI Client package to 1.3.1
  • #GB-76550: Revisions: Show changed block attributes in sidebar
  • #62067: Single config option to disable all LLM related features
  • #63697: OPCache added to Site Health > Info > Server

The final release is on track for April 9, 2026. As always, a successful release depends on your confirmation during testing. So please download and test!

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Help test this release

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0.

What to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Test on your hosting platforms

Hosting systems provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting infrastructure ensures that WordPress and hosting systems are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue. Thank you to all web hosts who test WordPress!

Want to set up testing on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0. If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC1) marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle. However, strings will not be available for translation until RC2 later this week.

An RC1 haiku

RC1 arrives

with momentum, sped up time

and jazz on the mind.

Props to @4thhubbard, @desrosj, @jeffpaul, @chaion07, @audrasjb, @jorbin for collaboration and review.

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WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to test Beta 5 on a test server and site.WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 can be tested using any of the following methods:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the Beta 5 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-beta5
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is still April 9, 2026.  The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information. What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3 and Beta 4 announcements for details and highlights.

How to test this release

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Beta 5 updates and highlights

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains more than 101 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release.

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes, and more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 using these links:

Issues addressed since Beta 4:

WordPress 7.0 Beta 5 contains a new feature!

Instantly access all the tools you need with a single click using the new Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar! In 7.0 Beta 5, logged-in editors will see a field with a ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol in the upper admin bar that unfurls the command palette when clicked. The new command palette entry point streamlines navigation and customization, giving you full control from anywhere on your site – whether you’re editing, designing or just browsing plugins.

A Beta 5 haiku

A smooth melody

Beta 5 plays on its strings.

Seven brings good things.

Props to @amykamala, @annezazu and @4thhubbard for proofreading and review.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20189";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:63:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"WordPress 6.9.4 Release";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wordpress-6-9-4-release/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:34:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:3:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"minor-releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:2;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"releases";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20184";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:366:"WordPress 6.9.4 is now available WordPress 6.9.2 and WordPress 6.9.3 were released yesterday, addressing 10 security issues and a bug that affected template file loading on a limited number of sites. The WordPress Security Team has discovered that not all of the security fixes were fully applied, therefore 6.9.4 has been released containing the necessary […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"John Blackbourn";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2240:"

WordPress 6.9.4 is now available

WordPress 6.9.2 and WordPress 6.9.3 were released yesterday, addressing 10 security issues and a bug that affected template file loading on a limited number of sites.

The WordPress Security Team has discovered that not all of the security fixes were fully applied, therefore 6.9.4 has been released containing the necessary additional fixes.

Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can download WordPress 6.9.4 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

For more information on WordPress 6.9.4, please vv"T;. \T;H ?]isit the version page on the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the contributors who reported and investigated this issue, in particular Thomas Kräftner for his responsible disclosure. The security issues that are resolved in 6.9.4 are:

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:30:"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1";a:1:{s:7:"post-id";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"20184";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:57:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:4:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/announcing-my-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Development";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=19831";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:341:"For nearly two decades, WordPress has been known for a simple, powerful idea: that anyone should be able to get online and start creating with minimal friction. The famous five-minute install captured that spirit for an earlier era of the web. Today, we’re introducing my.WordPress.net, a new take on that idea designed for a new […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brandon Payton";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:40:"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15684:"

For nearly two decades, WordPress has been known for a simple, powerful idea: that anyone should be able to get online and start creating with minimal friction. The famous five-minute install captured that spirit for an earlier era of the web. Today, we’re introducing my.WordPress.net, a new take on that idea designed for a new generation of creators.

With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on WordPress Playground, my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’t a temporary environment meant to be discarded. It’s a WordPress that stays with you.

New Ways to WordPress

When you open my.WordPress.net, you’re placed directly into a complete WordPress environment that runs entirely in your browser. What makes this approach meaningful is not just where WordPress runs, but how it changes the relationship between people and the software itself. By removing the need to sign up or make early decisions about hosting and visibility, my.WordPress.net reframes WordPress as a space you can enter and work within, rather than a service you have to configure before you begin.

“This takes WordPress from being framed as something that is democratizing publishing to democratizing digital sovereignty.” – Alex Kirk

Seen through that lens, my.WordPress.net is not just about convenience. As you don’t need to choose a hosting provider, your WordPress belongs entirely to you. In a publishing environment, you’d briefly interact with WordPress as you prepare your next post. In a personal setting, it becomes a place you shape and return to. That change unlocks new ways of thinking about what WordPress can be.

Permanently and Privately Yours

Because sites on my.WordPress.net are private by default and not accessible from the public internet, they don’t behave like traditional websites. They aren’t optimized for traffic, discovery, or presentation, and they don’t need to be. Instead, WordPress becomes a personal environment where ideas can exist before they are ready to be shared, or where they may never be shared at all.

This changes how WordPress can be used day to day. It becomes a place to think, to draft, to organize, and to experiment without pressure, whether that means writing privately, collecting research, or building small tools for personal use. Learning also fits naturally into this model, since people can explore plugins, themes, and features inside a real WordPress environment where mistakes are expected and recoverable.

This turns WordPress into a personal workspace. It becomes a place for thinking, learning, prototyping, and tinkering, where exploration matters more than outcomes. In that role, WordPress shifts from being something you prepare for others to visit into something you actively work inside, adapting to how you want to create and learn over time.

Sparking Creativity with Apps

To make these ideas concrete, my.WordPress.net includes an App Catalog with pre-configured experiences designed specifically for personal use, built with WordPress plugins. These examples highlight how WordPress can function when it’s private, persistent, and easy to experiment with. Each app installs with a single click and configures itself automatically.

Personal CRM

A private relationship manager designed to help you stay in touch with people who matter to you. Contacts can be grouped, enriched with personal details, and paired with reminders to reconnect. In the demo, this extends to analyzing communication patterns using imported chat data, all stored locally inside WordPress.

Personal RSS Reader

Using the Friends plugin, WordPress becomes a quiet, personal feed reader. Instead of relying on external platforms, you can follow sites and creators inside your own WordPress and read at your own pace, free from algorithms or engagement pressure.

AI Workspace and Knowledge Base

Because my.WordPress.net is powered by WordPress Playground, an AI assistant can safely modify it, empowering you to customize beyond what you’re used to. Ask it to modify a plugin to your liking, or create  T;H[]T;f 2an entirely new one, featuring your desired block. Ask it about the data you have stored in your WordPress. The assistant remembers what it touches and makes it easy to share your changes with others. Over time, WordPress itself can become your personal knowledge base that the AI understands and works with.

Zero Barriers

my.WordPress.net lowers the barrier to getting started with WordPress to almost nothing. It offers a fast, commitment-free way to explore, learn, and build, whether the result is a long-term personal project or something that eventually moves elsewhere. In that sense, it updates the spirit of the five-minute install for a browser-first web.

What you should know

  • Storage starts at roughly 100 MB
  • The first launch takes a little longer while WordPress downloads and initializes
  • All data stays in your browser and is not uploaded anywhere
  • Each device has its own separate installation
  • Backups should be downloaded regularly

Create and explore

WordPress has always grown through experimentation. People trying things, breaking things, and discovering new ways to use the platform have shaped what WordPress is today.

my.WordPress.net continues that tradition by making experimentation easier and more personal. It’s an invitation to create without pressure, to explore ideas that may never be published, and to use WordPress in ways that fit your life.

Start exploring at my.WordPress.net

my.WordPress.net is built on WordPress Playground technology. Learn more at WordPress.org/playground or join the conversation in the #meta-playground channel on WordPress Slack.

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WordPress 6.9.2 was released earlier today and addressed 10 security issues.

A few users have subsequently reported an issue where the front end of their site was appearing blank after updating to 6.9.2. The issue has been narrowed down to some themes using an unusual approach to loading template files via “stringable objects” instead of primitive strings for file paths.

Although this is is not an officially supported approach to loading template files in WordPress (the template_include filter only accepts a string), it nevertheless caused some sites to break. As a result, the Security Team has decided to address this in a fast follow 6.9.3 release.

As always, it is recommended that you update your sites to the latest version of WordPress immediately. This ensures your site is protected by all available security fixes in 6.9.2 and that you will not be affected by the bug fixed in 6.9.3.

Many thanks to those who reported the issue, assisted in narrowing down the problem, and helped with the fix, in particular Jos Klever who assisted throughout the process.

You can download WordPress 6.9.3 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin shortly. You don’t have to do a thing!

For more information on WordPress 6.9.3, please visit the version page on the HelpHub site.

WordPress 7.0 beta 4

The next major release of WordPress will be version 7.0, which is planned for April 9, 2026. The Security Team has decided to package a new beta release (7.0 beta 4) to keep everyone protected from the patched vulnerabilities, including the dedicated members of the community focusing their time and effort on testing the upcoming release.

This will be an additional beta release in the 7.0 release cycle. The schedule will remain the same going forward, but with five total beta releases instead of the previously planned four. The next 7.0 beta release is still scheduled for Thursday, March 12th.

This beta version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test WordPress 7.0 beta versions on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, you should evaluate Beta 4 on a test server and site.

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the Beta 4 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-beta4
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 

Beta 4 updates and highlights

WordPress 7.0 Beta 4 contains the ten security patches shipped in WordPress 6.9.2, and more than 49 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release, including 14 in the Editor and 35 in Core. 

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes. More are on the way, thanks to your help with testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 at these links:

As always, a successful release depends on your confirmation during testing. So please download and test!

Props @peterwilson, @desrosj, @marybaum, @amykamala for peer reviewing.

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Hi there,

I am just back from my fourth WordCamp Asia and it was again fantastic! I also enjoyed Mumbai as a city to visit. The energy in the streets, the kindness of the people, the historic sites of many cultures and the deliciousness of the food. It was all an adventure!

Huge Kudos to all the people who put together a phenomenal WordCamp. It’s a lot of work, and it takes dedication, perseverance and an incredible amount of details to bring it all together for ca 2300 people to have a good time. And I am excited for next year to revisit India for the first WordCamp India as a fourth flagship event.

The angels behind the scenes already uploaded all 48 session videos to YouTube to the WordCamp Asia 2026 playlist on the WordPress channel.

And just in time for this Weekend Edition, WordCamp Europe announced their schedule, with two tracks for talks and two for workshops. In a few weeks, on June 4-6, 2026, roughly 1500 people will descend on Krakow, Poland. Will you be there?

If you would rather not get across the pond, there are a few WordCamps on the calendar in the US, too:

A full list of all planned WordCamps in various stages is available at WordCamp.org

What else is in this Weekend Edition? AI in WordPress, block theme and plugin updates and more…

Have fun!

Yours, 💕
Birgit

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Miguel Fonseca recaps what’s new in Gutenberg 22.9, a focused release across 131 merged PRs. The headline addition is background gradient support for the Group block, letting you layer gradients over background images for the first time. The command palette gains organized sections for recent commands and contextual suggestions — experimental, opt-in via Gutenberg Experiments. Real-time collaboration gets stability fixes: block notes now sync without a page refresh, and the stuck “Join” button in the post list is resolved.

🎙 The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #129 Artificial Intelligence, WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8 with Beth Soderberg, of BeThink Studio

Beth Soderberg and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording the Gutenberg Changelog 129

Anne McCarthy introduces the Twenty Twenty-Seven team: Henrique Iamarino leads design, with Maggie Cabrera and Carolina Nymark as co-lead developers. The standout addition is Juanfra Aldasoro stepping into a newly created lead mentor role — a deliberate move to make theme contribution more structured and welcoming for newer contributors. Starting earlier than previous default theme cycles gives the team room to be more intentional: the goal isn’t just a great theme, but growing the number of people who feel capable of contributing to WordPress theme work at all.

WordPress 7.0

The release date is still pending. An update is expected on or before April 22, 2026, next week. Stay tuned.

Benjamin Zekavica, previous Core team rep, offers a practical pre-flight checklist to prepare your plugins and sites for WordPress 7.0: if your plugins still use metaboxes, real-time collaboration will silently break for your users — migration time is now. PHP 7.2 and 7.3 are gone, MySQL minimum jumps to 8.0, and API keys in the new Connectors screen sit unencrypted in wp_options until Trac #64789 lands, so use environment variables instead. The iframed editor isn’t enforced in 7.0 core yet, but test your v2 blocks in the Gutenberg plugin today.

Core AI team member Darin Kotter cuts through the noise in WP 7.0 + AI: WordPress 7.0 ships AI infrastructure, not AI features. Your site won’t suddenly start firing off AI requests when you update. What lands in core are the provider-agnostic AI Client PHP API, the new Connectors API for managing external service authentication, and client-side enhancements to the Abilities API. Actual AI providers, features, and MCP integration all arrive via separate plugins — your choice, your setup.

Nevertheless, Depak Gupta,freelance developer from Mumbai and contributor on the Core AI team, published a plugin to Turn of all AI Features via the Settings > General page or via command line.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Jamie Marsland poses an interesting question in The future of WordPress after blocks: what if the builder isn’t human? He suggests that blocks were made for people—easy to understand but difficult for AI to interpret. He envisions a future where meaning is more important than layout, editing becomes conversations, and WordPress transforms from a site builder to a content operating system.

Shani Banerjee highlights the new features in WooCommerce 10.7, mainly focusing on performance boosts: improvements on the high-performance order storage (HPOS) reduce the number of database queries by 51%, and using object cache significantly cuts down checkout query counts. There are also updated analytics export filters that accurately reflect currency for background jobs, a new beta PHP API for handling orders, fixes for the Cart and Checkout blocks, better contrast for accessibility, and increased security for order notes in the REST API and AJAX handlers. Banerjee has all the salient details for you.

Speaking of WooCommerce, Wes Theron walks you through the new course, Build your store with WooCommerce on WordPress.com. It’s free and beginner-friendly. You’ll learn everything you need to launch and manage an online store. In about an hour of bite-size video lessons, you’ll work through products, payments, shipping, taxes, and order management at your own pace, ending with a fully functional store and the confidence to run it day to day.

Derek Hanson‘s Cover Block Parallax Style v1.2.0 is more bug-fix than feature release. The most visible fix: the editor and frontend were using different default speeds, so what you previewed wasn’t what visitors saw. Two mobile-handling bugs got squashed — the original global viewport check meant parallax would never initialize after resizing from mobile to desktop. The main new feature is a per-block “Disable on mobile” toggle, replacing the blunt all-or-nothing approach. Background oversizing also bumped from 130% to 140%, matching what production parallax libraries use.

Elliott Richmond continues his WordPress.com series with Design Your WordPress Homepage with Twenty Twenty-Five, switching to the core theme he contributed to and building a hero section, call to action, and quick links grid — properly, using blocks the way they were designed. In 12 minutes you’ll learn how Groups, Covers, Grids, Global Styles, and Patterns fit together, and why understanding what’s happening under the hood makes all the difference to your layouts.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

At WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai, I ran a block theme development workshop and whether you were there or couldn’t get a seat, the full workshop bundle is now on GitHub — everything you need to build Concrete & Light, a portfolio theme, entirely through the Site Editor. Three guided exercises walk you through styling headers and footers, setting global element styles, and creating dynamic page and archive templates. You can be up and running in minutes via WordPress Studio, the Studio CLI, or directly in WordPress Playground.

Workshop reference theme screenshot Concrete and Light

Jonathan Bossenger documents how he built a custom WordPress block theme using Claude and MCP tools — no CLI, no code editor, just conversation. WordPress.com MCP tools let Claude audit his live site directly; WordPress Studio MCP tools wrote the theme files into his local environment. The key lesson: AI got him 80% there fast, but converting Claude’s raw HTML output into proper editable block markup still required a human in the loop — and Claude Code to help get it done.

Home page hero section by Jonathan Bossenger

Yann Collet, founder of Twentig, has launched Twentig One, a new free WordPress block theme built for the site editor. Lightweight and flexible, it offers templates, post formats, color presets, font pairings, and fluid spacing out of the box. Four starter sites — Business, Portfolio, Blog, and Personal — get you up and running quickly,T<_T< ?` with more on the way.

“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025”
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Eric Karkovack walks you through using the Remote Data Blocks plugin to pull Google Sheets data into WordPress, step by step. The plugin connects to Airtable, Shopify, and Google Sheets out of the box, with HTTP support for other sources. Most of the setup time goes into Google Cloud Platform — creating a project, enabling APIs, and generating JSON credentials. Once connected, your spreadsheet data renders via a block and a customizable pattern directly in the editor.

Varun Dubey shares a hard-won lesson in CLAUDE.md for WordPress Developers: Why Layered Knowledge Beats a Bigger File: when your instructions file hits 400 lines, more rules aren’t the fix. His solution is four distinct layers — rules in CLAUDE.md, facts in memory, procedures in skills, and capabilities in MCP servers — each loaded only when relevant. For WordPress developers already running Claude Code and feeling the weight of their own instructions pile up, this is the cleanup framework you didn’t know you needed.

AI and WordPress

Jeffrey Paul announces two quick releases of the WordPress AI plugin. Version 0.6.0 marked a shift toward connected publishing workflows — image editing and refinement landed as a full Feature, and the plugin was renamed from “AI Experiments” to simply “AI.” Now 0.7.0 is out, expanding editorial workflows further: Content Classification suggests categories and tags from your post content, Meta Description Generation handles SEO descriptions without leaving the editor, and bulk alt text generation lets you process your entire Media Library at once. Your next stop is 0.8.0, where Content Provenance tracking via C2PA and a “Refine from Notes” experiment are already taking shape.

James LePage, co-team rep of WordPress Core AI and head of AI at Automattic, catalogs what the community is building on top of the WordPress AI infrastructure ahead of 7.0. The volume is the point: ten community AI provider plugins, 70+ plugins adopting the Abilities API covering hundreds of millions of installs, dozens of MCP server implementations, fourteen agent skills, and tutorials in Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. WooCommerce, ACF, Ninja Forms, GravityKit, Yoast, and WP Engine are all in. None of it was dictated from the top — the community decided the building blocks were worth using. The post has about 180+ distinct resources and links. And LePage himself admits it’s not exhaustive.

JuanMa Garrido shares hard-won lessons in Using local AI models with WordPress 7.0: what I learned connecting Ollama — the kind the official docs skip. The biggest gotcha: call wp_ai_client_prompt() at init priority 25 or later, not the default 10, or authentication won’t be wired up yet and you’ll get a silent “No models found.” He also covers how to allowlist localhost requests (blocked by WordPress’s SSRF protection by default), register fallback auth for keyless local providers, and use is_supported_for_text_generation() as a pre-flight check before committing to an API call.

Gary Pendergast brings his AI writing experiment directly into the block editor with Claudaborative Editing 0.4. The new WordPress plugin — available on GitHub now, pending directory approval — adds a sidebar menu with Compose, Proofread, Review, Edit, and Translate modes, plus a pre-publish panel that suggests tags, categories, and excerpts. You control how much the LLM does: it can fix things outright or just leave notes for you to act on. Gary uses it mainly for planning — to organize his thoughts before writing, not to write for him.

What’s new in Playground?

Fellyph Cintra announces a new blueprint agent skill that teaches your coding agent to write valid WordPress Playground Blueprints from natural language prompts. Install it with one npx command and your agent gains a structured reference covering every Blueprint property, resource type, step sequence, and common pitfalls — so it stops guessing property names or forgetting require '/wordpress/wp-load.php' in runPHP steps. It works with Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Copilot, and Codex.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
Send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

Featured Image:

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It was great fun to conduct a Workshop at WordCamp Asia contributor day. Roughly 100 students were in the class and it was a great interactive session. I also know that there were quite a few of you who didn’t get to join us because there wasn’t enough room.

Birgit Pauli-Haack workshop on the block editor and full-site editing was a highlight of the entire event. Her depth of knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for the future of WordPress left me inspired and ready to dive deeper. – Kinjal Dwivedi

If you attended the Block Theme Development workshop at WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai and want to revisit the exercises, or if you couldn’t make it but want to work through it on your own, the complete workshop bundle is available on GitHub. Everything you need to follow along is included:

  • the reference theme,
  • demo content with media,
  • step-by-step instructions to start your theme, and
  • a blueprint to set up a local site with WordPress Studio or with WordPress Playground.

You can get started within minutes.

If you have used the Site Editor to customize a theme but have not yet built one from scratch, this workshop is a great next step. The exercises stay entirely within the visual editor. By the end, you will have a working portfolio theme and a solid understanding of how template parts, patterns, global styles, and custom templates fit together. Using the Create Block theme plugin, you can save all your changes in the new theme files, export it and use it on other websites.

A quick primer before you start

Before jumping into the exercises, it is worth reviewing the workshop slide deck. If you are coming from classic WordPress themes, the mental model is different. A block theme replaces PHP template files with HTML templates built from block markup, and it replaces scattered CSS with a single theme.json file that defines your colors, typography, spacing, and layout in one place. Templates and template parts live in their own folders, and every piece of them is made of blocks.

The Site Editor is where it all comes together. It gives you a visual canvas for designing templates, setting global styles, and previewing changes in real time. Developers ship defaults through theme.json; site owners customize through the Site Editor. When a user makes a change in the editor, it takes precedence over the theme default. Understand that layering is key before you dive into the exercises.

What the workshop covers

The workshop walks you through building Concrete & Light, a block theme for a fictional heritage architecture studio based in Mumbai. Rather than starting from theory, you start from a working site with real content — five pages and three project posts — and progressively shape the design through the Site Editor.

Reference theme for the Building block theme from scratch Concrete & Light.

Three guided exercises take you from basics to custom templates:

Exercise 1: Styling the Header. You install fonts (Jost and Playfair Display), set up a semantic color palette, configure typography presets, and transform the default header into a dark, minimal navigation bar with uppercase text and an accent border. This is where you get comfortable with global styles and template parts.

Exercise 2: Footer and Global Elements. You build a four-column footer with studio branding, page links, social channels, and addresses. Then you style headings, links, and buttons across the entire site to ensure design consistency. By the end, you understand how global element styles cascade through your theme.

Exercise 3: Page Templates. This is where it gets interesting. You create a Landing Page template with a full-viewport hero image, a 40% overlay, and a dynamically pulled page title — no hardcoded text. Then you build a Category Projects template with a three-column query loop grid, giving you hands-on experience with archive templates and dynamic content.

You use the visual tools WordPress provides and see the results immediately. The Create Block Theme plugin is pre-installed so you can export your modifications as a proper theme at any point.

Getting started on your own

You have three options for setting up your site:

  • A visual app, WordPress Studio can import the included blueprint and have your site ready in a couple of minutes.
  • Using the command line, the Studio CLI will do the same thing with a single command.
  • Or skip the install entirely, open the workshop site directly in WordPress Playground — it loads right in your browser with all the content and plugins already in place.

Instructions for installing WordPress Studio or using the Studio CLI for the workshop are also available.

Whichever route you choose, the blueprint automatically installs WordPress, activates the required plugins, imports all demo content and media, and configures the site settings.

Once your site is running, open the exercise instructions on GitHub and work through them at your own pace. The instructions include color references, specific block settings, and enough context that you should not get stuck even without a workshop facilitator in the room.

The full workshop bundle is on GitHub. Fork it, clone it, or just download the ZIP. And if you build something with it, we would love to hear about it.

If you have trouble or run into problems, email pauli@gutenbergtimes.com or ping me on WP Slack or create an issue or discussion on GitHub

Resources to learn more

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Transcript

[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

[00:00:26] Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case how web accessibility boosts traffic, SEO, and revenue.

[00:00:39] If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

[00:00:56] If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there.

[00:01:13] So on the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett.

[00:01:16] Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then, she’s become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place. Especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne’s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.

[00:01:46] This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you are leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.

[00:02:22] Anne talks about why accessibility hasn’t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world, and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared towards the real world, bottom line, business benefits of accessible websites. Reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.

[00:02:46] If you’re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who’s ever wondered whether accessibility is worth it, this episode is for you.

[00:02:57] If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

[00:03:07] And so without further delay, I bring you Anne Bovelett.

[00:03:17] I am joined on the podcast by Anne Bovelett. Hello Anne.

[00:03:20] Anne Bovelett: Hi Nathan. Thank you for having me today.

[00:03:23] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. Anne and I have been talking for quite a long time before we hit record and we’ve covered a lot of ground. But the ground that we’re going to cover today is all to do with accessibility, your WordPress website and why, well, why you are leaving money on the table if you are not pursuing the accessibility goals that you probably should be in the year 2026.

[00:03:43] Before we begin that, I guess it would be a good idea for you, Anne, to give us your credentials. Tell us a little bit about you and how come you get to speak authoritatively about accessibility in WordPress. So over to you, give us your bio.

[00:03:55] Anne Bovelett: It’s the most dangerous thing to ask me ever, right? Because I always talk too much.

[00:04:01] So let me do it differently this time. When I started figuring out about accessibility, about six years ago, I quickly realised that it’s not that complex to learn accessible coding. It’s not that complex to learn universal design principles. But what is hard for a lot of people working in accessibility is that many of them have this very social way of acting. I do too. I’m in it for the right reason, I think, because I want everybody to have freedom and also the freedom to make the same mistakes that we do, but also not to be constrained in any way.

[00:04:46] And then I was speaking to accessibility specialists, remediators, and in every layer of businesses, and I realised that they were being punched upon by organisations because they were just getting too many roles in one. The expectations were insane. So companies were 2 – 3000 people working for them, outputting I don’t know what kinds of digital products and websites, would expect one person to be the accessibility person to guard the compliance. And I mean this is a recipe for burnout 101.

[00:05:21] And one thing I don’t have a lack of is a big mouth. And one of the reasons why I started working for myself is because of that big mouth. I was not material to be hired, even though I managed to work for 22 years in employment. I realised at some point, if I ask a good fee, for some reason people take me seriously. Have you ever noticed that, Nathan? The more money you ask for, the more serious they’re going to take you. It’s absolutely ridiculous. But that’s what’s happening.

[00:05:59] And so I was trying to find my way in accessibility, like where do I fit in best? And then I thought, I’m going to be the flag bearer and I want to teach 4‚T<@aT< ?bcompanies. And one of the things I like to do is to beat them with their own stick. Because I don’t care why someone makes whatever product, or whatever service they have accessible, I just care that they do. So if the stick that says money works, I’ll beat that. I’ll beat with that. It’s no doubt.

[00:06:35] And that’s where my career started changing, and especially since the past one and a half years. Someone said, you should change your job title. You should turn it into Accessibility Strategist. Well, here we are. I don’t care much for titles, but apparently that pretty much describes what I do.

[00:06:57] Nathan Wrigley: It’s kind of curious to me that if you were to, I say this phrase quite a lot on this podcast because there’s a lot of introspection going on and a lot of gazing back in time. It’s kind of curious that the accessibility bit never got importance from the get-go. And I mean right back from when the internet began.

[00:07:18] There was this great promise that suddenly great swathes of information, which would’ve been hither to unavailable to an awful lot of people, would suddenly be able to be parachuted into your living room via a computer and increasingly, you know, into your hand with a mobile phone.

[00:07:34] And yet the technology developed, the browsers developed, the web design industry developed, and it never got that importance. I’m genuinely puzzled by how that occurred. How it is that we all ignored that. And it really is probably only within the last 3, 4, 5 years that this clarion call for accessibility has become mainstream. I know that there’s people that have been banging the gong probably right from the beginning, but it has been largely ignored and I find that really curious.

[00:08:07] Anne Bovelett: I think that is due to two things. First of all, because people approach this as a purely social issue that needs to be resolved, and that people can’t imagine that they have certain users, which is arrogance at its finest. But, you know, that’s another topic.

[00:08:27] The other thing is good intentions. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Because in the beginning of the internet, when things got more colour, I always say this is the point, where things got more colourful, when Google was still small, when Alta Vista was still a thing and Yahoo and you remember, and I think we had four digit or five digit numbers for ICQ members. Actually the HTML, the sites were pretty ugly, right? They were fugly, I would say. I remember we had to build with tables and stuff, and then jump through hoops to make something look the way we wanted to.

[00:09:08] But the thing is, around that time, all we had was semantic HTML. We still have that, but back then it’s all we had. And because we were using semantic HTML, it was great for screen reader users, for example, and other assistive technology. But then everybody always wants to improve. They want to do better. And there is a German word for it, and I haven’t found the equivalent for that in English. We call it verschlimmbesserung. It literally means, instead of improving it, maybe down proving it. It’s like over-engineering.

[00:09:48] So this is what happened. And then people always want to work faster and they love building tools that help others, because in a sense, we are a social species, if you like it or not. We’re just social in the wrong things often, I think as a society. And from that perspective, there’ve been developers that had a great idea, said, let’s make frameworks, and then let’s make things easier for our fellow designers and developers.

[00:10:13] And very fast, at some point, semantic HTML was not a thing anymore because people were coding with div and span. And the div and span are the chameleons, the useless chameleons if you talk about accessibility, because you can make a div look like something, but you can’t make it behave like something until you put a ton of JavaScript on it. Div is like tofu without seasoning, right?

[00:10:41] And the same is with span. And because semantic elements like a button is challenging to style for some, a lot of frameworks came that used div and span a lot. And then they’re relying on JavaScript. And then these frameworks were growing and then at some point people were like, oh, this is the biggest framework used by everybody, so it must be good. That’s like saying the opinion of the majority is the truth. Unfortunately it’s not.

[00:11:15] That is my theory. I’m saying this more often. There was this time when everybody was doing Duolingo and then making big messages on social media, look, I’m on a 682.5 day streak in Duolingo, developers, right? And I’m like, why are you telling me about your streak for that but you can’t remember 50 semantic HTML elements? That’s very much also bashing the developer, which is pretty unfair because the problem is, with accessibility is, it’s not taken into account from the beginning.

[00:11:59] Let me compare that with another situation. So our family home burnt down to the ground and we had to rebuild, and then we got the chance to improve some things because we got modern stuff. And then, because we were building this community seminar centre at the same time, we needed to think about how we’re going to build the toilets, right? And then we had to go, and here, because the architect that helped us, he was nice guy, but he didn’t think about wheelchairs, about accessibility.

[00:12:32] At that time, I wasn’t thinking about accessibility or digital accessibility at all. But I was like, what if someone comes in with a wheelchair? Or what if we have a guest that weighs over 190 kilos? Will our toilet survive that? What kind of toilet do we need? And just close your eyes and go into that little toilet room, bathroom you call it, probably, and then close your eyes and imagine, okay, I have trouble moving, I have pain, I have rheumatism. I don’t but, you know, and I’m on a stick. Where do I put my stick? Do I have a place to put that in the corner? Can I reach for the paper?

[00:13:13] All these practical things. These are decisions that you take before you even start building the room. And it’s the same thing with anything else. Digital applications, terminals, elevators. I don’t know, anything. And the thing is, the better you do it, the less people have to ask questions afterwards about, how does this work?

[00:13:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because in the real world, I know that in the part of the world where I live, and I’ve made this comparison on different podcasts in the past. It’s so self-evident when somebody, for example, who’s using a wheelchair. It’s so self-evident when they can’t get in the building because, well, there they are at the door with some impediment. Maybe there’s three steps that are just unachievable. And it’s really obvious. There they are in the real world. You walk past and you notice it. It’s right there in front of you. Look, there’s a problem that needs to be solved.

[00:14:13] And so for the real world, the legislation in the part of the world where I am, came into effect many years ago. And so, for example, the ramps came in and all the premises that are publicly trading things must have ramps and so on and so forth.

[00:14:26] However, the internet is a different animal in that most of us are browsing in the comfort of our own home. Nobody has any idea what you are browsing. Nobody’s got any idea where it is failing for you because they’re not staring over your shoulder. And even if they were staring over their shoulder, it would be fairly hard for them to determine that, again, to use the metaphor of getting in the building, they wouldn’t see that you couldn’t get in the building even if they were watching your phone. It has to be reported by you, the user that can’t achieve the things. And so there’s this real kind of difficulty in matching it up.

[00:15:03] And also because a website kind of looks finished when it looks finished to most people, then you just put the tools away. There’s the website. It looks finished, so it is finished. We’re done. And of course, there’s this whole increasingly vocal cohort of people who, and we’ll get into them in a moment, who are not able to access these things, but they have to self-report.

[00:15:31] And who do you even report to? If I can’t access a building on my high street, let’s say the local library, I could probably even go to the police in all honesty. There’s a central place. I could go to the police, go to the council, and I could say, this must be fixed. And it, sure enough, it will be fixed. There is no equivalence here. Who would I go to to report a problem so that it will definitely be fixed.

[00:15:53] So there’s this whole sort of strange disconnect, which presents the problem of today. How do we encourage people who don’t get the self-reporting, that it’s a jolly good idea to fix the problems in advance?

[00:16:08] Anne Bovelett: Make it hurt.

[00:16:08] Nathan Wrigley: Or make it valuable, make the fix valuable. And in the scenario that you are describing today, we’re going to talk about some articles, one of which you’ve written, but also one which has been done by accessibilitychecker.org. We’re going to look into those. This is making the economic argument for doing it.

[00:16:26] Anne Bovelett: I’m sorry for interrupting you, but it was not just accessibilitychecker.org because then everybody’s going to go, oh, yeah, another accessibility site. This was Semrush. Semrush people. They did this together with accessibilitychecker.org.

[00:16:41] Nathan Wrigley: Sorry, I’m reading out the URL where I located it, so yeah. But the point being that there’s an economic imperative. And that kind of cuts through a lot, doesn’t it? You know, if you go to a business and you say to them, if we were to make this minor tweak with your business, we could increase your revenue by 0.5 of a percent. If we make these other tweaks, we can increase you by 8%, 9%, or what have you.

[00:17:04] Any business owner who hears those words is going to be curious. Okay, right, you’ve got my attention, now what? And although it kind of misses out the whole moral argument, like we should be making sites accessible just because that’s morally the right thing to do. Put that to one side. Let’s go with the economic imperative.

[00:17:23] So I will link in the show notes to anything that we mention today. So I’ll just drop that in. Go to wptavern.com, search for the episode with Anne, and all the links will be provided there, as well, I might add with a transcript of everything that we say today.

[00:17:38] Tell us the sort of headline pieces that you found curious in the accessibilitychecker.org piece, which is obviously, as you said, created by Semrush amongst others.

[00:17:47] Anne Bovelett: I’m just looking at the first page from Semrush itself. And it was interesting because they actually have an infographic on it that says, summary of findings. That’s not accessible at all, but we used it in our Hackathon project last year. But they tested 10,000 websites. And this is actually what I, and many of the people in my line of work have been waiting for, data, data, data. Because this is what companies care about. And I understand that. You know, they are responsible for people’s salaries, not just the revenue and the turnover, but also for the people that they employ, right?

[00:18:27] And so in this research it showed, after 10,000 websites, that 70% of the sites were not compliant. Well, that’s not news, right? But the thing is, they found a 23% traffic increase tied to higher compliance. 27% more keywords ranked with accessibility improvement. So this is major, but here’s the biggest one. 90% boost in authority score for compliant sites.

[00:18:59] And the thing is, when I read people, wow, we’ve been celebrating last Friday because we had a 0.5 increase in our click rates, for example. That’s another one. I’m like, that could be 10% or 15%. I’m happy to see that it now becomes clear that accessibility affects everything.

[00:19:21] And the thing is, people approach or companies approach accessibility from a technical standpoint. Like, what do we have to change technically? But accessibility is about people. It’s the same thing with all these solutions, the overlays, the whatever. They’re trying to approach it as a digital problem. But this is a human-centric problem. This is how people use the web.

[00:19:48] And now if you go back to SEO, one thing I learned a long time ago, I mean you can tell me about Google and other search engines, whatever you want, I don’t care how technical you are, their biggest customer is the people who search on the web, not the ones who pay them to show their stuff. And so this is what search engines are looking for.

[00:20:16] And now with AI, I’m having a blast because I see people writing stuff like, oh, we have to tell the AI to understand our website. But you are leaving your fate in SEO in the hands of something that is going to interpret what you are doing there.

[00:20:36] I’m not going to name the names. It would be unfair because I’m going to confront them with that before. But, there is a massive event that has a fantastic, big website. I find it hard to navigate, but that’s a personal thing. And that is a JavaScript invested monster. And just for fun of it, I just asked AI, can you find this and this and this for me on that page? And AI was like, no, I can’t. It’s rendering JavaScript. I can’t read this. What do you think that does to a screen reader or, because they’re all using the same technology to read it.

[00:21:10] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. When I’ve done podcast episodes about accessibility in the past, we’ve often dwelled not on this side, in fact, I don’t think we’ve ever touched sort of like the SEO and traffic benefit of it. It’s always been from the point of view of, what can you do? As an engineer, as a web developer, what can you do to go in in the weeds and fix things?

[00:21:28] We are just going to brush that aside. You can find that information out. You know, go and talk to Anne, for example, if you want to learn how to do @T<ȗKbT< ?cit. But the principle here is more about the SEO and therefore the traffic side of things, on the flip side of doing the work. So you imagine, the work is not done. It’s poorer in terms of SEO and poorer in terms of reach, poorer in terms of search engine ranking, poorer in terms of revenue through your e-commerce platform or what have you. And then if you do do the work, all of those things increase incrementally.

[00:21:59] And in some cases the data shows fairly substantially. And so I’m just going to drill into each of those statistics one at a time because I feel it needs a little bit of like teasing out a little bit. So the first one is, well, there’s many statistics, but the first of the three that I’m going to mention, which you already have mentioned is organic traffic.

[00:22:17] So again, this is making the assumption that the work has been done. You’ve achieved the accessibility goals, presumably, which were many. You’ve jumped through all those hoops and you’ve got this benefit on the other side. And here’s some possible benefits.

[00:22:29] Organic traffic increased by an average of 23% as a site’s accessibility compliance score increased. So can I ask you, is that one directly related to search engines then? Because it feels like it is. You know, you did the accessibility work and a byproduct of that is that you became more visible on search engines. Have I got that right?

[00:22:50] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, of course because if assistive technology can’t read your site, the search engines probably can’t either.

[00:22:59] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It’s kind of interesting though that you get that much of a boost. You’d think if you had improved things, you might see, I don’t know, a few percent here and there, but this figure of 23%. I mean imagine saying that to a marketing person, or the growth person inside of a company, 23% is possible. The word average in that sentence is bolded. So it’s an average of 23%. So presumably there’s a few that are lower and there’s a few that are higher, but an average increase of 23%. So I don’t ever use the phrase win-win.

[00:23:32] Anne Bovelett: It is win-win. It’s win-win on sides. Maybe that’s a little bit the dark side in me, but I go to business dinners, meetings, entrepreneur get togethers, blah, blah, blah. And then I always hear, at some point I hear people say, I don’t get it. We are paying our SEO companies so much money, and we are not getting better results. And we have had a redesign on our website. And then I look at their website like, hmm, yeah, sure.

[00:24:01] And then they will fix the site at some point, maybe they will improve the site, where the design goes, where the user flow goes. But still, it’s not ranking better, and still it’s not ranking better. And I wonder when SEO companies are going to become so smart that they’re going to tell their customer, hey customer, stop writing click here everywhere.

[00:24:25] Nathan Wrigley: That’s a great, concrete example of what you’re talking about, because I was going to drill into the next one because honestly, the next point does confuse me a little bit. Again, I’ll link to it in the show notes, but point 4, I’ll just read it here, is websites ranked for an average of 27% more organic keywords with a higher accessibility score.

[00:24:45] Can you tease that out for me? Because I’m genuinely puzzled by what that even means. I’m not sure how there’s this overlap between accessibility compliance, and the keywords and how the search engine would pick them up. So that’s me being ignorant.

[00:24:59] Anne Bovelett: I would say, set the compliance story on fire. Torch it, and throw it away because compliance is what makes people do the bare minimum. And I think, I know they had to use this term in the report because they’ve been checking it if the site is compliant. And then you will get lulled into a false sense of security when your score says, like Google does in Lighthouse, ooh, you are 97% accessible. And like, yeah, but the 3% that you say it’s not, is what’s blocking about 80% of a group of potential visitors that you are not having.

[00:25:40] But again, it’s about, in my opinion, it’s about the way things have been coded and the way things have been written. For example, what happens is buttons that aren’t buttons that are not really saying, how do you say it? It’s the same thing. It’s the read more thing again. I have to be careful that I don’t go into the rabbit hole here too much. But it’s the read more thing. It is text where links are actually named properly.

[00:26:08] And just to give you an example, I see a lot of people who try to do affiliate marketing. Let’s say food bloggers. They make humongous sites. They love using WordPress. I know that. There are tons of plugins also for food bloggers to play out the, what do you call that in English? The nutritional values of this and that. All right. And then these bloggers, people complain about it like, oh, why do they have to write their life stories and that of the spider in the corner on the ceiling before they give me the recipe? Well, that is because they’re trying to get caught in the search engines, right?

[00:26:44] And then they have all these links. Like, someone creates a great meal with a fantastic expensive pan and a pot, and I don’t know what, and they have all these articles from Amazon. And all they have is click here, click here, click here, click here. And then imagine someone who is using that. I mean I love, I have a nice little, what do you call that, extension in Chrome? I’ve been speaking German all morning. This is why my English is so rusty right now. I have this extension and it just, in a big article, if I want to know, oh, what was that tool that she was using again? I’ll go get the link list with that little extension there, or I’ll just run the screen reader and get the link list, because that’s easy for me to do. And then all I see is click here, click here, click here. So I’m not finding the link through that pan, and so I’m not buying it through her link.

[00:27:35] Affiliate websites could make so much more money if they would just do the right thing in their content. Let’s forget about the code of the theme that they chose, just the content. If that is played out correctly, and it’s not some JavaScript generated hoo-ha, which doesn’t happen in WordPress Core, they would make a lot more money.

[00:27:58] Nathan Wrigley: Because I haven’t really been following the SEO industry for a very long time, I really don’t have much intelligence around what search engines these days look for. You know, back in the day when I was building websites, there was a, almost like a playbook that you could go through. And if you did these things, you could achieve reasonable results in SEO.

[00:28:18] And that was the state of the internet 15 years ago when algorithms were less sophisticated, and people were just beginning to kind of get online and use things like Google all the time. But it sounds to me as if we’ve got to a point with search engines, as if they’re able to, I’m maybe going to overstate this, it feels like the more human you have become as a website, the more likely Google will favour you.

[00:28:48] I’m not really encapsulating that very well, but what I mean is, if you put content on there, which is human readable. If you make it obvious where to click to do the thing, rather than stop it with keywords and things which, you know, is not really in the best intentions of humans, that’s clearly done for the algorithm only, it does sound like you are saying that the search engines favour, I’m doing air quotes here, humanity.

[00:29:15] Anne Bovelett: They always have. Let me circle back to what I said before. We, as the people who use search engines, and nowadays they’re AI in whatever they do, we are the biggest customer for them. Because if we’re not there to search, to use them, they can’t sell their services to the people paying to be found.

[00:29:37] I might be, how do you say that, unorthodox in this approach, but I’ve seen it. I have a friend, Manuela van Prooijen, she’s the owner of a company called Weblish. In the Netherlands she trains people in how to set up businesses with WordPress and how to build with WordPress. And you wouldn’t expect it when someone is just focused on that, but she’s got a very broad perspective of things. And she dove into SEO in a way that I’ve never seen before. And some of the SEO experts that I know, and we know together, were like, why didn’t we ever think of that? And it had to do with structured data. And of course, everything she builds is accessible.

[00:30:24] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so I’m going to pivot slightly. However, I think we’ve made the case that if you are endeavouring to make your website more accessible, I think by reading that piece, you will understand that there are definite benefits in terms of traffic and search engine rankings and so on. So let’s just take that one as a given.

[00:30:43] And then I’m going to move over to a piece which you yourself wrote, not that long ago actually. Almost exactly a year ago, March 4th, 2025. It’s on your website, annebovelett.eu. It’s called The E-commerce Industry’s Billion Pound Mistake. And in here you make the argument, and you bind it to money, to actual dollar terms and things like that, which is quite interesting.

[00:31:05] So I’m wondering if you’d just paint the numbers around what you were saying here, if you can remember. I know it’s a year ago now that you wrote it. But broadly speaking, what was the economic case that you were making?

[00:31:13] Anne Bovelett: It’s actually, this is based on a British report, actually. It’s called the Click Away Pound Report. It was brought in 2019. And that actually measures how much revenue people left lying on the street by not making their shops, their online shops, accessible. And the economic case is, we say in Dutch, you thief your own wallet, if you’re not doing it. And again, these are, this is data, these are numbers.

[00:31:48] So in 2016, for example, the click away pound increased by 45%. Let me just throw around some numbers, right? So in 2016, the money that people left lying on the street by not making their eshops accessible was 11.75 billion. Billion, not million, billion pounds. In 2019, that was already up to 17 billion. Really, I don’t know if they’re going to do another Click Away Pound Report again at some point, but I think we’re going to be shocked. Because since 2019, the state of the internet actually worsened because of all this technology. And it’s getting worse because of all this vibe coding voodoo, where they’re using AI that is trained on inaccessible code. But that’s another thing.

[00:32:45] So there’s another article that I have. I think it is so much money that people leave lying on the street, this is larger than the Chinese economy, that amount. It’s in an article I wrote about e-commerce in 2022, where I was criticising CMSs, including WooCommerce, who actually did a great job. Now WooCommerce Core is now accessible. And said, okay, if your system sucks, the people using your system are going to lose without being able to help it.

[00:33:18] Nathan Wrigley: If you send me the link to that piece, I will obviously add that into the show notes.

[00:33:22] Anne Bovelett: It seems I’m on the cold side of accessibility because that is something that forever stuck with me. Someone called me cold hearted, because I’m talking about the commercial side of accessibility all the time. But, you know, there was a time, this is maybe a strange segway, but there was a time where I weighed way over a hundred kilos. I was so heavy. I had trouble moving, I was in pain, I was uncomfortable. And for me, buying clothes became an uncomfortable exercise. Going into these shops, especially these nice boutique shops, with their very small cabins, you know, trying to turn around and not being able to step into a pair of pants or whatever. Just uncomfortable.

[00:34:13] But the most uncomfortable thing about it for me was that I got blatantly ignored by the ladies that were selling the clothes in the stores. And three years after that, I had lost about 37 kilos. And I came into that one store where it was very, very apparent that they really weren’t interested in talking to me at all. I came in and they immediately jumped me, both of them, the shop owner and her assistant. And I got madder and madder and madder and madder.

[00:34:49] And at some point I said, you know what? Keep your clothes, just tell me don’t you remember me? Don’t you know who I am? No, we don’t remember you. And I was like, well, here’s the picture. Oh yeah, I’ve seen you before. And you know what, the fact, at that time I was thinking, maybe it’s because you’re too busy or you are, you know, I don’t know. But the fact that you jumped me right now with the same amount of people in the place tells me something else.

[00:35:15] Now, why am I telling this story? This is how a lot of people that need assistive technology feel, and also how older people feel on the web. I mean, I don’t know about the UK, but in the Netherlands, you can’t do your taxes without a couple of apps on a phone. Well, if you jump through a million hoops, maybe you can send it in on paper still, but it’s almost impossible. If apps like that don’t work correctly, you’re putting people’s fate in someone else’s hand, because you’re working with their tax number.

[00:35:54] I don’t know in the UK, in the Netherlands, your personal tax number, never ever give that to someone. Never. Your social security number, don’t do it. And then you’re like, maybe 60, 70-year-old, and you’re right before that stage where the technology’s getting too hard for you, but apps to do these things are too difficult.

[00:36:17] There is a local tax office in the Netherlands that had a full accessibility redesign done by Level Level in Rotterdam. And for them, the support requests went down, I think by 30% or something. I couldn’t find the case on their website anymore.

[00:36:35] But this is because people are being empowered to do things by themselves. That’s what they wantȗKT

[00:36:58] Nathan Wrigley: That’s one of the curious things that come out of the article. The first part of this conversation was all about SEO and what have you. We didn’t really talk much about the person experiencing the problem. It was more about search engines and maybe how you would technically fix things. But this is so interesting. In your piece, you, and I’m just going to quote it because that’s going to be the easiest way to get the information into the record.

[00:37:20] And it says, a shocking 75% of disabled customers have willingly paid more for a product from an accessible website, rather than struggle with a cheaper inaccessible one. And that kind of sums up the whole thing really for me, that if you are faced with a struggle to do something, let’s say, I dont know, you want to buy a widget and it’s $100. The calculus that you are going through is, I could spend an hour and a half trying to get that $100 widget, or I could go to this other website and pay $120 for it and be done in three minutes. Well, that’s obvious, I know which one I’m going to do, which is really interesting.

[00:38:02] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, yeah. And there’s another thing. People are always like, oh, accessibility is only for the blind. No. The people that go forgotten in that, and I have to tell you, disabilities rarely come alone, right? I’m just going to take myself as an example. I have ADHD on steroids. I’m in the spectrum. I’m old. I need two pairs of glasses, one for my computer, one for my regular stuff. I’m starting to lose my hearing in certain regions. I am the target group. If I need to go and order, and I’m B2B, right? I’m a business.

[00:38:41] I will order B2B because then I can deduct the VAT. And I have to buy hardware. And I always try to buy the best. I will go to a store, maybe, and it’s B2B and I will go online. If I can’t figure out their stuff, I’m leaving. If I need to look at a manual, a video manual, that has background music while someone is talking, but there is no subtitles, I’m gone. I can’t follow it. My brain won’t let me.

[00:39:15] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I mean the analogy in my head is kind of, I don’t know, you’re going into a clothes shop or something like that and you need a new pair of shoes or something, and you discover that all the shoes are in a locked cupboard in a corner. And in order to get to the shoes, you need to ask a receptionist for the key. And then they go and find the key, and then they give you the wrong key and the key doesn’t work. And then they don’t point out where the box of shoes is, so you’re completely confused.

[00:39:36] That whole thing is just avoided by going to the next shop along the street where all the shoes are right there for you to pick up and try on and what have you. You’ve made the journey easy, and it turns out that price isn’t necessarily the prime mover here, which is really interesting. I find that statistic fascinating, that people will pay accordingly if they can get what they need out of it. I mean I know it sounds like common sense, but having it painted in those stark colours is.

[00:40:04] Anne Bovelett: Yeah, yeah. This is one of the things I did want to mention as well. I have the privilege of talking to Mark Weisbrod a lot from Greyd. You know him? He’s the CEO of Greyd. I think he’s unique, especially in the world of WordPress because he’s looking at things solely from a business perspective. He’s not distracted by technical issues or whatsoever. He will get it from there. He’s someone who often says to me like, okay, I like the story now show me the data.

[00:40:39] But then at some point, I remember it was before the European Accessibility Act was coming into effect, I think. So this, we’re talking about this in 2023 or something. And then I said, I don’t get it. Why is everybody so focused on the European Accessibility Act? Look at how much money they can make by leaving people their dignity. Because that’s basically what it is by making your stuff accessible.

[00:41:06] If you get past the stupid idea that if something is accessible, it can’t look nice. I mean, go to github.com without being logged in, that’s accessible. It’s a wonderful website. And then I said, where is the common sense? Why, if I talk to the C-suite of a company in one of those business things, and I say, listen, if you would make this and this and this more accessible in your web shop, your turn over would go up by so many percent, why are they not like, we’ve got to invest this money right now?

[00:41:39] And then he said, no matter what, people will always think with their wallet today and tomorrow. They’re not thinking about next week. Only the most visionary leaders in the industries think way more. And this is something I say now, because he said, he was telling me about they were selling, in a company he worked for, they were selling solar systems. And these systems would save the buyers so much money on the long run, but it was very hard to sell them because it was in the long run.

[00:42:20] And if a CEO or a CFO, I mean I know it sounds offending, I don’t mean it that way, but in large corporations it’s to eat or to be eaten. Managers are always afraid of their managers kicking down on them and the others kicking up, and they’re always trying to defend their own spot in the business. It’s only in smaller companies that people can have more leverage. So there are always so many powers at play in a company that if you start talking to a company about, it’s for the greater good of your company, it’s the same argument as it’s for the greater good of humanity.

[00:42:59] And I’ll just give you another number for example. Based on the Click Away Pound Report, and some other data that I have, I’ve been working on building a calculator. You tell me which country your web shop is in, you tell me how much turnover you have per year and then that calculator is going to tell you how much potential revenue you are walking away from by not making it accessible. I did this for very, very big supermarket chain in Switzerland, and the outcome was you could make 0.94% more revenue. And then you’re like, yeah, less than 1%. Yeah, sure. Ah, it’s still 350 million Swiss Francs.

[00:43:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Less than 1% but still that kind of money, wow.

[00:43:47] Anne Bovelett: Yes. And then you get this perspective thing. Because I’m pretty sure the day that this knowledge seeps through to the unions of the employees of this company, the employees are going to go like, why do we have to save money, or why do we not get a raise where you don’t take the opportunity to make that much more turnover? And then someone else with other interests in the company says, yeah, but the stakeholders, you know, or the investors, this is why this is not happening. I mean, we all think common sense is the greatest good in the world. People do not have common sense, period.

[00:44:33] Nathan Wrigley: It’s that sort of invisible layer to people who don’t experience any of the accessibility problems that the industry is trying to tackle. For example, you’re fully sighted, you can use your legs and walk about and use a mouse and use regular computer and use a regular screen and your ears are working fine and all those kind of things. All of that stuff is just sort of hidden from you, and so it just somehow doesn’t drive itself to the front of your consciousness.

[00:44:56] Which is why this is so interesting because, although you said you’ve kind of been berated in the accessibility community for banging the gong about money all the time, it’s a great way to cut through, isn’t it? You can go to the CEO of a company and make the economic argument, I would imagine, much more readily than you can do with the moral argument.

[00:45:16] Anne Bovelett: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, about writing up a profile for a position in companies that I don’t think exists yet. Because normally, we call it the sheep with five legs in Dutch. It’s very hard to find that sheep with five legs. If someone is an accessibility officer in a big company, they are being banged on for compliance. If someone is working on accessibility in a lower rank, they’re getting overworked because people have so many expectations or they just don’t do things.

[00:45:52] It’s always, this person is screaming in the desert like, hey, this is happening. I’ve seen this happen, I was guiding a company with more than I think 13 or 14 development teams, over 85 people, and they didn’t talk to each other. Design, didn’t talk to development, development didn’t talk to development in other areas, because that was how the company was structured.

[00:46:18] And I think people need to be educated in two ways to have this position that doesn’t exist yet. It’s a position where you are able to kick the shins of the C-suite in a professional manner, of course, but also sit down with development, design, and content teams and make them communicate with each other in a way that works.

[00:46:48] And for that, you have to understand these processes. And normally, I’m absolutely not for people in managing positions that know the job that the people they’re managing is doing, because they very often become that, how do you say that, the driver on the carriage running in front of the horses? You know, that’s really dangerous. You shouldn’t interfere into detail level too much.

[00:47:15] But if you understand it on a detail level, from design content and development, you can get these people to talk to each other and help each other. Because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a developer that sees a design and is like, woah, that design, the way that is made, that’s going to cause some accessibility issues. Those are issues.

[00:47:39] And normally they will just, no, no, I was asked to develop this. I’ll develop it. Instead, you need to raise a culture where people go to the designer and say, hey, I noticed this. What is your thought behind this? And they can’t. And if they had a middle person for that where they could go to and say, look, I got this, I’m not sure about it, then you would have a fantastic flow in a company to make things accessible.

[00:48:06] Because this goes through so much more. So an article that I published today is about how much money you lose in support. It’s the same thing. If a support, people doing support are not used to really listen and someone says, I’m hard of hearing, or someone says, I have dyslexia. When you’re saying, yeah, go read it, it’s on that page on our website. If this person calls you because he couldn’t find, or understand the page, and then you force this person into vulnerability by admitting that he or she has dyslexia. And that is going to leave a very bad taste in someone’s mouth. And what happens? They’re going to walk away. If you’re not some government thing that everybody needs like, I don’t know, taxes, because otherwise they’ll come and rob you.

[00:48:54] Nathan Wrigley: It is genuinely so interesting because a lot of the content that I’ve made in the past has been definitely about the ways to fix your website. So here’s the WCAG guidelines, go figure. This episode’s been really entirely different.

[00:49:07] So first of all, looking at Semrush, and the data. Just sort of painting the picture of the improvements that you can get in terms of traffic and visibility across search engines should you go down the accessibility route. But also then getting into the financial bit, which it sounds like is your thing.

[00:49:27] So I think that’s hopefully of interest to some people who perhaps have just always thought about accessibility as a, I’m a web developer, there’s another job that I’ve got to do. Well, now you’re kind of armoured with things that you could maybe even approach clients with. You know, you’ve got a website, we haven’t looked at it in a few years, you are always looking for ways to make more revenue out of your website. Well, look, I’ve got this thing in my back pocket. This is a really credible way that we can do some tweaks. I know what I need to do. There’s guidelines that I can follow. Let’s do that and see if we can improve the revenue.

[00:50:00] I think we’ve probably covered that. And so with that in mind, Anne, just before we end, I’m going to try and link to the piece that you mentioned. I’ll certainly, anything that we’ve mentioned in this podcast, I’ll try and link to in the show notes on WP Tavern. Do you just want to tell us where we can find you? I did reference your website at one point during the podcast, but do you just want to give us that again, or maybe social networks or something like that where you hang out?

[00:50:23] Anne Bovelett: If you remember how to spell my name, just put it in Google, you’ll find me everywhere. Okay. No. So it’s Anne and then Bovelett, which is B from Bernard, B-O-V-E-L-E-T-T. You can find me on LinkedIn a lot. I’m there a lot because I talk shop a lot.

[00:50:44] Very active on X, Twitter. So that’s where you find me. And don’t be afraid to approach me. Just, if you send me LinkedIn DMs, it can take a while because sometimes I get too many, and then I’m overwhelmed and, yeah. But the best thing is to send me an email. Just go to the contact page on my website.

[00:51:06] Nathan Wrigley: All that it remains for me to do is to say, Anne Bovelett, thank you for chatting to me today. That was really interesting. Thank you so much.

[00:51:12] Anne Bovelett: Thank you for having me and giving me the platform.

[00:51:13] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome.

On the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett.

Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then shex T= :dT=$ ?es become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place, especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne’s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.

This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you’re leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.

Anne talks about why accessibility hasn’t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared toward the real-world, bottom-line business benefits of accessible websites, reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.

If you’re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who’s ever wondered whether accessibility work is ‘worth it’ this episode is for you.

Useful links

Semrush

Accessibility Checker website

 Manuela van Prooijen’s Weblish

The e-commerce industry’s billion-pound mistake

Click-Away Pound Report

Anne on LinkedIn

Anne on X

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The shoemaker’s children go barefoot or, as we say in French, Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chaussés. That’s been me for years. As a developer working on WordPress, I’ve long neglected the design of my site. This ends today.

We’ve recently released a new tool called Studio Code, think of it as Claude Code but tailored for WordPress. A tool you can install by running npm -g install wp-studio and invoke using studio code locally. Or you can try directly using npx wp-studio code. I took this as an opportunity to see what it’s capable of, and oh boy! I’m mind-blown 🤯

It took me:

  • 1 tiny prompt to pull the site locally
  • 1 main redesign prompt and 3 or 4 follow-up prompts to get everything redesigned and sorted out.
  • 1 last tiny prompt to push the site online

The whole process lasted about a couple of hours during the weekend, while watching yet another Sinner-Alcaraz match on TV.

(Ok, I’m lying a bit. The push didn’t work the first time because I had discovered a bug that had since been fixed.)

There are a lot of things that made the experience so enjoyable for me. I can see myself switching how I work with WordPress sites entirely to this process:

  • All it took to get access to all my remote sites was to login to WP.com prompted by the tool itself.
  • I didn’t have to think much or configure anything. I didn’t have to install any MCP, or provide any specific instructions. It just worked.
  • I really enjoyed the feeling of freedom it gives you to iterate on your designs, content, and explore wild ideas. It feels like everything is possible, your ideas are the limit.
  • I really enjoyed the safety net of the local development. I can change anything, break whatever I want, yet it’s still local and won’t impact my live site until I decide.
  • I literally just said “push my site back to riad.blog” and that was it.

Nonetheless, the tool still has some rough edges, but we’re shipping early and iterating fast. We want you to test it and please share any feedback you have with us. We have a lot of ideas and you can also bring your own, it’s all Open Source.

I forgot, what do you think about my new design? I wanted something minimal but gives you a small “hacker” feeling. Don’t be too harsh on me.

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I’ve just released Media Picker for Immich on the WordPress.org plugin directory. It connects WordPress to a self-hosted Immich server so you can browse, search, and insert your photos and videos into posts without copying files around.

Immich

I run Immich at home. It’s where my photos now live. They’re organised, searchable, with facial recognition and AI search. My WordPress uploads directory is where photos used to go, and the two never talked to each other. This plugin fixes that.

How it works

Point the plugin at your Immich server and give it an API key. You can set a site-wide key or let each user configure their own to connect to their own Immich account.

Screenshot 1: Settings → Immich: Server address and blank site-wide API key, default cache settings

If the site-wide key is blank, each user adds their own key on their profile page. All Immich API calls happen server-side.

Screenshot 2: User Profile page, Immich API Key field showing *******.

Two ways to add media

Once configured, an Immich tab appears in two places.

The first is the Media Library grid. Switch to the Immich view and you can search, filter by person, and either Use or Copy assets into WordPress.

Screenshot 3: Media → Libra:�T=$:���e�������������T=>� �������������?���fry, Immich view.
  • Use creates a virtual attachment. Nothing is copied; WordPress proxies the media from Immich on demand and caches it locally on first request. Your uploads directory stays lean.
  • Copy downloads the original file into wp-content/uploads/ as a normal attachment.

The same tab shows up in the “Select or Upload Media” dialog inside the post editor, so you can pull an Immich photo straight into a post without leaving the editor.

Screenshot 4: Select or Upload Media dialog, Immich tab.

A few details worth mentioning

  • Videos work too. Proxied videos stream with seek support.
  • Lightbox. Proxied Immich images in posts open a full-resolution lightbox on click.
  • Local cache. Proxied media is cached to wp-content/cache/immich/ after the first fetch. Optional cleanup with a configurable lifetime.
  • Your server stays private. Immich only needs to be reachable from WordPress — not from the public internet. Visitors never connect to Immich directly.
  • When images are copied over, virtually or otherwise, you can insert them into a post like any other image, which also includes adding them to galleries in posts.

Get it

Install it from the WordPress plugin directory or search for “media picker for Immich” in the plugins page in WordPress.

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Development is done on GitHub here.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 brought the global WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9–11, gathering contributors, organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of learning, collaboration, and community. With 2,281 attendees, the event reflected the scale of the WordPress community and the strong turnout throughout the event.

The event unfolded across Contributor Day and two conference days, with a program that moved from technical sessions and workshops to hallway conversations, shared meals, and joyful moments of connection across the venue. From first-time attendees to longtime contributors, WordCamp Asia 2026 reflected the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem and the many ways people shaped and sustained it.


WordPress is not a company. It is a shared commitment to keeping the web open.

Mary Hubbard, Executive Director, WordPress

Throughout the event, WordCamp Asia 2026 balanced formal programming with the conversations happening around it. Sessions and workshops set the pace, while morning networking, tea breaks, lunch, the family photo, the sponsor’s raffle, and the after party in Jasmine Hall helped make the event feel welcoming, social, and connected.

How WordCamp Asia 2026 Took Shape

Bringing together contribution, practical learning, and forward-looking conversation in one shared program. Across Contributor Day and the conference sessions that followed, attendees moved between hands-on work, technical talks, workshops, and broader discussions about AI, education, enterprise, community growth, and the open web.

The result was a WordCamp that felt expansive without losing its sense of connection. Different rooms with topics as themes, helping different audiences, and different forms of participation all fed into the same larger picture: a community actively building what comes next for WordPress as a feeling that something bigger was happening: not just a schedule being delivered, but a community showing up for one another and for the future of WordPress.

Contributor Day: Building WordPress Together

Contributor Day opened WordCamp Asia 2026 with one of the clearest expressions of what makes the project special: people coming together to move WordPress forward by working on it. More than 1,500 participants joined 38 table leads across more than 20 contribution tables, creating a day that was expansive in scale and grounded in real work. For some, it was a return to familiar teams and longtime collaborators. For others, it was the beginning of their contributor journey.

The day moved between structured learning and hands-on participation. Alongside contributor sessions, attendees joined workshops, visited the Open Source Library, took part in YouthCamp, and attended The Making of a WordPress Release: Conversations with Past Release Squad Members, a featured panel that added depth and perspective to the work of building and sustaining WordPress.

What made Contributor Day stand out was not only the number of people in the room, but the range of ways they could take part. Workshops created space for skill-building. YouthCamp brought younger participants into the experience and widened the event’s reach in a meaningful way. The day felt welcoming, energetic, and full of possibility.

By the end, the impact was already visible across teams. Polyglots contributors suggested more than 7,000 strings and reviewed 3,200 of them. Photo contributors uploaded 76 images. The Test team worked on more than 20 tickets, and 55 contributors joined Training. Those numbers told only part of the story, but they pointed to what Contributor Day continued to do so well: turn a large gathering into shared work that strengthened the project in real time.

Conference Sessions Take Shape

Across the conference days, WordCamp Asia 2026 covered a wide range of topics, from technical development and hands-on workshops to business strategy and the open web. Sessions took place across the Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tracks, with workshops running alongside the main program.

One of the opening sessions was James LePage’s WordPress and AI, which introduced a theme that appeared throughout the conference: how WordPress is responding to changes in AI, publishing, and developer workflows. That topic continued in later sessions focused on AI-driven development, autonomous testing, plugin maintenance, and automation.

Later that morning, a fireside chat with Mary Hubbard and Shilpa Shah shifted the focus toward trust, security, and the longer-term questions shaping open source publishing. Coming early in the program, the conversation gave the conference an important center of gravity, pairing technical change with questions of stewardship, resilience, and what people needed from WordPress as the web continued to evolve. Rather than pulling away from the event’s technical momentum, it deepened it, bringing a human perspective to the pace of change and reminding the audience that progress in open source is not only about what gets built, but about how communities guide, challenge, and sustain that work over time.

From there, the conference widened into a program that balanced developer-focused talks with sessions on the Interactivity API, the HTML API, AI-driven development workflows, education initiatives, observability, automation, and startup strategy. On the final day, those threads continued through talks on WP translation, community building, WordPress Playground, data engineering, enterprise WordPress, and journalism on the open web.

Together, the two conference days made clear that WordCamp Asia 2026 was designed not for one kind of attendee, but for many. Developers, founders, marketers, contributors, organizers, and people finding their place in WordPress for the first time all found something that spoke directly to their work and interests. The breadth of the program was striking, but so was the feeling that these conversations mattered now.

Building What Comes Next

WordCamp Asia 2026 closed with reflections from Mary Hubbard, following an opening announcement from Chenda Ngak that WordCamp India will join the calendar in 2027 as the fourth flagship WordPress event.

Mary’s remarks tied together several threads that had already surfaced throughout the event: India’s long-standing role in the WordPress project, the growth of programs like Campus Connect and WordPress Credits, the energy of YouthCamp, and the significance of WordPress 7.0. One of the clearest ideas in the session was that WordPress is entering a new phase shaped by real-time collaboration, AI infrastructure, and global contributor growth. That framing gave the closing session a strong sense of direction without losing sight of the community work that made it possible.

The session then shifted into a panel discussion about the current state of WordPress and where the project is headed next. Peter Wilson and Sergey Biryukov joined Hubbard on stage, while audience questions brought the conversation back to many of the themes that had shaped the event across all three days. Even from afar, Ma.tt Mullenweg remained part of the discussion, following along remotely and sending written responses during the live Q&A.

Those questions touched on contributor growth, AI, plugins, local communities, product direction, and the long-term health of the open web. What stood out was how often the answers returned to the same core idea: WordPress continues to grow through open discussion, shared responsibility, and the people who keep showing up to build it together.

A Lasting Momentum

Over three days in Mumbai, WordCamp Asia 2026 brought together contribution, learning, and community. From Contributor Day through the closing keynote, the event balanced hands-on work with bigger conversations about publishing, technology, education, and the open web.

The event also created space for many kinds of participation. Some attendees contributed to Core, Training, Polyglots, Photos, and other teams. Others came for the conference program, workshops, or the chance to reconnect with collaborators and meet new people. Across session rooms, tea breaks, shared meals, sponsor hall conversations, and the after party, the community side of the event remained just as important as the formal program.

Thank you to the organizers, volunteers, speakers, sponsors, attendees, and everyone who joined online. WordCamp Asia 2026 was a reminder that WordPress continues to grow through the people who show up to contribute and build together.

There is still more to look forward to this year. The community will gather again at WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków, Poland from June 4–6, followed by WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona from August 16–19.

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I’ve been taking an iterative approach to building Claudaborative Editing: build something to prove that the underlying concept works, then evolve on top of that. The first two iterations were answering a question I had: can an LLM genuinely improve the writing process? Along the way, I found a more important question: can it be done without contributing to the masses of generated slop we see?

Having seen the underlying idea working, I needed to answer the next question: can it be brought into the actual writing environment? Can it be useful, but keep out of the way?

Can you talk to an LLM from within WordPress, and have it talk back? I think I’m onto something, and it’s alot of fun.

Coming to a WordPress Near You

Naturally, the next step was to build a WordPress plugin that provided a straightforward interface to the LLM backend. You still install the tool to run with your local copy of Claude Code, but once it’s running, you can do everything directly from the block editor. The plugin is waiting to be approved for the WordPress.org plugin directory, but you can download it directly from the GitHub repo now.

A screenshot of the Collaborative Editing Menu. It shows 5 options: Compose, Proofread, Review, Edit, and Translate.
A screenshot of the Edit box, where a user can have the LLM make broad changes to their post.
A screenshot of the Translate box, where the user can have the LLM translate their post into other languages. Because this is a freeform field, they're not limited to the normal options: they can also translate into weird languages, like "pirate", or "emoji".
A screenshot of the pre-publish panel, showing the featured image, a suggested excerpt, and suggestions for new and existing tags and categories to use.

Tools are easily accessible when you need them, but otherwise stay out of your way. You choose how much input you want the LLM to have in your writing: it can fix things up for you, or you can ask it to just leave notes and you’ll decide how you want to proceed. Personally, I prefer to do the work myself, but everyone can choose their level of comfort.

That said, one of the things I often forget to do when writing a post is to tag it properly. If I do remember, I’m never sure what to tag it with. By the time I get to publishing, I’m impatient just to get it out in the world! So, now there’s a button that’ll give suggestions right before publishing, letting you pick and choose which suggestions to use, and what to drop.

Planning is a Conversation

I always start Claude Code in planning mode, and I wanted that for posts, too. That’s where I started this post, and I can absolutely see myself using this every time I need to write a post. Not to do the writing for me, but to help me organise my thoughts. I opened the Compose mode in the sidebar, I had it summarise the changes that I’ve made in the last 2 weeks, and present a few options for how to collate them. Some I kept, some I dropped.

In a lot of ways, it’s more like a very advanced ELIZA, though rather than just reflecting your words back, it reflects your ideas back in a more structured form.

What’s next

I’ll be honest, I’m really happy with how this has turned out so far! I’d love to hear your feedback as you use it. What would you like to see here? I’ve already noted down a bunch of ideas that came up just while I was writing this post, so there are definitely more things to come!

Go ahead and give it a shot now:

npx claudaborative-editing start

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I wanted to hook up Claude Code to be able to interact with my local wordpress-develop core development environment via MCP (Model Context Protocol). I couldn’t find documentation specifically for doing this, so I’m sharing how I did it here.

Assuming you have set up the environment (with Docker) and started it via npm run env:start.

1. Install & Activate the MCP Adapter plugin

The MCP adapter is not currently available as a plugin to install from the plugin directory. You instead have to obtain it from GitHub and install it from the command line. I installed it as a plugin instead of as a Composer package:

cd src/wp-content/plugins
git clone https://github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter
cd mcp-adapter
composer install

Next, activate the plugin. Naturally, you can also just activate the “MCP Adapter” plugin from the WP admin. You can also activate it via WP-CLI (but from the project root working directory, since you can’t run this command from inside of the mcp-adapter directory:

npm run env:cli -- plugin activate mcp-adapter

2. Register the MCP server with Claude

Here’s the command I used to register the wordpress-develop MCP server with Claude:

claude mcp add-json wordpress-develop --scope user '{"command":"npm", "args":["--prefix", "~/repos/wordpress-develop/", "run", "env:cli", "--", "mcp-adapter", "serve", "--server=mcp-adapter-default-server", "--user=admin"]}'

Here’s the JSON with formatting:

{
	"command": "npm",
	"args": [
		"--prefix",
		"~/repos/wordpress-develop/",
		"run",
		"env:cli",
		"--",
		"mcp-adapter",
		"serve",
		"--server=mcp-adapter-default-server",
		"--user=admin"
	]
}

You may want to remove --scope user if you just want to register the MCP server for the one project. I tend to re-use the same WP environment for multiple projects (core and plugins), so I think it may make it easier for me to install at the user level instead.

You will also need to change the --prefix arg’s ~/repos/wordpress-develop/ value to correspond to where the repo is actually cloned on your system. I include this arg here so that when I start claude inside of a plugin project (e.g. inside src/wp-content/plugins/performance), it is able to successfully run the npm command in the package.json in the ancestor directory. You can remove this --prefix arg if this is not relevant to you.

Change the user from admin according to your needs.

3. Expose all abilities to MCP

Registered abilities are not exposed to MCP by default. This is a safety measure so that AI agents have to be explicitly allowed to perform potentially sensitive actions. So without any plugins active other than the MCP Adapter, prompting Claude with “discover abilities” results in:

No abilities found. The MCP server connection may be unstable. Try reconnecting again with /mcp.

However, since this is a local development environment, there is no concern about this (for me at least). To opt in all abilities to be exposed to MCP by default, you can use the following plugin code:

add_filter(
	'wp_register_ability_argsrT=r8hT=
?i',
	static function ( array $args, string $ability_id ): array {
		if (
			// Prevent exposing abilities in MCP except on a local dev environment.
			wp_get_environment_type() === 'local'
			&&
			// Omit abilities which the MCP Adapter already makes available itself.
			! str_starts_with( $ability_id, 'mcp-adapter/' )
		) {
			$args['meta']['mcp']['public'] = true;
		}
		return $args;
	},
	10,
	2
);

This is also available in a gist to facilitate installation via Git Updater.

Note: This filter does not currently apply if your ability is registered by extending Abstract_Ability in the AI plugin.

At this point, I can now open Claude (or re-connect to the MCP server) and see that it is able to see all (er, most) abilities that are registered on my wordpress-develop env with the same prompt “discover abilities”:

3 WordPress abilities available:

core/get-environment-info — Returns runtime context (PHP, database, WordPress version) with the ability name.

core/get-site-info — Returns site information (all fields or filtered subset)

core/get-user-info — Returns current user profile details

When I prompt “what’s the environment info?” it executes the core/get-environment-info ability via MCP and prints out:

  • Environment: local
  • PHP Version: 8.3.26
  • Database Server: 8.4.8 (MySQL)
  • WordPress Version: 7.1-alpha-62161-src

Now the environment just needs more abilities! I’ve filed a Performance Lab issue for us at the Core Performance table to work on adding abilities during Contributor Day at WordCamp Asia tomorrow.

Where I’ve shared this:

The post Adding an MCP Server to the WordPress Core Development Environment appeared first on Weston Ruter.

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WordCamp Asia 2026 will be available to watch live across three days of streaming, making it easy for the global WordPress community to follow along from anywhere. This year’s live streamed programming begins with a special Contributor Day broadcast, followed by two full conference days of presentations from across the WordPress community.

This post gathers each official stream in one place so you can quickly find the right broadcast for each day. Bookmark this page and return throughout the event to watch live.

Day One: The Making of a WordPress Release

Go behind the scenes of a WordPress release in this special Contributor Day live stream from WordCamp Asia 2026. Past release squad members come together to share stories, reflect on their experience, and talk about what it takes to bring a WordPress release to life. The Panel will go live at 4:30 am UTC.

Day Two: Conference Livestreams

Watch the second day of WordCamp Asia 2026 live for a full day of presentations and sessions. beginning at 4:00 am UTC, including a Fireside chat with Mary Hubbard, which will begin at 5:00 am UTC over on the Growth Stream.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

Day Three: Conference Livestreams

Watch the third day and final day of WordCamp8T=+,iT= ?j Asia 2026 live, beginning at 4:00 am UTC for another full day of presentations from across the community. Don’t forget to watch Ma.tt Mullenweg give the final keynote, which will begin on the Growth stream at 10:00 am UTC.

Foundation

Growth

Enterprise

You can also explore the full schedule to see what is coming up across the event and plan your viewing. However you join, we hope you will follow along and be part of WordCamp Asia 2026.

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If you’ve been paying attention to LLM-based coding tools in the past few months, you’ll have seen a seismic shift in how they’re being used. Even 12 months ago, they were little more than glorified auto-complete tools: useful for quickly repeating patterns, but terrible at producing well structured, thoughtful, maintainable code. More recently, however, there seems to have been a new equilibrium reached, where an experienced engineer can guide these tools to consistently produce high quality code. Small course adjustments seem to have an outsized effect, resulting in the “Human in the Loop” paradigm that’s become so popular.

Why It Works

“Code is Poetry” has been my approach to writing code for as long as I can remember. Software is a form of expression, and the way you create that expression is through code. So, to make beautiful software, you need to write beautiful code. But, what happens when you don’t need to write code to create the software?

Suddenly, the code becomes entirely about outcomes. It needs to be correct, functional, and maintainable, but it doesn’t need to be seen as a form of expression itself. Instead, the creative decisions move further up the stack, to the architectural level. You can write beautiful software by writing thoughtful specifications, instead.

That’s not to say that technical abilities are suddenly obsolete. You still need to know what’s possible and realistic to be able to tell the LLM what to build, and to redirect it when it goes in a different direction. You need to be able to read and comprehend the code, you just don’t need to memorise every function signature.

The Temptation

So, if an LLM can write code for me, what else can it do? Marketing copy? Emails? Opinion blog posts? I could ask Claude to write 10 paragraphs on the “The Human in the Loop”, but would you have even read this far if you thought this post was LLM generated? Of course not! I can promise you that every word of this post (and every other post on my blog) was written by me.

Respect for the Reader

If I want you to read this post, and seriously consider the arguments I’m making, the least I can do is write it myself. It goes beyond that, however. LLMs can write functional code, but they can’t write beautiful software. When the text is the creative act, there’s no way for the LLM to write the text without compromising your creativity. If you’re the Human in the Loop for a blog post, you’re not injecting your voice, your perspective, or your personality into the post: you’re rubber stamping whatever feels good enough, and that’s a very low bar to clear.

“Good enough” isn’t actually good enough.

A measure of the complexity of a written piece of text is called “perplexity”. It measures the randomness of how the text flows, and it’s probably the thing you’re noticing when you know you’re reading LLM-generated text, but you can’t quite articulate why. It’s an uncanny valley thing: it looks like writing, it reads like writing, it might even flow like writing, but the vibes are off.

The good news is, you’re not going insane, recent research shows that there is a measurable difference between human written text, and LLM generated text. LLM generated text is inherently less random, which makes sense when you remember that LLMs are, at their core, giant statistical models that are really good at figuring out “what’s the most likely bit of text to come next”.

The LLM as the Assistant

That’s not to say that LLMs are completely useless when it comes to writing, but we need to use them the right way. While they shouldn’t be generating text, they can absolutely be used to help you write. Over the last month or so, I’ve been working on Claudaborative Editing, an experiment to see exactly how much they can help with the writing process. I’ve been building it directly into the WordPress editor, allowing me to plan, write, review, and publish this post from the one place. An LLM assisted, but every word of it was written by me alone. My goal isn’t to replace the author, or to make it easier to fill the web with LLM-generated dreck, it’s to help me (and hopefully you, too!) improve your writing, while still keeping it fundamentally yours.

Where Does Creativity Live?

When you’re evaluating these tools, “can an LLM do this?” isn’t the question you need to ask. Instead, think about where the creative part of the process lives. For software, that’s in the design decisions and the architecture, the final product is the expression of that creativity. The specifics of the implementation don’t really matter. For a blog post, or any writing for that matter, the creativity lives in the act of writing. To delegate that to an LLM is to delegate your own creativity.

Here’s what I believe: the best uses of LLM tools are when they augment humans, rather than try to replace them. They enhance the inherent creativity of their human operator, they don’t suppress it.

This belief guides how I use LLMs, and how I build tools that help others use LLMs, too. I’ll be pushing out a new release of Claudaborative Editing in the next few days, I hope you’ll give it a go!

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It’s very cool to see Theo / t3.gg‘s open source arc.

Just in general, with people creating more software than ever, it’s so exciting to see an explosion of open source and a growing understanding of why working together on open source makes so much sense for the future we want to build.

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You call yourself a Christian engineer, but you haven’t given your life to Open Source? Huh.

What license would Jesus choose? I don’t know if it’s GPL or MIT, but sure as hec+,T=L1jT= ?kk it isn’t proprietary.

Letting proprietary code dictate your life is like following a Bible you’re not allowed to read. Beware those who would seek to mediate your relationship to the divine.

Happy Easter, y’all. 🙏🐰🌈

Update: BTW, the above would probably be a lot better if I spoke it, because people would hear a very humorous tone, but that’s not clear from the text! So some have said I come off pretty jerky, and some said blasphemous. Fair! I’m also not saying it’s literally funny, it just would be a little clearer I was trying.

Also, I mean examples as possible metaphors or parallels and not literally, but never say that up front. Also as thought experiment, not literally as judgey. “No” or “it is totally fine” are valid answers to the first question, lots of more possibilities — the “Huh” is meant more out of curiosity than judgment, a conversation starter, not an ender.

Finally the ender “Happy Easter, y’all)” in my Houston culture and context / the South would be pretty clear as actually happy, friendly and playful. But said in a different tone or without that context, the opposite! I have friends in NYC for whom that would read deep sarcasm, a big FU and rude bye. I didn’t think of that!

Anyway, I’ve learned a lot from the feedback, will probably still learn more, and want to deeply appreciate the people who care enough to give it to me and spend time explaining and answering my questions. Thanks, y’all! (Not sarcastic 🙂 🙂 🙂 <— Real smiles and gratitude, not smug.)

I’m not thanking all the Twitter / X trolls, though, and I’m not going to engage any more because the real or perceived trolling makes it almost impossible to change, nor do I harbor any illusions of changing some minds. I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to it in the past, but it didn’t help, and that took a lot of time away from my favorite people and loved ones.

(Also, I think something has changed; in open source and WordPress, we’d fight like crazy, but ended up coming together or having a meal afterward before diving back in. Social media I think has made that rarer and harder.)

(and the new Spring colors are on the site.)

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If you’re looking for a good watch this weekend, I couldn’t recommend more the documentary Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb. The craft of research, writing, and editing is presented in the most beautiful way possible. Around 400,000 words were removed from The Power Broker, which was ultimately published as 1,162 pages.

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This Ashlee Vance interview of Pedro Franceschi from Brex contains so many interesting stories it might cause you to reconsider what it means to be a CEO.

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So, two other Matts at Cloudflare announced EmDash — the spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security.

(Is it nominative determinism or a simulation glitch that everyone trying to terraform the web has some variation of “Matthew” in their name? I was in a call set up by Matthew Prince, talking to Matt Taylor and Matt Kane, with my right hand there, Matías.)

First, I’m going to tell you why this isn’t spiritually tied to WordPress at all, then why they haven’t solved plugin security, and finally offer some suggestions.

The Spirit of WordPress

WordPress exists to democratize publishing. That means we put it everywhere. You can run WordPress on a Raspberry Pi, on your phone, on your desktop, on a random web host in Indonesia charging 99 cents a month, and you can run it scaled up on AWS or across multiple datacenters.

The same code. When you download WordPress Playground you’re running the same code that’s being attacked a thousand times a second at WhiteHouse.gov. That’s what we mean when we say democratization.

It’s all built on open source and web standards. You can run it anywhere; there’s no lock-in.

That’s why we do what we do. It’s really hard. You can come after our users, but please don’t claim to be our spiritual successor without understanding our spirit.

The Spirit of EmDash

I think EmDash was created to sell more Cloudflare services. And that’s okay! It can kinda run on Netlify or Vercel, but good stuff works best on Cloudflare. This is where I’m going to stop and say, I really like Cloudflare! I think they’re one of the top engineering organizations on the planet; they run incredible infrastructure, and their public stock is one of the few I own. And I love that this is open source! That’s more important than anything. I will never belittle a fellow open source CMS; I only hate the proprietary ones.

If you want to adopt a CMS that will work seamlessly with Cloudflare and make it hard for you to ever switch vendors, EmDash is an incredible choice.

Claimed Plugin Security

In another example of them not understanding the spirit of WordPress, the fact that plugins can change every aspect of your WordPress experience is a feature, not a bug! And their sandboxing breaks down as soon as you look at what most WordPress plugins do.

I know we get a bad rep because there are 62k plugins with wildly variable engineering quality, and more every day, and when one installed on 0.01% of our user base has a vulnerability, a bunch of websites write breathless articles that get clicks saying “122,000 WordPress Sites Vulnerable!”

That, by the way, I think we’ll be able to fix in the next 18 months with AI. The plugin security only works on Cloudflare.

Critical Feedback

As I said, we had a call with Cloudflare on March 23rd, where they asked for feedback on this thing they built but didn’t tell us the name, said it would probably launch in their developer week towards the end of April, and some top colleagues and I offered to help. I wish I could say the L1T=/ZkT= ?lthings I’m saying in this blog post on that call, and if they had just shared the announcement post I could have, but in the spirit of open source here’s what I would have said:

  1. If they had said the name I would have asked if they had any other options because I have an amazing colleague named Emdash who is doing some of the most exciting stuff with WordPress and AI. (BTW I think our Em will have more impact on the web than this in five years.)
  2. I actually think the product is very solid, there’s some excellent engineering, migration tools, it’s very fast, and the Astro integration is nice.
  3. I’d be surprised if this doesn’t get tens of thousands of sites on it.
  4. The UI is in the uncanny valley of being sorta-WordPress sorta-not. I know it wasn’t a weekend vibecode project, but it has some of that smell. Stuff breaks at the edges.
  5. I think using TinyMCE is a regression, and they should adopt Gutenberg, which we licensed and created to be used by other CMSes. (Correction: They use Portable Text not TinyMCE, but same UI criticism applies.)
  6. The Skills are amazing, a brilliant strategy, and we need to do the same as soon as possible. I’ve been working on something similar and got some good ideas from their implementation.
  7. I’m not going to say which parts, but they copied a lot of things we’re planning to kill. Build from first principles. Make it better. Skate to where the puck is going.

There’s a new CMS every other day. And that’s great! I love building CMSes and I totally get why other people do, too.

In Conclusion

Some day, there may be a spiritual successor to WordPress that is even more open. When that happens, I hope we learn from it and grow together. [removed “out of your mouth” sentence, too spicy for Western palates.] I’ve mostly focused on this post on just the software, but WordPress is also so much about the community — the meetups, the WordCamps, the art, the college programs, the tattoos, the books… The closest thing I’ve seen to a spiritual successor isn’t another CMS, it’s been OpenClaw.

Thanks to colleague Batuhan İçöz for helping review this.

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April 9-11, 2026 | Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai, India

WordCamp Asia 2026 brings the WordPress community to Mumbai, India, from April 9 to 11, with a schedule shaped around artificial intelligence, enterprise WordPress, developer workflows, product strategy, and open source collaboration. For attendees planning their time, the program offers a useful view of the ideas, tools, and practical challenges shaping WordPress today.

Get Your Event Pass
WC Asia Schedule
About WordCamp Asia

Keynotes to Set the Stage

The keynote sessions at WordCamp Asia 2026 help frame some of the biggest conversations at this year’s event.

Ma.tt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, is expected to speak about the future of the open web and the ever-evolving role that WordPress plays.
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, will also join a fireside chat moderated by Shilpa Shah, focusing on leadership, education initiatives, artificial intelligence, and community growth.

Together, they offer an early view of the themes and discussions unfolding across WordPress in 2026.

AI, Automation, and the Future of WordPress

Artificial intelligence is one of the clearest threads running through the program. Sessions from Fellyph Cintra, Fumiki Takahashi, and Nirav Mehta examine how AI is already influencing WordPress through Core discussions, testing workflows, plugin development, and day-to-day implementation. That same theme continues in sessions on marketing and content strategy, including Adeline Dahal’s work on structuring WordPress content to make it more machine-readable. 

This cross-section of presentations shows how automation is moving from concept to practice. From autonomous testing with WordPress Playground to AI-supported development workflows, these sessions highlight applicable tools and skills that teams can start using right away, not just concepts. For attendees interested in where WordPress is heading, this is one of the strongest themes across the event.

Enterprise WordPress and Scalability

Enterprise sessions take that discussion further by focusing on scale, architecture, and operational complexity. Rahul Bansal, James Giroux, Anirban Mukherji, and Abid Murshed are among the speakers exploring how WordPress supports larger organizations, more complex commerce systems, and demanding digital environments. Their sessions look at growth, implementation, and the kinds of decisions that matter when WordPress is supporting business-critical work.

Other talks in this track focus on the realities of enterprise operations, including migration risk, observability, and long-term performance. Together, they show how WordPress continues to adapt to larger systems and more complex digital ecosystems without losing the flexibility that makes it widely used in the first place.

Developer Experience and Modern Practices

The developer track stays grounded in both Core tools and everyday engineering practice. Ryan Welcher will cover the Interactivity API, Jonathan Desrosiers will look at automation in open source, and Takayuki Miyoshi will introduce a schema-sharing approach to form management. These sessions point to a broader shift toward building WordPress systems that are more dynamic, maintainable, and easier to scale over time.

These more technical presentations also include sessions on the WordPress HTML API, Content Security Policy, open source data pipelines, and evolving plugin standards. Rather than focusing on a single type of builder, this part of the schedule addresses developers working across infrastructure, security, front-end experiences, and long-term platform health.

Community, Education, and Open Source

The schedule also makes space for the people and ideas that support WordPress beyond engineering alone. A panel featuring Anand Upadhyay and Maciej Pilarski, moderated by Destiny Kanno, looks at education initiatives and student pathways into open source. Kazuko Kaneuchi will reflect on the story of Wapuu and the culture of contribution around WordPress. At the same time, Kotaro Kitamura and Chiharu Nagatomi will share how WordPress and its community shaped their professional journeys.

That wider perspective continues in sessions on product thinking, marketing, career growth, and business strategy. Speakers, including Nabin Jaiswal, Himani Kankaria, Julian Song, Karishma Sundaram, Sandeep Kelvadi, Aviral Mittal, Anh Tran, and Anna Hurko, explore how WordPress works and connects with decision-making, discoverability, professional development, and organizational growth. Taken together, these sessions reflect one of WordPress’s long-standing strengths: its ability to connect software, learning, and community in the same space.

Hands-on Workshops

Hands-on workshops round out the schedule, offering practical sessions for attendees who want to move from ideas to implementation. They include:

  • From On-Demand to Cloud: Automate WordPress Installations Like a Pro
  • AI + MCP to build, manage, and automate WordPress end-to-end
  • Building AI Agents with self-editing memory
  • Building Better WordPress Experiences with AI-Driven Development Workflows

Explore the full schedule to plan your sessions, and get your event pass to join WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai.

Mumbai is calling. See you at WordCamp Asia 2026!

Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.

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I’m really excited to introduce a project I worked on with various AI agents the other night, which I think represents a new way we might build things in the future.

First, the problem: My WordPress site has 5,600+ posts going back decades, and I had some categories that were old and I didn’t really use anymore, and I wasn’t happy with the structure. Every time I made a new post, it irked me a little, and I had this long-standing itch to go back and clean up all my categories, but I knew it was going to be a slog.

Let me present Taxonomist, a new open-source tool you can run with one copy-and-paste command line that solves this problem. Here’s the idea:

  1. You run this code in your terminal, and it spins up a Claude Code instance that asks you for your URL.
  2. Then it takes that and figures out what type of site you have, which APIs are available, and starts downloading all your posts locally for analysis.
  3. Sub-agents analyze every post against your current categories and thinks about suggesting new ones.
  4. It previews all the changes.
  5. Tries a variety of ways to authenticate against your site and make all the changes.
  6. Logs everything locally, so anything is reversible later.

THIS IS VERY ALPHA. PROBABLY BUGGY. BE CAREFUL WITH IT. PATCHES WELCOME. MAYBE MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SITE BEFORE YOU CHANGE IT.

It kind of just worked. I ran it live against ma.tt and it cleaned up a ton of stuff pretty much exactly how I wanted. But there’s a lot of weird stuff happening here, so I don’t know quite what this is yet.

  1. It’s very non-deterministic! There is some pre-written code, and probably could be more, but a lot of the code is generated on the fly by your agent. This creates interesting bugs where people testing with less powerful models had some odd behavior.
  2. I kind of want a directory of these useful AI agents on WordPress.org, but also, there’s something a little strange about trusting a remote shell script to run on your machine.
  3. I tested this with Claude, but there’s no reason Codex couldn’t use the repo in the exact same way, and I’d love to improve the quick start script to start by detecting all the agents you have, asking which you’d like to use, and also which directory you’d like to work in. I think we could kill the cd taxonomist-main && claude "start" part of it.
  4. Because much of the code and commands are generated on the fly from prompts, it’s very resilient! I’ve seen people try it, and it ran into errors with libraries or whatever, but it just figured out how to work around them.
  5. I’d love it if, at the end of every session, there was a moment for self-reflection where the agent would take the repository and suggest upstream issues and PRs based on anything that went wrong. Then this could recursively self-improve very quickly.
  6. There are some obvious improvements to this, for example, doing this for tags. Sometimes it creates too many categories when you might only want 3-5 for your theme.
  7. One fun thing is a bunch of the work of this just uses public WordPress APIs, so you can run it against any site! I like using distributed.blog as a demo. It’ll still do all the fun downloading and analysis and everything, you just won’t be able to make changes.
  8. I now have a local cache of all my WordPress posts I can do other interesting things with, and that’s cool.
  9. The logging and reverting probably still has some bugs in it.
  10. You can riff with it along the way, so for example, it suggested I get rid of my Audrey category because it didn’t have enough posts, and I asked it to look at all the companies on Audrey.co website and categorize any posts that talk about them as Audrey, which created like 50 more.
  11. I want to check the GitHub repo for any updates before it starts, and maybe periodically, because it’s iterating and improving really fast.
  12. It’s not the default but the entire thing is way more pleasant if you run it with skip-permissions. So testing I usually run the one-liner, exit, resume with skip.
  13. You can see some of my prompt history in the Github but I apologize it’s not comprehensive, I also used Gemini and Codex with this and got lots of value from them.

So, not sure what this is, but please check it out, play with it, submit improvements or ideas, and think about what’s next. Might host a Zoom or something to brainstorm.

The final thing I say is that this was a very different process of writing software for me. Instead of staying at the computer the entire time, I found myself going away for a bit, napping and dreaming about the code, coming back with new ideas and riffing on them. Maybe I’ll return to my Uberman polyphasic sleep days? Nap-driven development?

BTW I have lots of thoughts and feedback for Emdash but I thought this was more interesting, will try to get that out later tonight. One preview: TinyMCE is a regression; they should use Gutenberg! We designed it for other CMSes and would be fun to have some common ground to jam on.

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Transcript

[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, WordPress content creation, education, and the unexpected diversion into a pizza plugin.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.

So on the podcast today we have Elliott Richmond. Elliott’s been deep in the WordPress community for over 20 years, developing since the early days, back when WordPress was yet to be forked from b2. He’s freelanced, built with multiple CMS systems, and has contributed creatively to the community, including releasing a WordPress advent calendar way back in 2013.

He is an active WordPress developer, content creator on YouTube, and unexpectedly a part-time pizza vendor running a thriving pizza business powered entirely by WordPress tools.

Many listeners will know Elliott for his technical videos, but today we discuss how WordPress has served as the glue for unexpected ventures, like scaling a local pizza business during lockdown, using WooCommerce, Jetpack, and custom plugins. Elliott’s experience showcases just how flexible WordPress can be, whether for websites, unique ordering systems, or even streamlining business processes for other niches.

Recently, Elliott has been asked by Automattic to create content around wordpress.com, giving him early access to features, and allowing him to share his workflow and insights with a broader audience. He talks about his approach to content creation, balancing scripting versus improvisation, and details his low tech kit from iPhone cameras to DIY lighting.

Throughout the episode, Elliott shares how community connections and feedback loops, especially via YouTube comments, shape his work, and he discusses the new opportunities for content creators within the WordPress ecosystem.

If you’re interested in WordPress beyond websites, curious about how to turn technical, know-how into educational video content, or just want to hear about WordPress powered pizza, and who doesn’t, this episode is for you.

If you’d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

And so without further delay, I bring you Elliott Richmond.

I am joined on the podcast by Elliott Richmond. Hello Elliott.

[00:03:35] Elliott Richmond: Hello. How you doing? Thanks for having me.

[00:03:37] Nathan Wrigley: You’re so welcome. Elliott and I have had a little bit of a chat prior to hitting the record button.

Elliott’s one of those people who has been in my world for many years, because I’ve been vicariously watching what, this is going to sound a rather sinister. I’ve been watching what Elliott’s been doing for several years. And we’ll get into some of that in a moment. It’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast anyway. I feel like I know more about you than you will do about me, that’s for sure anyway. But welcome to the podcast.

[00:04:08] Elliott Richmond: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. I think if you put yourself out there, you are bound to attract stalking of some form.

[00:04:14] Nathan Wrigley: That’s right. Okay. I hope it doesn’t come across as that.

[00:04:18] Elliott Richmond: No, not at all. Not at all.

[00:04:19] Nathan Wrigley: But will you just give us a little bit of your background? Obviously this is a WordPress specific podcast, so you can dip into your early childhood if you like, but maybe if we constrain it to WordPressy things.

How long have you been using WordPress? What do you do at the moment? And then we can get into some of the fun things you’re going to be doing.

[00:04:36] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, sure. So I’ve been using, or developing with, wordPress for over 20 years. So pretty much as old as WordPress is, but I was developing before that, building stuff. I’m self-taught developer, but I was building stuff in the early nineties for bands and stuff that I was in, creating music and just putting stuff out on the web.

But then I realised, when I was working at an agency, it was a design agency, that there was definitely a market for the web effectively, but the company I was working for didn’t really want to get into it. So eventually when I went freelance, I was able to sort of self-teach myself all of the things I was interested in, which was web development. So I used all of the kind of CMSs like Joomla, Drupal, and eventually found b2 which was forked, ended up being WordPress.

So, yeah, started seeing lots of communities popping up, meetups and I just reached out to people. And I’ve actually featured on WP Tavern before because of releasing an advent calendar I think it was, back in 2013, I think it was Christmas time. And it was basically just reaching out to other developers and asking them for code snippets. It was back in the day when WordPress was kind of, it was a blog but developers were using it in really creative ways like portfolios, and product databases where you had to use the category and tagging system to actually make things work, and then manipulate the templates.

So there was lots of code snippets sort of flying about. So yeah, I just reached out to community and got about 30 developers submitting code, and then just released them as advent calendars.

So, today I am still a developer and develop for WordPress, very passionate about WordPress. I’m a content creator, create stuff on YouTube, and I’m also a part-time Pizzaiolo. And if you don’t know what that is, that’s basically somebody who makes pizzas.

[00:06:22] Nathan Wrigley: I can’t ignore that, and we’re going to get into that in a moment. But I’ve been having people on a variety of different podcasts for over a decade now, and you are the first, actufT=mT> ?nally, that’s not true. I was about to say that you are the only person that I’ve ever interviewed who’s actually used b2 prior to it becoming WordPress. You are not, because I interviewed Matt Mullenweg once, and of course he, along with Mike Little, definitely used b2 because they forked it to become WordPress.

But that really does give me an illustration of, you are right at the beginning. So you were one of the kind of founding members of the community, if you like, and goodness only knows, I’m sure you had no anticipation of what it was going to become.

[00:07:02] Elliott Richmond: No, not at all. Yeah, Kubrick.

[00:07:05] Nathan Wrigley: Old school. If you know what Elliott’s talking about, you can join the, what’s the word for somebody who’s been around in the community for a really long time? Well, anyway, one of those.

So tell us a little bit about the pizza thing. I don’t want to dwell on it for too long, if you don’t mind, but this is such an interesting little story. And curiously, it does have a WordPress spin at the end. So yeah, make sure to get that in as well because that’s fascinating.

[00:07:28] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so during COVID, during lockdown, my wife and I just started a pizza delivery thing. Because all the kind of delivery shops were closing down and we have a community in our village and it was like, they’ve tried my pizzas before. So we thought, well, we’ll just roll it out and set it up. And people were saying, yeah, send me a pizza. So we thought, okay, well we can sell them to the rest of the community as well. And it was just going to be a temporary thing. Five years later, we employ five staff and it’s still going strong and we sell it as a licence to other people.

But the WordPress thing is, I mean in a million years I wouldn’t know that I’d be doing this five years later, but it’s all because of WordPress that has allowed me to do this. You know, it uses all WordPress products, it’s WooCommerce, WordPress itself, and some Jetpack stuff with the WooCommerce app. It glues everything together and it helps us to run a sort of micro business like that. And what has turned into a weekend, temporary thing has turned into a full-time business. So, yeah, it’s a, I don’t know if I can tell you any more about it really.

[00:08:28] Nathan Wrigley: Well, you can, you mentioned that you’ve got a plugin that’s coming out fairly soon, aligned with people who wish to replicate your pizza business, but in their own locale.

[00:08:40] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so to just give you the bigger picture, my wife is kind of like a bit of a marketing guru, and she sees opportunities where I can’t see them. She sees all the blind spots. So this whole model can be replicated by anybody. She didn’t force me, I was willing to do it, but she made me film all of my steps to make pizzas. So if you don’t know how to make pizza, there’s a full course to make it. There’s a whole module of the marketing that we use. There’s all secret little tips in there about doing stuff on social media, which I don’t do. My wife does all that.

But I’ve developed a plugin that works with WordPress and WooCommerce and it stitches everything together. So it’s got an ordering system, it’s got a slot system, it’s got a time-based system, so you can only put certain slots within certain times, and then it’s got a radius distance. So if you were outside of that radius based on your postcode, you can’t order pizzas, but you can collect them. And we do get people collecting from miles away that were passing last year, and they’ve driven a hundred miles to come down for the weekend because they’re passing to pick up a pizza. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe it. But I think the furthest somebody’s come is something like 120 miles. It’s crazy.

Yeah, so people have been in touch with me like from, last chap was in Norway asking about his, could he use it for his brother’s bakery? And I said, yeah, absolutely. So anything that’s got like a restricted delivery zone, and maybe you want to just do it at certain times, you can do it. But you don’t even need to use the slot system, but you can set the radius distance. So if you want to do local deliveries, you can set a four mile radius, five mile, ten mile, whatever you want to set. Anything is doable really. Yeah, you can use the plugin.

So that’s kind of like the freemium Pizza Pilot. And then there’s a Pro version that we actually will bundle with our licensees. And we’ve got, it’s not like a franchise, it’s, you know, they buy the whole model once, and then they get the plugin bundled in. And, yeah, I’m just kind of like fine tuning it so that I can manage it. So if pizza does take over my life, I’m still, got my foot in WordPress and developing this product. So I’m happy about that.

[00:10:37] Nathan Wrigley: That’s so interesting that you have WordPress as the sort of fulcrum of this entirely different side of your life, really. And it feels like it’s more than like a hobby project at the moment. It feels like it’s the underpinnings of a lot of what you do, albeit maybe the WordPress community don’t know about it.

But also curious that, and again, I might be reading between the lines, maybe you launch the pizza business and then kind of retrofit your procedures into your own dog fooding plugin, which now you are deciding to sell.

But the fact that the technology stack that you knew inside out was able to facilitate that, you know, and a website can handle things like geolocation, that a website can handle things like payment, and the ability to add ingredients and things like that. All of that enabled you to launch that business, which is just so interesting.

Because most people who use WordPress, I doubt ever have that experience in life. You know, maybe they’re building things for clients, or they try a little hobby project. But you’ve got, I don’t know, it just sort of perfectly slotted in and, well, serendipity seems like the right word. Everything just sort of seems to slot in perfectly, and how wonderful.

[00:11:46] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, I think it all kind of happened at the same time, because I just mentioned to Rachel about, you know, during lockdown these businesses are shutting down and people are going to pivot. Because I was talking to the WordPress community and they were talking about how their businesses were pivoting, like their restaurants. And I said, I could set this up as a website. So it all came together kind of all at once really.

One thing I’d have to say is that I like doing complex things with WordPress, and I’m really interested in the way that people do stuff with WordPress. So we have somebody that comes to our Meetup that is a gardener, and they come religiously to our Meetup. You’d think, well, why is a gardener coming to the Meetup? Well, it’s because they run their whole invoicing system and business, the gardening business, through WordPress.

So it’s like, oh, that’s interesting. So there’s so many different things you can do with WordPress. So the one thing I’m grateful for is all of my experience that WordPress has given me and the opportunities in terms of my career, being able to sell, you know, development packages to clients, and picking up complex jobs in that sense. Because without, it wouldn’t be the glue for the pizza thing, and it wouldn’t have happened that easily.

[00:12:49] Nathan Wrigley: Right. Genuinely, absolutely fascinating. I think we could probably do the entire podcast about that, but there is another story to tell. As I said, I’ve been looking at Elliott online for quite a while and then, I don’t know when it was, but it was certainly quite recently, we are recording this in March, 2026, quite recently that I learned that you are going to be working with Automattic. I don’t know if it’s for Automattic, but certainly for the wordpress.com side of things. I could spoil what you are doing and misrepresent what it is. Probably best to just hand it over to you, and tell us what this gig is, this project that you’ve got running through 2026.

[00:13:27] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, so I have to shout out to Michelle Frechette because she basically reached out to me and suggested an introduction with Stacey Carlson, who is Automattic’s Affiliate and Influencer Director. And she’s obviously picked up some of my videos and she just said to me that, do you fancy us sponsoring a video or two about wordpress.com and how I felt about Automattic products? I said, yeah, why not? I use them all the time, every day. So it’s definitely up my street.

So I put some stuff together and she basically just told me that the Automattic leadership team, which directly is Matt down, were broadly supporting content creators. So yeah, I was on board with it.

And my mind just went on overdrive. Basically, Stacey said to me, would you like to do this thing? And I was like, yeah. She said, okay, well, we’ll have a chat in a couple of days or whatever. And I was like, I put concepts together and I sent about three or four different ideas. And it was like, yeah, okay, let’s do this. And it’s basically how I use WordPress, what I did, the whole pizza thing, what I do from day to day.

And I put these videos together and then it created another opportunity and another introduction to a lady called Brit Solata, who’s head of Influence Marketing. Big inspiration for me is another guy called Jamie Marsland, who’s actually the head of the wordpress.com YouTube channel, because he basically raised his profile by using WordPress and turning hard concepts like using the Block Editor into really easy to understand videos.

And he had the genius idea of creating the speed challenge, which was kind of viral. Again, he lives down the road from me, believe it or not, less than five, six miles away. So there’s a funny story behind that. We’ve known each other for like 15 years, connected through social media and whatever channels there are that we used to use. And we actually met for the first time, face to face, at WordCamp Europe in Greece. And it always tickles me because the first thing he said is like, we’ve known each other for years, but this is the first time we’ve met, and we have to come over the other side of Europe. So it’s not great for our carbon footprint, which always makes me chuckle.

Yeah, he was a great inspiration. And since then we went out for a coffee or two and he inspired me really to start doing my YouTube stuff. And I think that’s really what got me recognised through Michelle, Stacy, and Brit. And then Britt suggested that we do something for the rest of this year. So I’m going to be doing videos about wordpress.com, what’s coming up.

WordPress has always been a moving target. It uses multiple different types of technology, right? So there’s always different things happening and changing. And with the advent of AI, there’s a lot of stuff coming into the whole project. So, yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at.

[00:16:09] Nathan Wrigley: I have a lot of questions around that actually. So the first thing I’m going to ask is, is the intention to make long form content, or are you hoping to make more short form content? And really behind that question is what you just said about the fact that WordPress is in a real period of flux. On the .org side, we’ve got WordPress 7 coming around, which is going to be transformational, but I also feel that any video that gets made to coincide with 7 is quickly going to go out of date because we’re in such a rapid period of flux.

So just conscious about that, really, whether or not the content that you are going to be creating, and forgive me for using this word, is more disposable, if you know what I mean? So the kind of content that you’ll throw together in the anticipation that in 4, 3, 2 months time, you might have to reshoot it again. So, yeah, just wondering what the constraints are on the kind of content that you’re going to be making?

[00:17:01] Elliott Richmond: There aren’t really constraints in that sense, but I think the whole nature of WordPress is ideal for that kind of scenario. So we are going to do long form content and then spinoff of that is going to be the short form as well, because you can just do that with the modern tech that you can use today anyway.

But yes, I think if you’re working in the Core team and you’re doing documentation, and it’s always been a thing, getting documentation out has always been a problematic thing. And if you’re working on something and you’re deep into it, it’s difficult to get that stuff out.

I think over the years it’s got better because you’ve got prominent people in Core, in the team, working at Automattic that are pumping stuff out. Justin Tadlock and the other chaps and Birgit is putting stuff out with Gutenberg Times and things like that. So it has got a lot better, but definitely there is an opportunity for content creators to fill a gap in terms of new things that are coming, what’s going to be changing.

And also the way that people consume that content because YouTube and all the social, other social platforms, not that they’re great, TikToks and all that, but there’s definitely an opportunity for that content to be absorbed by different people. So there’s definitely a gap there for content creators to make people aware about those changes and new developments that are coming to WordPress.

[00:18:22] Nathan Wrigley: I’m in the lucky position in that for this podcast there isn’t really a laundry list of things that I have to cover. It’s very much up to me what I wish to have on the podcast. So you are an example, you know, decided to do this, and here we are doing it.

But I did wonder if you were, you know, you mentioned some names there over at Automattic. I don’t know if there’s going to be some things that they will require you to do because that’s in line with what .com has just released or what have you. Or if you really are, you know, the reins are off, do what you like Elliott and just make sure that you post us and tell us what’s going on.

I’m imagining there will be some sort of guidance and, okay, T>ͭ-nT>8 ?othis thing’s about to launch, it would be really welcome if you produce the piece of content explaining why we’ve done it, and how it works and so on.

[00:19:03] Elliott Richmond: There’s no guardrails in that sense. It feels very fluid and flexible. Yes, there are kind of like things, we’d love you to do this, and I’m more than happy to do that because it’s definitely on my street anyway.

The products that are sort of being talked about are products that I use every day, so it has synergy, you know? It’s not like I’m having to do something that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing. It’s stuff I love doing and I love teaching other people anyway. So in terms of that whole community thing, I think when communities come together, the most I get out of it is actually learning from other people, not just teaching them.

And actually just by teaching somebody, or telling somebody about something, they give you feedback and the feedback loop there is super important, especially for a project like WordPress. Without that feedback loop, potentially, it’s not going to be a thing that anyone will use anyway. So just by doing something with the community or publishing something is useful feedback.

There may be something that is sort of created and developed that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can still put it out there, say whether I like it or don’t like it, and then ask somebody, you know, what’s your feeling? Have you used it? What’s your feedback? Get some comments. That is feedback. And that’s how you improve things.

[00:20:14] Nathan Wrigley: YouTube is a phenomenal feedback loop actually. I mean, I know you’ll probably be getting feedback from within Automttic and what have you as well, but I long for the comments on a WordPress blog to be like the comments on a YouTube video. It seems that everybody’s quite willing to get the keyboard out and hammer out thousands of replies on a YouTube video. It really does capture that.

And so, especially if during the content you provoke the audience to comment, and to give you feedback, because you may well be making another piece of content, which will be guided by the comments and what have you. I think it’s amazing for that. And kind of like pretty, pretty untapped. Usually when you watch content, it is just, okay, I’ve decided what I’m going to do. There it is. It’s an isolated, atomised piece of content. But the idea of going and asking for, what shall I do next? Or something akin to that is really great. And I hope that works out for you. I fully anticipate that it will, because like I said, the comments are usually fairly voluminous.

[00:21:09] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, it’s interesting because some of the comments actually inspire you to create your next piece of content. So it’s always good. Sometimes it is difficult because you can see that it’s negative feedback. But actually I think that negative feedback is a positive thing because you can respond in a positive way. Or you can just take that feedback and then feed it back into the ecosystem and that’s how things get changed. So any negativity is a positivity in my book.

[00:21:35] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, nice. I think you have to armour yourself with things like that when you go on social media and post content, don’t you? Because it doesn’t matter how perfect it is, and how well aligned it is, there’s always somebody lurking somewhere who is willing to derail your day with a comment like that.

Are you going to be doing this then on official, so you’ve made the content, you’ve created the video, and yada yada. We can get into the process of that in a moment. I’d be kind of interested to know what you do. Are you going to be posting this on official WordPress channels, or is this that you are being hired to create the content and then put it out on your own channels? Or is it, does it come with the official stamp of the wordpress.com YouTube channel or something like that?

[00:22:13] Elliott Richmond: No, it’s on my channel for my audience. So I’m free to do whatever I want really. I can do my own stuff but there is a, kind of an agreement we have to meet certain months and content that will be aligned with whatever’s happening at wordpress.com or at Automattic. But yeah, there’s no restriction. It’s kind of on my channel to my audience.

[00:22:33] Nathan Wrigley: Is it very much then going to be YouTube, like screen shares of the kind of things that you’ve been doing with a code editor or in the backend of WordPress, or a plugin that you’ve installed and have played with or what have you? But obviously on the .com side of things as opposed to the .org side of things.

[00:22:47] Elliott Richmond: I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m given kind of a little bit of early access to stuff that, I found it difficult to find it but it is available, you can get to it, but I needed some pointers. But it’s going to be a mix of technical stuff. You’ve seen my stuff, I’d like to get technical content simplified and I use graphics. And, I mean, if I look at my first stuff, it was nowhere near as polished as it is today. but I like to use animation.

There’s difficult concepts to get over, especially with templating and patterns and template parts and things like that. And if you can simplify that to users, to use this stuff with more knowledge. But there’s also stuff about AI that’s, I mean it even confuses me today, like MCPs and, what’s that? And it’s like large language models and things like that.

So there’s complex stuff that I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into because I can try and simplify it. And that’s what I like doing in terms of like graphics and analogies. And hopefully it makes sense to people.

[00:23:46] Nathan Wrigley: So it’s going to be, I guess the one word that maybe I would encapsulate it as is educational. The idea is that you come in, learn a thing, or multiple things, and then go away. It’s not just that, oh look, here’s the latest new feature that’s shipping. It’s more, look, here’s the feature, but also here’s how you get to it and how you navigate it and what it does. And if you want to implement it, you must do this, yada, yada, that kind of thing. So educational.

[00:24:12] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. There’s lots of other things happening as well that are specifically for developers and not necessarily for wordpress.com. But yeah, engineering those things and putting those together to make something work in the way that you want it to, there is a technical barrier to that. So if I can simplify that and help others to get up and running, then great.

But there’s things like Xdebug that are not enabled by default in the Studio app that I think are really useful. Now I’ve used Xdebug for debugging my code for many years and I honestly cannot do without it. And I didn’t even know it was there, you know, that’s how hidden it was, until I saw a tweet like the other day, and it was, I think it’s recently been rolled out, but I’m like, I am itching to do a video on that, so that I can just let people know how to use it and what it’s beneficial for.

[00:24:56] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you strike me as the kind of character that’s not going to be short of things to do content about. It’s more, which comes first. And I think that’s such a nice gig for you as well, in that you’re obviously a very curious individual. You know, you’ve been making videos for, this is going to come out the wrong way, but, you know, for no reason, if you know what I mean? You know, there was nobody prodding you with a stick saying, Elliott, we need another video now because you’ve been paid for it.

You were doing it because that’s something that you found enjoyable, and you like the experience of doing all of that. And then somebody comes along and says, you know what? I think we could well do with paying you for this. That must have been kind of, almost manna from heaven in a way.

[00:25:34] Elliott Richmond: Absolutely. I mean, I feel so fortunate. I’m so grateful to Michelle Frechette for reaching out to me and making that contact because, yeah, I mean, it’s right up my street. You’ve seen, I’ve got guitars around the studio and I think it’s like, I’m the sort of person that I think it’s good to learn something new every day, regardless of what it is. And yeah, you have to be intrigued by something.

And particularly with code and technology, it’s changing all the time. You can do things in different ways. Very much the same as just fingering around a fretboard and trying to find that lick, or that nice harmonic tone that you never found before. And you think, ah, I can do this. I’m going to show my bass player that I can do this, or my guitar player, or whatever. You know, it’s a bit like that.

And you get excited about the littlest things that maybe are not so exciting to a lot of people, but they are to me, and that’s why I do it. And if I can just impart that on somebody, that’s a bonus to me. And I do get that feedback on YouTube. So I’m always so grateful when I get positive feedback like that. So, yeah, long may it continue. And I’m not going to stop doing it because I find it fascinating and I really enjoy it.

There are many stages to doing a video. You have to figure out what you’re going to talk about, the script, which I didn’t used to do. It was just kind of like, I know this thing, so I’m just going to jump on. But I now script things, break things down into concepts, and then know when I’m going to do some motion graphics. Then I do the headshots, and then I do the editing.

And when I’m done editing, I’m not done editing in like one day, I just do a couple of hours and I go back into the house and I just tell Rachael, I say, I absolutely love editing. It’s just like, it just really excites me. So it is just these little things. Not necessarily about WordPress, but yeah, figuring out how to get a concept across. And then I’ll sit and I’ll bore the tears off Rachael, try and explain this stuff to her, and she’s just patiently listening to me, you know, so I can get it out of my head.

[00:27:19] Nathan Wrigley: No, I think that’s the most credible way of getting to the perfect simulation of what it is you’re trying to educate people with. Because you trip over yourself, don’t you? And you realise, okay, that second point should have been the third. And the third should have been the second. And there was a better way of explaining that. I think it’s great that you do it that way.

And I’m also, pleased is the wrong word, but I’m curious that you script it as well. Because I know that the temptation is often easy, isn’t it? It’s just, okay, I know this stuff inside out, I’ll just go for it. That extra hour, two hours, three hours, whatever it may be, of disciplining yourself to write it down, I think you go a million more miles with that content. You know, you refine it, you work it through, you cut out the additional words that are not needed, that just sort of demonstrates to me that you are really, really serious about it.

[00:28:06] Elliott Richmond: I say scripted, loosely scripted. It’s scripted not to the absolute T. It’s kind of like flashcard prompts.

[00:28:10] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, no. No, no, no. Sorry. Yeah.

[00:28:13] Elliott Richmond: But there’s the structure, let’s say. And sometimes I do word for word. But if I go off piste, if I’m recording, I’m like, yeah, I’m just going brush over that. It’s not that important. It’s just an um or an ah, or an and and a the that shouldn’t be there, but whatever. I mean, if I watch back some of my stuff, I’m like, oh, did I really say that? I’m my worst critic, I guess.

[00:28:31] Nathan Wrigley: The trick there is never to watch or listen to your own stuff.

[00:28:35] Elliott Richmond: Yeah. Yes.

[00:28:37] Nathan Wrigley: The problem is, if you are self editing, you have to listen to yourself, you know, for every hour that I record, I end up listening to myself for probably about four hours. It is purgatory. For example, the sentence that I’ve just said, I will listen back to and I will be ruing the day that I said it. It’s curious.

Given that it’s on the .com side of things, and if, dear listener, you’re not familiar, we have sort of like this bifurcation, if you like, of WordPress. We have the .org side, which is the way you can go, wordpress.org, and you can download it and put it on a server and put it on your local machine and do what you like with it. And then the .com side, which is where Elliott’s work is going to be mostly living I guess, is the hosted side. So you go and you pay a monthly fee and you have access to WordPress over there, so you don’t have to think about the hosting or anything like that, that’s just taken care of.

Do you get a sense that there’ll be like commercial pressure there? That’s maybe getting to territory that you don’t wish to get into, I don’t know. But will, for example, you have to create content around certain features because it’s shiny and new? So instead of it being educational, it might slip into the more promotional, and I’m doing air quotes as I say that.

[00:29:45] Elliott Richmond: In my experience, little experience working with the guys at the moment, there’s been none of that. It’s literally, you have the free reign, do what you want. There is a benefit of putting a script together in that sense, because you can iron things out if you need to. But in all honesty, of the 10, 15 scripts I’ve already sent through, I’ve only had minimal feedback. They said, great, it looks great. Let’s go with it. And also, if it’s a new shiny thing, show me. I want to know about it. I want to tell others about it as well, you know?

[00:30:11] Nathan Wrigley: Right. So the overlap there is welcome to you, which is quite nice, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s iͭ-T>80oT>R ?pnteresting. I would like to mention it anyway.

[00:30:17] Elliott Richmond: There is also another point. I think there’s a misconception between wordpress.com and WordPress, the standalone software. Because effectively it’s the same thing. When you use something like the Studio app, you’ve still got your local files and you can still develop your own stuff. You can get as complex as you want. You are just literally hosting it with the people that make this software. And you then know that you’re going to get the performance, you’re going to get all of the security stuff, you’re going to get all the benefits of hosting with a, on a platform that know the software. So there’s a win-win situation there in my opinion.

[00:30:52] Nathan Wrigley: So you were mentioning earlier, Jamie Marsland, just down the road from you, who’s the head of WordPress YouTube. Obviously kind of a prolific content creator himself, and then got taken on by Automattic to carry on that journey. There’s obviously now you. I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts on how WordPress, and you might read Automattic in here or .com or whatever the right word is. I wonder how you view the seriousness with which they’re taking content creator content.

Because again, if I rewind the clock three or four years ago, it felt that there really wasn’t much coming out that had that kind of official stamp. We were kind of left to our own devices. We were going into Slack and reading comments, or we were going into GitHub queues for plugin developers and things like that.

But it does seem that at some point in the last four or five years, somebody somewhere said, wait, no, video is it. We really have to invest in video. And it feels like you’ve been caught up in that.

There’s no real question there. It’s more just an observation that video content by people who obviously are out in the community doing this with a serious intention. It’s more than just a hobby. It’s something they’ve got a track record of doing seriously. I wonder if you’ve spotted that trend as well.

[00:32:05] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I often look up stuff on YouTube. It used to be Google. How do I, I don’t know, mitre some wood together? You can go to YouTube now and you can find all of this stuff. Or how do you make the perfect naan bread or the perfect pizza, let’s say? So yeah, YouTube is definitely, in the last, I actually don’t think it, it’s always been there, but it’s probably, it’s only become sort of more prominent on my radar, I guess. So if that’s a result of what’s been happening organically, then yeah, I’ve just been sucked into it. But, yeah, I think it’s always been there.

You always get from YouTube content creators about how much more difficult it is, I guess, because there’s more people doing it, so they’ve got less money to give people. But honestly, I’m not in it for the financial reward anyway. I mean, I do get paid ads and stuff, but it’s peanuts every three months, so I’m not in it for that at all.

So yeah, it’s definitely on my radar basically. I mean, in terms of editing and software, I still look up stuff. You know, even whether it’s WordPress or whether it’s command line stuff. Particularly now, if you drop AI into the title, you’re going to get loads of stuff.

[00:33:10] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I mean, more and more if you go and ask a question of Google, you’re going to get the AI answer first, but then you’re just going to get like a big row of YouTube videos. You know, if you ask it a question beginning, how do I, or something along those lines, the AI often comes first.

I’m actually using a different search engine now. I use one called Kagi, which was actually by coincidence developed by the guy who used to run Manage WP, who then sold it and moved on to make this search engine. There’s another success story coming from the WordPress space. But if you ask it a question, you get the AI generated sort of response over three or four lines, and then after that, just a cavalcade of YouTube videos. And it really, I think, has become the default.

What I’m finding interesting about that is, I think that wordpress.com in this case, but you could read Automattic, are kind of putting their money where their mouth is and doing it in an interesting way.

So rather than, let’s say, employing a team of content creators to do this, this, this, this, and this, they’re asking people like you to just get on with it. Just do what you were doing. I think that’s really interesting. And it’s hard to encapsulate what I’m saying there, but there’s a real level of trust. You know that you’ve got to do things, but nobody’s micromanaging you to tell you what to do. It sounds like nobody’s giving you, okay, we want this piece of exact content, and this one and this one and this one. It’s more, Elliott, you’ve got a track record, you’ve proven yourself, now crack on, but we’ll assist from the financial point of view. I think that’s a really nice model of allowing people like you to do what you do, and the trust that you’ve built up is all that was needed to get you started on that journey.

[00:34:47] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, there are kind of, who this is for, what’s good to do, what isn’t great to do. So there is, not guardrails as such, you’re given complete flexibility, but you are given a kind of like a brief, not template, it’s not template, it’s a, what’s this for? What’s the target?

[00:35:03] Nathan Wrigley: Like an avatar kind of, something like that.

[00:35:05] Elliott Richmond: Yeah. Yeah, an avatar. I don’t find that restrictive in any way. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing it.

[00:35:10] Nathan Wrigley: No, that’s really helpful.

[00:35:11] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:12] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. But you’re given a lot of rope. It does sound like you’ve got a lot of leeway to do what you like. I mean, maybe there’s constraints around, you know, let’s not make content about the UI of Wix or Squarespace or anything like that. You know, that’s probably out remit.

[00:35:28] Elliott Richmond: That goes without saying.

[00:35:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, yeah. But certainly from my point of view, doing this podcast, WP Tavern, I can’t really sum it up, but I have that same freedom. I can have who I like on, nobody’s telling me what I can do and when it should be done. It was just a case of, okay Nathan, you’ve done podcasting, we would like you to do this one. And it sounds like a similar kind of offer was made to you, but on the video side. The trust behind that is hard to communicate, but it feels so nice.

[00:35:57] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve always said, because I’ve worked on my own for such a long time, since I was in my twenties, and I won’t tell you how old I am, but it’s been a few decades now, I literally am unemployable. I do work on a remote basis for a company, but it’s on a very minimal tech lead responsibility kind of arrangement. But I could not go into an office. I’m just conditioned not to be, someone breathing down my neck. I’ve just been conditioned to have that freedom and creativity that I love. And definitely without a doubt, I’ve been given this opportunity in the same respect. So I’m absolutely stoked about it.

[00:36:34] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think that’s really lovely. You’ve got that history. And I think we see that in the community a lot. You know, you’ve got a history, and it’s your turn to shine, if you like.

Okay, now the nerdy bit, right at the end. I want to know what your process is. Obviously being a content creator myself, I’ve got a whole load of software that I use and I flit around, but I’ve kind of stabilised on a few key pieces of software, which enabled me to do that journey.

I’m sure that there’s going to be people listening to this who have thought to themselves, I too would like to make videos, and I’m curious, what is your tech stack? I mean, we don’t need to go into absolutely everything, but I’m curious, what are the 3, 4, 5, whatever it may be, essential things that are either on your desk, or on your computer that make the whole thing easy and possible?

[00:37:18] Elliott Richmond: My tech stack is so low key, it’s unbelievable. My lights, if I explain my lights to you, I’ve got basically a cat food pouch box, which is like six inches by four with a hole cut out of it, resting on an LED light with a bit of tissue paper over it. It’s that low key, low tech.

[00:37:34] Nathan Wrigley: So it’s like a small shoebox with a hole cut in with tissue paper diffuse the light.

[00:37:39] Elliott Richmond: Yeah.

[00:37:40] Nathan Wrigley: That’s so great. That’s so cottage industry. I love that. Yeah, because you could of course buy the $150 equivalent, but you know, the cat food box is lying around. That’s brilliant. Oh, I hope this keeps going. I hope you got more of these.

[00:37:55] Elliott Richmond: If I could just turn the camera round. And the other thing is just an iPhone. I just use my iPhone. My iPhone is literally sitting on my computer now. So it’s good enough to do what I need to do with it. At some point it will upgrade, but for anybody who wants to do this out there, you know, you don’t need much kit.

In terms of the software, I just use the Notes app and I just jot down my ideas. I actually use the accessibility keyboard shortcut. So I literally, what I do is tap the key and just speak into my mic about the idea that I want to get across. And then that’s my brain dump. And then I’ll take that, read it back, break it down. It’s all in my own words, I then just get AI to polish it a little bit, so it kind of gives me the bare bones of my script. And then that gets me like 60, 70% there. But it’s literally my brain dump that’s polished, and then I repolish it again. So that’s one key bit of legwork that gets me going quickly.

I’ve picked up a lot of kit over the years from just producing music. I’ve got some NS-10s in front of me, studio monitors, so I can do all my sound balancing and stuff. The other key bit of software is DaVinci Resolve, which is, it’s got all of the motion graphics in it. It is a bit of a head spinner to get into it, but there’s lots of resources out there that can help you get to where you want to be.

There’s lots of stuff out there that you can, like library stuff that you can subscribe to and pull in. But I’m always reluctant to do that because I’m the sort of guy that, I want to, even if it’s code, I want to get into it. I want to understand exactly how it works and do it myself. So working with nodes and animation in that sense has been, it’s been a big learning curve, but I’ve absolutely loved it.

And then just the editing is like DaVinci Resolve. And it has everything in it. I pay a licence for it because I want all the whistles and bells, but you can use the free version and I just cannot believe what you can get away with, with the free version. You get all of the motion graphics, you get all of the audio, you get the colour correction, plus all of the editing suite. It’s incredible.

I’m just looking around to see what other stuff I’ve got, but yeah, that is literally about it.

[00:39:52] Nathan Wrigley: I think you’ve encapsulated perfectly. I mean, really you need a computer with a bit of editing software, and there’s many. Some free, some much more expensive. You can certainly pay a fortune for some editing software. But also camera, a little bit of lighting, I guess a backdrop and a quiet room would help. But that’s kind of really all that it takes. The key bit, of course, the bit that you are not mentioning of course is that script bit. That’s where the magic happens.

And people like you are able to turn difficult things into easy to consume things. For people like me who consume it, it all just looks so straightforward and easy. But I’m well aware that in the background there’s probably quite a lot of soul searching and rehashing and rethinking and you were saying, explaining to your wife and re-explaining to your wife and so on.

And so whilst the software and the iPhone camera and all of that are necessary to make it happen, I think the bit which makes your stuff, and people of your calibre’s stuff, stand out is that bit inside your head. The bit which only you can do in the way that you do it, you know? I’m grateful for all the stuff that you’ve done for many years, and long may it continue. You’re carrying on throughout 2026, I think is how it’s framed at the moment.

[00:41:02] Elliott Richmond: Yep, or up to December at least that’s the arrangement. But I’m also allowed to do whatever, you know, my own stuff as well. So if you spot a video about me making pizza or preparing dough, somehow I can thread WordPress into that, I will. I probably can actually because I’ve got a dough calculator.

[00:41:20] Nathan Wrigley: With your pizza plugin, I’m sure that there’ll be ways of getting those messages across. I think we’ll knock it on the head there, as we say in the UK. Best of luck. I’m sure luck is not the thing that you need, but I hope it goes well, and I hope that you enjoy it and that obviously the crowd of people who come along gain a lot of knowledge from everything that you’ve done.

Just before we go, I think we should probably say where we find you online, where that YouTube channel is, or your website, whichever you prefer. Both if you like.

[00:41:46] Elliott Richmond: Yeah, you’ll find me on YouTube, which is elliottrichmondwp. I do have an Elliott Richmond, which is all of my personal stuff, so don’t get that confused with th0T>R*\pT>l ?qe WordPress stuff. It’s elliottrichmondwp. And you can find my blogs and my brain dumps on elliottrichmond.co.uk. And that is double L, double T by the way.

[00:42:07] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, as I was typing your name in, subconsciously it always ended up with one T. I don’t know what was going on there. But all the Elliots in my life have got a single T. E-L-L-I-O-T-T, and then Richmond, as you might imagine.

If you go to wptavern.com and you look for the Elliott Richmond episode using the search functionality, then you’ll get that episode, I’m sure. And all of the links for anything that we have mentioned, so the YouTube channel and the website, what have you, that will all be in there, one click. Along with a transcript of everything that we’ve talked about as well. So Elliott Richmond, thank you. Good luck with 2026 and thanks for coming on the podcast.

[00:42:46] Elliott Richmond: You’re welcome and thank you so much for having me.

[00:42:48] Nathan Wrigley: You’re very welcome.

On the podcast today we have Elliott Richmond.

Elliott’s been deep in the WordPress community for over twenty years, developing since the early days, back when WordPress was yet to be forked from b2. He’s freelanced, built with multiple CMS systems, and has contributed creatively to the community, including releasing a WordPress advent calendar way back in 2013. He’s an active WordPress developer, content creator on YouTube, and, unexpectedly, a part-time pizza vendor, running a thriving pizza business powered entirely by WordPress tools.

Many listeners will know Elliott for his technical videos, but today we discuss how WordPress has served as the glue for unexpected ventures, like scaling a local pizza business during lockdown using WooCommerce, Jetpack, and custom plugins. Elliott’s experience showcases just how flexible WordPress can be, whether for websites, unique ordering systems, or even streamlining business processes for other niches.

Recently, Elliott has been asked by Automattic to create educational content around WordPress.com, giving him early access to features and allowing him to share his workflow and insights with a broader audience. He talks about his approach to content creation, balancing scripting versus improvisation, and details his low-tech kit, from iPhone cameras to DIY lighting.

Throughout the episode, Elliott shares how community connections and feedback loops, especially via YouTube comments, shape his work, and he discusses the new opportunities for content creators within the WordPress ecosystem.

If you’re interested in WordPress beyond websites, curious about how to turn technical know-how into educational video content, or just want to hear about WordPress-powered pizza (and who doesn’t), this episode is for you.

Useful links

Elliott featured in WP Tavern before: 24 WordPress Snippets ’til Christmas, Submissions Open for 2019

 Jamie Marsland on YouTube

 Gutenberg Times

 Xdebug

Kagi Search Engine

 DaVinci Resolve

Elliott’s YouTube channel

Elliott’s website

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Since he spoke to Dean Baquet in 2017, JAŸ-Z hasn’t done an interview. Hov’s back! He sat down with GQ, and it’s a lovely listen and read.

We played enough defense, 2026 is all about offense.

Your morality defines who you are, not what you’ve attained.

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In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack welcomes Beth Soderberg to discuss key updates in WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8. They kick off with small talk about shifting seasons in Munich and Virginia before diving into the new content guidelines in Gutenberg 22.7, focused on standardizing editorial voice across AI and human content contributors. Both speakers express healthy skepticism about AI-generated content, stressing that while AI assists with research and “grunt work” like alt text or excerpts, the core value in writing remains human expertise and review. They caution about automation pitfalls and emphasize validating all AI outputs.

The discussion shifts to the new WordPress AI connectors, which let users connect to services like OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic Claude, and others—including local providers such as Olama and European alternatives like Mistral. Birgit Pauli-Haack explains the evolving infrastructure allowing developers to add and switch connectors with ease, and encourages the community to experiment and test.

A central topic is the release of WordPress 7.0, with a highlight on the increased minimum P*\T>lqT> ?rHP requirement to 7.4, likely to disrupt agencies with older sites. The admin’s new look-and-feel is poised to confuse some clients, demanding extra support from agencies. Beth Soderberg also celebrates practical improvements: cover block video embeds using external sources, block visibility by screen size, pattern overrides, breadcrumbs block, and streamlined font management. Both speakers note the importance of hidden, friction-reducing features and the advancement of developer-facing infrastructure. The episode closes with a preview of ongoing enhancements in Gutenberg 22.8 and beyond.

Show Notes / Transcript

Show Notes

Special Guest: Beth Soderberg

AI in WordPress

WordPress Core and Gutenberg

Dev Notes

Stay in Touch

Transcript

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Welcome to our 129th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today’s episode we will talk about WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8. I’m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator of the Gutenberg Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project sponsored by Automattic. With me today, and I’m really happy about that, is again Beth Soderberg, founder and CEO of Bethink Studio, a full-service boutique agency and of web experts to tackle any project. Beth has been a longtime WordPress theme builder and WordCamp speaker. She’s also been an early adopter of the blog editor and block themes. Beth, how are you today? Welcome to the show.

Beth Soderberg: I am well. How are you today? Thank you for having me.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I’m good, I’m good. We have winter in Munich again. It was spring and now it’s back to winter. So I’m happy to get out of the town for WordCamp Asia next week. So yes, I’m really happy about that.

Beth Soderberg: We’ve been switching from winter to spring every day here. Every day in Virginia. Yep. It’s different every day.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So what’s the weather doing? Well, I don’t know.

Beth Soderberg: No, I’ve had to look every morning because it’s in the last week I’ve been outside in a winter coat and a tank top and rain boots and you just don’t know. You wake up and it’s a surprise.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, it’s the beauty of surprises. But who likes surprises? I want my spring be steady.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I agree.

Announcements

Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, so under the announcements we have one thing that’s that content guidelines landed in Gutenberg 22.7. We didn’t really talk about it with Maggie Cabrera at the last episode, but the WordPress AI team has launched guidelines. They are live experiments in the Gutenberg 22.7 or Gutenberg plugin and this project creates a single source of truth for site standards and ensures that everyone, humans and AI tools, follow the same editorial voice and content rules. By providing this infrastructure layer, WordPress can finally maintain a consistency across content contributors. So that’s so far from the experiment post that I’m definitely going to share in the show notes. When you want to use AI for helping you produce content, you definitely want to store some of the standards somewhere. And the experiment lets you do this on your website in your interface with a nice interface for that. I don’t know how I feel about this because I have been using AI quite a bit in the last two years and some of it was for content creation ideas. But the writing is still kind of mostly a human factor. But it helps me for research and it helps me for learning. So I’m not quite sure how that translates to a WordPress site, but I guess if you have ongoing content reproduction that is more service oriented, then you might want to use the help of LLMs or something like that. What do you think?

Beth Soderberg: I’m skeptical for the same reasons. I think that I have had clients ask for something like this. But the more those clients have actually used AI to create content, the more those very same people who had announced that they were going to create all of their content through AI decide that they are going to use AI for research and then create their content. So the AI in actual practical use has been more about reducing friction in that discovery research phase of writing and less about creating the writing itself until you get to the editing part when it becomes helpful again for grammar. But that actual connecting ideas and proving expertise piece is where AI can’t do it. And you need something, somebody who actually understands what they’re reading to piece together the logic of it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I can also see, and we will see this in that you use AI to write an excerpt or to give you suggestions for titles or make sure that there’s an alt text on the image. I think these grunt work tasks kind of thing of AI is really helpful, but I think the human ideas are still. Well, humans hallucinate so much better than AI can ever can. Right.

Beth Soderberg: How can we possibly replicate that? And I think there’s also a place for it with things like you mentioned the alt text. Right. Having it generate them all and then validating that it did it correctly is much faster than writing it all yourself. That is where we’re going to see these things actually become practical. Right. There’s a lot of big ideas about it, which makes sense when you’re dealing with a new technology and an innovation in a major workflow. But in actuality, I think that’s more how people are going to use it. And I think if people set it up to automate everything and then never look at it, never validate it, that’s people are just going to get in trouble over that.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And I, you know, I use it a lot to generate fake content so that I can show someone what something will look like knowing that the content I’m showing them is not real. Right. But when you’re dealing with real content, the biggest mistake I’ve seen over and over again, and humans will learn because we always eventually do. But the mistake is not reviewing what AI has done.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It’s not a replacement. It’s a tool that you need to validate like any other tool you have to do. I can see that if you have a longer text like for 4,000 words or something like that, you could actually use AI to identify the gaps. If a reader goes through it and say, okay, there is a gap because it didn’t explain why something happens. I think those tips are really helpful, especially when you have longer text or you want to focus on one problem and just kind of figure out what’s in scope and out scope. But I think that’s more like an advisory kind of thing and not a doer.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, validating. Because sometimes I love Grammarly Pro. Grammarly the free version is very annoying, but if you pay it becomes a really useful tool. But even then, the content suggestions it makes, sometimes they tighten up your language and they make it. They add the commas, which is the thing that I don’t do naturally on my own apparently. But sometimes they change the meaning completely.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s when you’re like, nope, thanks for the suggestion. That’s a no.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah.

Beth Soderberg: I think how this type of thing used well, will make people more efficient. But I also can see it creating a mountain of work for somebody who doesn’t actually need to go through all of these ridiculous suggestions about it. And I think that deciding when to use it, when it makes sense, those strategic decisions about how to use it are going to be what makes it either something that really helps somebody in their publishing workflow or really hinders somebody else.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, if you’re a single blog blogger having a little editor go through that and give you some tips that might not be a bad idea, but sometimes. But right. If you have been blogging for many, many years, you don’t need things like that. It changes your voice and it changes the outlook. That’s what the guidelines are actually for that you can create some of the guidelines as it meant to be to help AI to streamline some of that stuff and also to know about what you want to do. And that certainly helps.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, yeah.

Community Contributions

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Speaking of AI, what I found in so in 7.0 WordPress. So getting closer to that release, there is now a new connectors page that you could connect to an OpenAI to Google Gemini or to Anthropic Cloud from your site. And if you have certain tools that help you with those connections. So there are AI providers for other AI systems like I just discovered three of them. One is the AI provider for Open router or router depending on which English speaking country you go to. It’s a little bit different. So open, I say Router is a service that lets developers use many different AI models like those from Google OpenAI but also others through one simple connection. And the provider was developed by Jonathan Bossenger who is on the AI team and talks about AI on the developer blog. There’s also an AI provider for Ollama, and Ollama is a local system where you can connect local LLMs so you can download an LLM set and Ollama helps you connect that with the task that you want to do. The benefit of Ollama is that it’s on your server and it doesn’t go out to the third-party services, but you still need a provider and connector to it. You can do this on any VPS connection or virtual private server system because you have room and space there to download and add certain things. But it’s definitely important for companiesT>a_rT> ?s that want to not get data outside of their system.

And the last one is for Europeans. The AI provider for Mistral. Mistral AI is a French AI company founded in 2023 by a former Google DeepMind and Meta researchers and they built and publish large language model and be a respected independent AI in Europe. Speaking of this, what that all comes together is that the AI team and with that Lauri Saarni published a call for testing for community AI connector plugins. There are certain links to the plugins and the connectors, so it would be really cool if you’re interested in that part of it, to actually go ahead and test things and report back what you find and what you didn’t find and how it all works for your site. It’s a totally different approach for working with the site using AI as we discussed. But it might be pretty interesting for developers to connect with all those AI providers and provide services in a plugin or something like that.

And if you are not a developer, you can install the AI Experiments plugin that also comes from the core AI team and it will show up on the Connectors page with a link to the plugin and what you can do with it. And it has these things like create an excerpt or check the alt text or create a featured image just so you can kind of get a feel for these kinds of works on the WebPress site. Do you have, do you think you have a need for. To kind of use some of the providers for your agency or for some clients?

Beth Soderberg: I think for some clients it has started. I think that for the agency itself, not yet. We have started to do more writing publicly, but really what we’re doing is turning internal communications to clients into public facing documentation so that we can point to them more easily. So it’s not something we need help with. In the same way, I think for some clients we have started to integrate things like this in an experimental way. Right. And there are, as with anything that’s new, people don’t know how to use these things yet. And I am not against experimenting with a new thing. I love the new stuff, but at the same time I’m cautious about putting new things into a production environment without really making sure that it makes sense. Some of these, in terms of experimentation, like I will install them and actually Grammarly is a great example. It took me several years to decide that I was fine with it because I tried it and it was annoying. And then a few years later I tried it again and it was still annoying. And then one day I realized that it really was like their premium suggestions really were fixing my comma issue, which is a known issue I have with writing and grammar. I just don’t put commas anywhere.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I put them in randomly and so there’s a few commas.

Beth Soderberg: But you know, I experimented with the tool probably three times before I was like, you know what, let me try the premium version and see how that goes. And I tried it and a few days later I was like, yeah, this is actually making my writing better. But it was one of those, like I was monitoring over time if it really made sense with my workflow.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. And that’s how I approach it too.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s how I felt about these. And I think what’s exciting about it is that the infrastructure to do it is becoming more full fledged. But that does not mean people know how to do it yet.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: And so that’s the next step is that experimentation phase collectively of how, what. How can we make these tools that we’ve now created function in the best way.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I really appreciate that the WordPress core developers think about the plumbing of all these services and putting it all the foundation in to open up that total space for freedom for the developers. And there’s a standard there on how to approach certain. So if you are as a site owner, don’t have a plugin that kind of taps into LMMs and you open up Gemini for it, you couldn’t switch just easily to Claude when you think that’s a better fit for that problem, but the plugin will still work. So that’s actually what this whole connector thing is about. And it just came up as for the AI providers, but actually the connector API is for any external service standard. So a standard for any external service. So if you need the OpenStreetMap on your site and you have an API key, the plugin can actually use the connectors API to monitor those API keys and just put it in there. The plugin doesn’t have to come up with its own interface for that, which a lot of plugin developers did for the last 15 years. Yeah. But now they can could actually throw away that piece of the plugin and just tab into the connectors API and don’t have to maintain that piece of the code.

What’s Released – WordPress 7.0 RC2

But anyway, so that’s kind of the bigger picture behind it. And that’s all coming with WordPress 7.0, which we are now getting to the more practical stuff of WordPress 7.0. So first of all, the WordPress 7.0 release candidate 2 has been published this week. It’s crunch time. The final release is only two weeks away. So if you haven’t tested it, now is really the time to get in there and figure out if your theme plugins and sites actually still work with 7.0, and the developer notes are published. The field guide is in the works and I will continue the list of dev notes in the show Notes like we did the last two episodes. I also know because I have been working on it. The Gutenberg Times Source of Truth is almost done and will be published before this episode actually hits your favorite podcast app. So you get an additional link there. So, Beth, did you get a chance to look over the WordPress 7.0 features? What are the most important ones for you and your fellow agency owners and developers? Is there anything that you are really excited about?

Beth Soderberg: Yes and yes. So the first thing that I think is going to be honestly hugely problematic for a lot of agencies is the change in PHP minimums, because I think that there are. I know that there are a lot of folks sitting on older sites, older themes, maybe they’re stuck at PHP 7.1 and there are old things out there. And I think that this PHP requirement jump is going to catch some people off guard. So it jumps from it’s we’re now requiring 7.4.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And if you do, it’s already 6.9.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right?

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. But I think this is going to hit harder. Okay. Because people are going to want the new stuff. Like there’s a lot in here that is really great and I’m starting with the thing that I think is going to be most disruptive because I think that people are going to want the other stuff, right? And so I think that that’s going to catch some people off guard. The other thing that I think is going to be really important is the new admin look and feel because people have been training their clients for many, many, many, many, many years with what it looks like now. And there is a client education need here because when the admin changes, even in minor ways, you get clients that come back and say, what happened? I don’t know how to do it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Okay, Even if nothing changes except the color, right?

Beth Soderberg: Where did it go? Why is this different? And did I do something? Did I write the, that human element of like, hey, you’re okay, it’s gonna look a little different, but I promise you’re gonna be able to do it. Just holler if you have any questions. Right? Because I think that there’s a lot of at least working with long term clients where you become sort of an advisor on the technology rather than a day to day implementer. And for those folks with something like this, I, what I like to do is say, hey, heads up, we are doing, we never do the major core updates right away. I am a let me see how it goes for everyone else.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: Type and then if it seems okay, then I’ll go for it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So you’re one of the ones who wait for 7.0.1.

Beth Soderberg: Absolutely. Unless it’s been like three weeks and there isn’t one. Yeah, right. So I either wait for a period of time or I wait for a point release. And if there’s a point release, I wait at least 24 hours to make sure there’s not another point release. But point being though, that this is a big enough shift in terms of what people will see and what people can do.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which part of the admin is actually the one that will disrupt people’s minds.

Beth Soderberg: Just I think it looking different at all.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, okay. So we should never change that. Is that what you’re kind of thinking?

Beth Soderberg: No, we should absolutely change it. But because we have not changed it for many, many, many years, it will be a surprise. And I think that it’s easy as folks who are in these systems every day to be like, wow, they finally fixed that. That’s great. That might be my reaction to many of these changes. Right. But I also know when I log in to pay my credit card. And they’ve changed it all. And even though the buttons are the same, it looks different. I don’t have as much confidence about clicking the button. And there’s this. The vast majority of people who are maintaining the contents on these sites day to day are marketing people, communications people, regular everyday writing people. And they are not sitting there thinking about how the structure of the software works all the time the way we do.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. But they still get their work done.

Beth Soderberg: They still get their work done. What I like to do with clients is just reduce friction by increasing confidence.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Right. And so, like, my message to them is going to be, hey, you need to know that this is going to look different, but your workflow in terms of the things you know how to do is the same. Don’t let it freak you out. You’ve got this. Keep going. Right. But like, just that little bit, because that’s. That is 100% what gets people. It’s the smallest stuff. They just need to know, like, hey, the problem’s not me. Oh, wait, there’s not a problem. It’s fine. And then they’re good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. It’s the first five seconds. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: It’s that psychological adjustment. And I think because it hasn’t changed for so long that it’s just going to be something that I mentioned.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Is there anything else that you are really excited about or is it just.

Beth Soderberg: I know. Okay.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Things change. Okay. I don’t like it to change.

Beth Soderberg: Things change. I’m really, really excited about the cover block video embeds.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: That is really, really going to reduce the size of things as they load for a lot of websites. And that is fabulous. In addition to improving workflow, all of the things around block visibility by screen size make me really happy. I’m really happy about the changes in the header block. And I’ve been building this into themes for years. And the only thing that makes me nervous about it is that I need to go back and see how it impacts the things I’ve already built that replicate this feature.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: But you mean the navigation overlays?

Beth Soderberg: The navigation overlays. Yeah. Because you’re going to have such increases in both accessibility compliance and SEO optimization just by virtue of having the option to manage your headings visually versus syntactically. So I’m very excited about that. I love that our revisions menu now has visual changes.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Because I know that most people looking at the markup that’s been in there lately are like, I don’t know.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I have to squint so much to look through the code to find things. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: And then there’s a few exciting changes to the navigation and the better workflows for pattern overrides. Yeah, it was there before, but it was one of those mystery off menu features if it was there, if you knew how to find it.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. Right.

Beth Soderberg: So those are the things I’m most excited about. I think there’s some other cool stuff in there and I am excited about the general infrastructure that we were just referencing that is being solidified with this release. And I think that piece may not be as exciting on the outset because it’s infrastructure. It’s like nonprofits have a hard time funding infrastructure process projects. It’s the same reason. But it lays the groundwork for a whole new level of experimentation. I’m excited to see where that goes and I recognize I think you said it very well a few minutes ago the thoughtfulness to create an extensible infrastructure that has gone into these features in the roadmap and sort of planning moving forward.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: You mentioned the cover block video embeds. That means that you can have a video just to catch up with our listeners. It’s to use a URL to YouTube or to Vimeo and pull that in into a cover block instead of uploading the video to the website because that reduces the cost of hosting and bandwidth for the website. Definitely. And it also you don’t have to maintain the speed and all that on your own server. So it’s always good to offset that into a different service. How are you feeling about the manage the fonts from the appearance menu directly instead of hunting it down under the fonts typography menu on the slobber styles,

?tss="wp-block-paragraph">Beth Soderberg: I’m feeling really good about that. It remains to be seen for me the biggest issue I have with font management. I am not sure it might be addressed here, but I need to experiment. When you get a font from a total third party non-standard like independent type foundry place getting those integrated, there has still been some friction. So I’m excited about it being easier to find in general. I think that’s great. .

I will be experimenting a little bit with if it reduces friction in some of these more edge cases. Because if you’re using a Google font it’s great and it’s been pretty good for a while. But if you are integrating something from another provider, if it’s a big provider the friction is not as bad. But if it’s like this obscure type foundry that makes like only these little types of historic fonts, which I run into recently, getting it actually integrated properly, it’s really hard because you’re dealing with not the most sophisticated type foundry in terms of the format of their files and they’re not necessarily plugging in as best as the totally optimized stuff from the more common sources. So, yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Is it more a format issue or is it more kind of how it scales in different font sizes and different typography features?

Beth Soderberg: It’s a format issue with the font files themselves. And so I think some of it is probably an education piece for people who make fonts, but I also know that most developers don’t know that much about how fonts are made. And so when you put those two things together, you create some problems. But I think this is a huge step towards getting to the point of being able to solve the edge cases. Right. Because right now finding where you manage the fonts is difficult.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: We’re going in a great direction, getting into the nitty gritty of which font providers are supported and that I think that’s the next step from here, personally, because I do think there’s a homogeny that started from a type standpoint around everyone’s using Google fonts because they. It’s easy.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. But it’s also problematic for European sites.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right, yeah. Because the different requirements over whether you’re hosting the font files or Google is hosting the font files, like, then you’re getting all into all of these legal technicalities of where the font is and who owns it. And I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, me too. So, all right, so there are a few developer goodies coming, so to speak, down the pipeline. The PHP-only block registrations and then the pattern overrides for custom blocks that you already mentioned. Those. I think there are a few smaller stuff like the HTML block enhancements where you can put the CSS separately from the JavaScript and the HTML. You could actually kind of create your own little app there, depending on what privileges you have. I found that there are some problems when you don’t have admin privileges. The HTML block really gets scrambled, but that’s an overall kind of problem with the capabilities, I think. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Oh, I forgot the breadcrumbs block. That. That’ll help a lot of things.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So. Yeah, yeah. I’m also sure that a lot of agencies and site owners already had that problem solved through like for instance, the Yoast SEO plugin had already programs for many, many years. Yeah, yeah.

Beth Soderberg: But I like my websites to be as lean and efficient as possible. And this feels like when, for a long time I was using Coblox for accordions. Right. And in the beginning, coblox had a lot of things that Core didn’t. And so you were using a bunch of things. And eventually it became that I was only using the accordion everywhere. And then one day it became possible to do the equivalent in Core and I was like, great, I can get rid of this plugin that’s only doing this one thing, but has all this other stuff. And I think that’s what makes me excited about this. Yeah. You can do it through Yoast. There’s a number of ways to do it. There’s some independent breadcrumbs block plugins that are really good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. I know that Justin Tadlock had a very good breadcrumbs plugin and he was advising on the core implementation there.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right. Yeah. And I’ve used Justin Tadlock’s breadcrumbs plugin for a long time, and I’m not going to rip it out of something just because it’s there. It works. It’s good. But for something else where, like, you only have this one thing that you’re really using in this big suite of plugins. Yoast is one of them. Jetpack is one of them. Any sort of like cadence blocks, code blocks, any collection of a large number of things when you’re only using one of them, you should be considering the idea that maybe you shouldn’t use it at all. And that’s what makes me excited about the ability to do this through Core, because it allows for some of that extra bloat to be stripped away in some circumstances.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. All right. Anything else that you want to kind of cover on 7.0 for your agency of developing theme building needs?

Beth Soderberg: I think that the PHP-only block registration, we sort of glanced over it, but I think that’s a very exciting big deal. It opens up, you know, the whole challenge. I think from a developer standpoint, the whole time with Gutenberg has been, how do I level up to do this new thing? How do I level up to do this new thing? And this opens that door wider. And anything that we are doing to open that door wider is great. Similarly, there’s a few things in here that are just really tiny that I think will help people. They’re not like, again, reducing friction. So little enhancements to the query loop, adding some new navigation stuff that is just really tiny, but really Helpful dimension support for width and height. That sounds crazy, right? Like it’s little tiny stuff that reduces friction and stuff. So there’s more of that in here. Like the concept of the grid block being responsive is really great.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, it was responsive before, but there was a setting where it wasn’t and that’s kind of changed now, right? Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: So, yeah, I just. There’s a lot of hidden goodies in here that reduce friction. I do think the biggest things to look out for are if your themes are compatible, if your plugins are compatible, and if you have built in things that replicate some of this functionality. How does that work? Because we’re starting to enter, at least for how I’ve been building themes, a zone where things I have done historically to account for some of these needs are being subsumed by core, which is great. I just don’t know how it’s going to work. So, you know, I think that’s going to be different for everyone in terms of which things it is. But hopefully, and I say hopefully because I know that we have a unified development philosophy about how we build our themes and there’s sort of a continuous logical thread for our themes as they’re built over time. Hopefully agencies who have an internal logic to how they have been building themes can look at this list and say we should look at how we do that and make sure it still works. Yeah, right. Because there’s also going to be agencies where they have a mishmash of things and they don’t know and it’s going to be a one off for each site to see what happens. And you know, that goes for anybody who’s inherited themes too.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, but that’s also for any of the WordPress releases. Yeah, you have to go through a certain testing phase there.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I think that’s true. And I think some of this is honestly that it’s been a while since we’ve had a major release and so the quantity of little things feels more.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, absolutely.

Beth Soderberg: And I think that’s part of why my reaction is this way, because I haven’t had this thought process.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: At least five months.

Beth Soderberg: At least.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, six months. Nine came out December 2nd.

Beth Soderberg: Right. And so as somebody who was used to the four times a year cadence, it is longer and what’s packed into it is greater. And so I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, but it is an adjustment in terms of absolutely how you review things and what you’re looking for. And it’s more of a. This one feels more like a surprise. Not that it is a surprise, but it feels more like a surprise because it is not on this schedule that I had come to expect. Right. And I think we’re getting towards a new schedule, which is really great. But until we are all psychologically adjusted to whatever that new schedule is, it’s going to be a slightly bigger task to review because there’s more. And psychologically it’s going to be like, oh, right, I guess that’s happening and you’re, you know, you got to go do it. Yeah. So I just think it’s just. There’s a little more and the timing is not as predictable.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And I think that the break that was in Twenty Twenty-Five kind of skewed that anyway. Yeah. So we had an April 25, we had a release, and then the last. The next one wasn’t until December. Yeah. So there were eight months that kind of 15 Gutenberg plugin releases. It didn’t feel that much that it is now in 7.0, because that was just kind of coming up out of that pause. And now there’s a real excitement about the Real Time collaboration. There’s excitement about AI. Yeah. So, yeah, it feels that there are quite a few heavy new features in there that also kind of drown out some of the really quality of life things that we have been waiting for quite a bit here.

Beth Soderberg: Right. Yeah. And I. I think it’s like coming back from a long vacation, like, oh, ooh, this is really exciting, you know, but that’s how. That’s how it feels and it’s good. But it is, absolutely. I think that Twenty Twenty-Five, you didn’t have to be as vigilant because it wasn’t happening.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yep, it was a good break.

Beth Soderberg: I think everyone needed it. Honestly, I think everyone really needed it. I know I needed it. But it is, you know, getting back into the. The groove of things is. Is where we are now.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: For which I am thankful, but it’s still an adjustment.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Me too. Yeah. And now with 7.0 kind of out the door almost. Yeah.

Gutenberg 22.8

We are looking at Gutenberg 22.8 that has been released. Was released this week also kind of what comes into 7.1. It’s already starting and people are discussing things. So although there were quite a few PRs that were either all part of the new WordPress UI package that hasn’t been merged into Core yet, or it’s bug fixes for the connectors or the Real time collaboration for 7.0, so some of the PRs are actually backported to the release candidates and the beta to the release candidates.

But let’s talk about some of the things that will not be in 7.0, but definitely in 7.1 and what’s new in the Gutenberg plugin. So the first thing is the navigation support for the current menu item. So in theme JSON, meaning when you have a navigation and you’re on a current page that’s part of the navigation, how do you signal that you are at the current page right now in the navigation? And that has been missing for quite a while or people have just did some CSS workaround of that, but now you can actually style that in theme JSON. And so this is cool. What’s also cool is that there is an interface for the states like Hover Focus current. I’m not sure if that’s going to be in there, but it’s also part of making the navigation and the hover states and the pseudo support that comes into 7.0, but now it comes also to the interface. So that’s pretty cool.

Beth Soderberg: That’s my favorite part.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which one?

Beth Soderberg: The navigation stuff again. The interface around the navigation has gotten a lot better in various iterations of Gutenberg, but there’s still some stuff that you’d think you would be able to do that you can’t. And that’s what some of this is filling in.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: There have been some great work. Some of it gets into 7.0 and some of it is still ongoing. So I really like the navigation that’s actually in 7.0, that you can create pages and publish them and have them in the navigation in one workflow kind of thing. You don’t have to get out of it. You may have to think about it. You just kind of create the page and then you fill it in with content later.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. And I’ve seen that in other systems. I don’t remember what that is. One of those things where some of these changes, you’re like, you know, I saw that once somewhere. Was it Joomla? Was it Drupal? Was it whatever? I don’t know. But I liked it. And now it’s here. And that’s good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Absolutely.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s how I feel about that because I do appreciate the tiny little decisions that are being considered here by the core team because it seems very small. But the amount of friction you’re reducing and the amount of time you’re saving for people is huge.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s huge. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s millions of millions of site owners that kind of have advantage. Yeah. Do you want to take the next

Beth Soderberg: thing, the tabs menu. So I think this is going to be fun too. So basically we’ve got a refactor of the tabs menu block. So it’s basically making this more efficient and making som4BtT> ?ue templating changes to how the tabs block works. And if you look at the actual PR for it, there’s really good, very detailed descriptions of how. So it’s making it very clear of it’s no longer using the template block duplicated in PHP and instead it’s rendering with per tab context.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Right.

Beth Soderberg: And that’s like all gobbledygook to some listeners. Maybe, but like really what it’s doing is making it more efficient and making it more extensible from a code perspective.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: And also for theme developers.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, right. And making it more possible again, opening that door a little wider for more people to be able to work within the code infrastructure. Because that has been the thing that’s been the biggest challenge in terms of developer adoption of Gutenberg.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And the refactor was also necessary to bring it in line with the approach for the accordion block so that certain methods and certain functions can be replicated in a similar way for the TAPS block. I was actually sad to hear that very early that it won’t make it into 7.0, but I think that was one of the reasons where they said, okay, let’s, let’s see if we can kind of align it a little bit more with the accordion block. And it’s no surprise that Sarah Norris, who has been a guest here at the Changelog quite a bit, she also created the accordion block and she has been now instrumental on the restructure of the tabs menu and inner blocks to get it in line and we have make it more streamlined for developers and theme builders.

Beth Soderberg: The one thing to add that is an exciting piece for especially theme developers is the addition of anchor support for the tabs. So that’ll help a lot in terms of things like navigation structures and feasibility. Yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: And also to kind of interlink different pages. You can link to some of the tabs if it’s interesting enough. Yeah. So I know that WooCommerce is using that for their products template. So they have built their own one back then and now they get a little bit closer to core, which makes it more extensible and also appreciative they don’t have to maintain the code for it.

Beth Soderberg: Yep, absolutely.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which is quite a bit. So right now I’m fishing around on my computer to find my notes again. So here we are. All right,

Beth Soderberg: the next one, the showing one’s own presence and collaborative editing sessions is I think existentially important and just is really going to help this UI experience from the baseline that’s being released in 7.0.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So yeah, I’m pretty sure that it will actually come to 7.0. That made it into the release. That’s good. So the next piece is the one that you can have the site logo and icon screen in the design panel. So in the site editor there’s another menu item now to update the site logo and the icon screen directly from the site editor. So you don’t have to go out into the settings page and upload everything that you need or into the site logo block or header. You can do it right there from, from the menu. So it’s really an interesting update to change the site logo and the site icon directly in the design site editor.

Beth Soderberg: It’s reducing friction. I think that there’s a workflow confusion. There’s the customizer that has become this vestigial organ that sometimes you need, sometimes you don’t need. Where’s this? Wait a minute, where do I add css? Is it over here? Is it over here? Is it over here? Could it be here? And I think that we’re pruning what we need to do through alternate interfaces through changes like this. And the more we can streamline, the better because the biggest confusion I’ve seen is actually with brand new or like more junior developers who do not know the quote old way. And so the idea that it’s even there, like they’ll get stuck because they can’t figure out where it could possibly be coming from. And then some old timer is like, oh, it’s over here in this menu that you can’t see anymore.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Or yeah. So the site icon at the site logo has been a hidden place and only until now it’s kind of coming into the forefront. Yes. So the next thing is another one for the collaboration. I just wanted to point out that by default the collaboration on shared hosting is only. It’s limited to two users and there is also a method for the hosts to either enable that or disable the real time collaboration. So it might not be as obvious when you go on your site and looking for it. You might not be able to get real time collaboration out of the box. You might need to connect with your host to let that enabled because it’s such an additional load on a server. That certain server configurations are not meant for it to be in yet. So if you’re on a virtual private host, I think I mentioned it before, it wouldn’t. It was a different scenario. But it’s probably easier to get the collaboration working than if you are on a shared hosting with 10,000 websites on a. On a server where the hosting company will probably restrict that.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah, I think that there’s going to be a lot of shifts in hosting, either requirements, configuration, pricing options, etc. as a result of all of these changes. And I don’t know what they’re going to be yet, but we do need to collectively remember that the AI features, the collaboration components, all of those things are resource intensive and are going to shift how hosting is being utilized and therefore the hosts are going to need to respond in order to account for the actual cost of that change. So I think that’s a big unknown right now and I think it’s, you know, there’s a few hosts where they’re locking in pricing for a few years, which is cool, but at the same time I’m like, I don’t know, in three years is this going to be enough to pay for that? What will it be in three years?

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: So I think there’s a shift coming there and I am not gonna even pretend to know enough about all the details to know exactly how that’s going to play out, but I think that there’s enough shift in what types of resources we need from our hosting that there will be a shift. There has to be, because it’s just so much more resource intensive than what we’ve been doing in the past collectively.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And that is in line with what you said at the beginning, that the PHP requirements. Yeah, it always is also contributing to that because all the newer features. So there might be a. You can’t upload upgrade to 7.0 until you update your PHP. That’s totally sure.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah. And I’ve read that somewhere. Somewhere I did read that there’ll be security releases on 6.9 for sites that can’t go, you know. But then you end up with a situation where you’re gonna. How many sites are gonna be stuck on 6.9 forever?

Birgit Pauli-Haack: But that has been a problem. Yeah. Because the security team is actually backporting, although officially the release is only supported to 6.8 or something like that, but security team actually backported all the security updates that came with 6.3 or 6.4 to 4 point something. WordPress 4 point something is probably 15 years old. So it’s still getting security updates. So that definitely is a backwards compatibility promise that even the security team there. It takes a lot of time to backport that. And John Blackburn, one of the leads on the security team, has actually done a retrospective of the latest security updates because you saw that too. It was a. It’s kind of a galore of releases. 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4 beta. Yeah, it kind of was in within three days, I think there were four releases.

Beth Soderberg: It was a lot. Yes. All at once.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: I had a meetup here in Munich and we talked about it. I think the day the 6.4 came out that they were saying, well, is it all hacked or what happened here? Kind of how often do I have to update my WordPress site in a day? And he did a nice retrospective or explaining what happened and what was the reason for that. I’ll link it in the show notes if you’re interested. To listeners, it will probably be a little bit less prominent because of all the death notes that came out, but it’s on the blog on Core.

Beth Soderberg: I’m going to go back and listen to that because that hit during a particularly busy time, just for me personally in general. And so it was a little whiplashy to be like what is going on over there? And I think it will be good to be able to go back and just review so that I am aware moving forward of what exactly happened there.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And back to Gutenberg 22.8. I mentioned it before. There is a feature that implements the state UI for sudo selectors in the global styles. Maggie Cabrera mentioned that in the last episode. It’s now available in the Gutenberg plugin so you can test it out. It gives you a. In the global styles on the right hand side you can select the design for your pseudo selectors like hover and focus and all that. It’s really cool. Hover, focus, Focus, visible and active. Yeah, so you can change all those settings for buttons, for instance. And you don’t have to use theme JSON for it anymore. So this is pretty cool.

Beth Soderberg: Yes. And then this one, I think this is fascinating. There is a PR adding client side navigation block with interactive features. That just sounds really fun to experiment with. So what it’s doing is adding a variant to the Create Block interactive template that allows you to add client side navigation. So this is starting to support the again supporting the infrastructure that exists with actual tooling and UI to use it. So the way that it describes it, this variant provides a self contained working example that mirrors real world patterns, query parameter navigation for pagination, search results, filtered archives and works immediately after scaffolding with no posts or setup required. That’s really cool. That’s a really nerdy and very arcane and wonderful. So I’m excited about that.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And that variant is for the Create block scaffolding feature, if I understood this correctly. Yeah, it’s a create block latest. So if you create a custom block, you can have the variant for your client side navigation and scaffold that up. That’s really cool. Yeah. Well, our developer advocacy team, we are working on a so-called showcase for all the good things that you could do with a website or theme, including some of the interactivity API features. And we will probably release that someday in the next two months I would think. And it will be a music site with albums and musicians and artists and using the tabs and using the playlist and block and then also kind of have some interesting changes in the theme. So it’s for custom post types and all that. So it’s going to be really cool. I know that Juan Ma Garrido who put the client side navigation template into the gray block scaffolding, he’s also creating a plugin to have the music play even if you navigate away from that page that had the list of the music. So it’s kind of really interesting to see. So you could use it for video and music. So things stay on the forefront on your browser even if you look at other pages on the website. So that’s one of the features.

Beth Soderberg: The person, the, the part of me that likes to listen to podcasts from the website themselves really appreciates this.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. So I, I definitely, once it’s out, I definitely gonna adopt it for the good changelog podcast.

Beth Soderberg: Yeah.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I think always through, we are through with booked. Yeah.

Beth Soderberg: Lots of little, little things, but those are the big exciting things, I think.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And there were actually 38 PRs that were backported as bug fixes to 7.0. So it’s still an ongoing work that is coming out in two weeks and people are still fixing it.

All right, well, I wish you and your agency all the best for that release that all the things that come in don’t disrupt your work or the work of your clients.

Beth Soderberg: We have a list. We know where to look for the problem.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Excellent. Yeah. Well, I’m so happy that you were on the show with me. And as always, dear listeners, the show notes will be published on GutenbergTimes.com podcast this is episode 129 and if you have questions and suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to changelogutenbergtimes.com that’s changelogutenbergtimes.com so thank you for listening and I wish you all a great weekend. Well, or next week. And also toy, toy for the WordPress 7.0 release updates. We will hear each other again in four weeks once I get back from WordCamp Asia. And then we’ll tackle what’s coming in 7.1 and what has been in. Good work. Plugin 22.9 and 23.0.

Thank you so much. Beth Soderberg, it was wonderful to have you and your perspective and your opinions on the show.

Beth Soderberg: Thank you for having me. It was great to be here and to see you again and I wish you safe travels on all of your continuing travels.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Thank you. All right. Yeah, and you take care. And I’ll put in the show notes how people can connect with you.

Beth Soderberg: Sounds good.

Birgit Pauli-Haack: Of course. All right, you take care. Bye Bye.

Beth Soderberg: Bye bye. Thanks, everybody.

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First, I want to say how great the jazz scene is in New York. I caught a little Latin at my go-to Guantanamera last night, but the band seemed to be phoning it in a bit, so I walked over to Dizzy’s and heard an amazing big band performance by the Diva all-women Jass Orchestra, they had Clint Holmes leading vocals and I got Frank Sinatra / Count Basie vibes, so great to see such a tight big band.

In WordPress, last week it was fun to see the company some call parasitic WP Engine acquire WPackagist. So a popular way to use WordPress with Composer, previously maintained by an awesome co-op agency in London, was now in the clutches of a company using its capital advantage to try to openwash its alleged bad behavior, probably in a process that wasn’t ideal for the sellers.

Four days later, an awesome independent organization roots.io released WP Composer (renamed to WP Packages, in OpenClaw fashion) with 17x faster cold resolves than WPackagist. Check out their comparison page.

It’s beautiful to see how resilient and nimble the antibodies in the WordPress community are. Major hat tip to Ben Word.

In another type of antibody, Sid Sijbrandi, whom I previously talked about going into founder mode on his cancer, gave an incredible presentation at the Open AI Forum about how he ran a bunch of N-of-1 experiments and therapies to cure his terminal osteosarcoma. He’s also open-sourced 25TB of his data for cancer research. Incredible!

If you want to see the future of health care, give Sid’s presentation a watch.

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Nobody is arguing that Stockfish is conscious, but Stockfish would kick Claude’s ass at chess.

Kevin Lincoln in AI Perfected Chess. Humans Made It Unpredictable Again.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 28 Mar 2026 20:57:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"Gary: Claudaborative Editing 0.2: now with 500% more collaboration!";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://pento.net/?p=5697";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"https://pento.net/2026/03/28/claudaborative-editing-0-2-now-with-500-more-collaboration/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5416:"

A week ago, I put together a quick tech demo, showing how an MCP server could be created for Claude Code that hooked directly into Gutenberg’s Collaborative Editing feature, allowing it to act as a digital collaborator on a post. The demo focused primarily on text generation, but that’s not really the benefit that I see coming with this kind of tool. Anyone can generate text, then copy/paste it into the editor. The real power comes from directly hooking into the entire post creation and editing process.

What’s New?

A screenshot of the /review tool running on this post, prior to publication.
A screenshot of what Claude was doing behind the scenes when it was generating the review notes.

Since last week’s release, I’ve added a host of editing and review tools:

  • /edit {tell the LLM how you want this post adjusted}
    Automatically make simple (or even not so simple!) edits on your post, giving your writing a little extra polish.
  • /proofread
    Find and automatically fix simple spelling, grammatical, and punctuation issues.
  • /review
    Read the post, and leave notes (using Gutenberg’s Notes feature!) about suggested improvements to your post. This doesn’t touch your post content, leaving you to make use of the suggestions as you see fit.
  • /respond-to-notes
    If you’re happy with the notes left in the review, you can also have it automatically apply them, too!

On top of that, I’ve also added an experimental /translate tool, to automatically translate a post into a different language. LLM translation quality varies significantly, though Claude is regularly considered to be quite good. It’s worth remembering that, like any LLM, the output is only as good as its input. If you’re translating to a language that it didn’t have much training data on, it’ll do a lot worse.

Behind The Scenes

The MCP server now does a much better job of making use of the REST API, too: it now handles all block types (and does a pretty good job of guessing how to use blocks provided by plugins!). It can upload media, and it can handle all the post metadata, like categories, tags, excerpt, etc.

Getting It Running

Inspired by the recently released WordPress.org MCP server, the install process got a refresh, too. If you’re running WordPress 7.0, you won’t even need to copy/paste the application password to connect to your site: just click the connect button in your browser, and your site will send credentials back to the installer! And if you’d prefer to avoid the magic, there’s still a --manual option to let you set it up the old-fashioned way.

A screenshot of the initial installation of the claudaborative-editing MCP server, prompting the user to enter a site to connect to.
Connect
The authorisation screen of the site that the MCP server is connecting to.
Authorise
After authorisation, this screenshot shows the continu
Install

What’s Next?

This release shows how easy it is for an LLM to talk to your WordPress site. What about the other way? If you’re working on a post, you don’t want to have to switch to a terminal to get spell checking done, so how can we provide this kind of functionality directly from the block editor? Let’s experiment and find out!

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Hi,

In less than two weeks, WordPress 7.0 is scheduled to be released. Are you ready? Or are you someone I used to be who waits two to three weeks to see what quirks early adopters find and if they warrant an early point release? Be that as it may, waiting only delays the inevitable, though, sooner or later you get to benefit from the new features and quality of life improvements to the Admin, Editor and Blocks.

The first version of the WordPress 7.0 Source of Truth has been published. It’s again a mammoth post of 4500 words, including 21 images and ten videos. I hope you enjoy the list of all the big and small feature and updates.

Next week, I will be on my way to Mumbai. The next weekend edition will arrive in your inbox after WordCamp Asia, on April 17th, 2026.

Yours, 💕
Birgit

PS: Should you be in Mumbai, grab a coffee of lunch spot from my public calendar, I’d love to meet you!

WordPress 7.0

Highlight grid WordPress 7.0

WordPress 7.0 Release candidate 1 was moved to this week. The WordPress 7.0 RC2 was still on schedule for Thursday, though. Meanwhile, more Dev Notes were published.

PaT>αvT? ?wttern Overrides in WP 7.0 is your heads-up to act before the release lands. WordPress 7.0 lifts the old restriction — Pattern Overrides now work with any block attribute that supports Block Bindings, not just a hardcoded Core block list. You opt in via the block_bindings_supported_attributes filter, and the post walks you through edge cases for static blocks where a render_callback may still be needed.

Pattern Editing in WordPress 7.0 explains that ContentOnly mode for unsynced patterns is now the default, meaning block structure and style controls are hidden from editors by default. Block authors need to audit "role": "content" attributes in block.json, theme authors should test their patterns, and plugin developers should verify UI components still render correctly under the new, more broadly applied editing modes.

Block Visibility in WordPress 7.0 dev note is relevant if your theme or plugin touches block markup server-side. The new viewport key inside blockVisibility metadata lets users show or hide blocks per device — mobile, tablet, desktop — via CSS, not DOM removal. If your code assumes blockVisibility is always a boolean, you’ll need to update it to handle an object too. No changes are needed if your blocks don’t interact with markup server-side.

Anne McCarthy walks through one of WordPress 7.0’s most-requested features: viewport-based block visibility. You’ll see exactly how showing or hiding any block by screen size works in practice — no extra plugins or CSS workarounds needed — and why it is relevant for responsive design. If you’ve been waiting for a native way to tailor content for mobile, tablet, and desktop separately, this is your preview before the April 9th release.

The Dimensions Support Enhancements in WordPress 7.0 comprise width and height as first-class block supports. Block builders and theme designer opt in with a single line in block.json, set defaults in theme.json, and the sidebar UI comes for free. Themes can also define named dimensionSizes presets, giving users a consistent palette rather than free-form inputs. If your block has custom width/height attributes today, this is a good moment to consider migrating.

A long-requested feature finally lands in WordPress 7.0. The dev note on Custom CSS for Individual Block Instances hold all the details. The new customCSS block support — enabled by default for all blocks — adds a Custom CSS field in the Advanced panel of the block inspector, scoped automatically to that instance via a generated class. Block authors whose blocks wrap raw or opaque content should explicitly opt out via block.json. If your render_callback is in play, make sure your block’s outermost element is a standard HTML tag.

A typography feature requested since 2021 finally arrives in WordPress 7.0, the dev note on the new textIndent block support has all the details for developers working on blocks or themes. Opt in with a single line in block.json, and a Line Indent control appears automatically in the Typography panel. Theme authors get theme.json configuration too, including a thoughtful subsequent vs all toggle that respects both LTR and RTL typographic conventions. No breaking changes — purely additive./

WordPress 7.0 ships a new Connectors API — and if you build AI-adjacent plugins, this dev note belongs on your reading list. The new framework standardizes how WordPress registers and manages connections to external services — starting with AI providers — giving you a consistent admin UI, API key management, and auto-discovery via the WP AI Client. Three providers ship out of the box: Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. The wp_connectors_init action is your hook for registering additional connectors or overriding existing metadata.

Felix Arntz details the new AI Client landing in WordPress 7.0 — a provider-agnostic PHP API that lets your plugin send prompts for text, images, speech, or video without touching credentials or provider logic. You chain methods on wp_ai_client_prompt(), declare model preferences, and WordPress routes to whatever the site owner has configured. Three official provider plugins cover Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. Client-side JS exists but remains admin-only for now.

Jorge Costa details the client-side Abilities API arriving in WordPress 7.0, the JavaScript counterpart to the PHP Abilities API introduced in 6.9. Two new packages handle it: @wordpress/abilities for pure state management and @wordpress/core-abilities for the WordPress integration layer that auto-fetches server-registered abilities via REST. You can register abilities with input/output schemas, permission callbacks, and annotations — laying the groundwork for browser agents and WebMCP integration.

Gutenberg 22.8

Gutenberg 22.8 release lead Dean Sas highlighted in his post What’s new in Gutenberg 22.8? (25 March) the following features:

The real-time collaboration improvements and the Connectors extensibility will make it into the WordPress 7.0 release.

I had a blast chatting with Beth Soderberg from Bethink Studio on the recording of Gutenberg changelog 129. We dove into some cool stuff like using AI, WordPress 7.0, and Gutenberg 22.8. It was such a fun convo, and we even touched on that little mental block some users might hit when they see the fresh new look of the wp-admin screens and try to wrap their heads around the change. The episode will drop into your favorite podcast app over the weekend. The 130th episode will be recorded after I return from WordCamp Asia.

🎙 The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #129 Artificial Intelligence, WordPress 7.0 and Gutenberg 22.8 with Beth Soderberg, of BeThink Studio

Beth Soderberg and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording the Gutenberg Changelog 129

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Courtney Robertson at GoDaddy breaks down what WordPress 7.0 brings when it ships April 9 at WordCamp Asia. Your editor finally gets real-time multi-user collaboration powered by Yjs, alongside visual block-level revisions, a Breadcrumbs block, Icon block, and customizable navigation overlays. Developers gain a provider-agnostic WP AI Client with a Connectors UI, PHP-only block registration, and Interactivity API improvements. The minimum PHP requirement bumps to 7.4 — worth flagging for clients on older hosting now.

A little over a month ago, Johanne Courtright, founder of Groundworx, launched r/WordPressBlocks, a dedicated Reddit community for developers and builders working with the block editor. A longtime block developer and free plugin author, Courtright created the space because scattered conversations about custom blocks, theme.json, full site editing, and Gutenberg’s direction deserved a proper home. All skill levels welcome — come share tips, tools, wins, and frustrations.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

If you’re finding it a drag to edit theme.json, check out Sérgio Santos‘s creation, WP Theme JSON Editor. It’s a VS Code and Cursor extension that makes dealing with JSON way easier with its cool visual interface. You can easily tweak colors, typography, spacing, and block settings using the official WordPress JSON Schema. Plus, it’s got handy features like CSS variable autocomplete, CodeMirror 6 syntax highlighting, drag-and-drop for palettes and font sizes, and real-time validation, and you even get to play with some experimental WP core properties. I’m not sure if it’s really easier than writing JSON from scratch, but hey, that’s just a personal choice, right?

You can now generate a block theme with Telex, Automattic’s experimental AI theme builder. You describe your site, hit “Enhance Prompt” to let Telex flesh out the design brief, optionally upload a reference image, then pick from four generated variations. From there you build out additional page templates, refine typography and colors conversationally, and download a ready-to-install ZIP containing your templates, styles, and theme.json — no PHP or CSS knowledge required.

“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2026”
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

Troy Chaplin launched Veils of Fate, a choose-your-own-adventure game built in WordPress using the Interactivity API, post types, and taxonomies. Spanning 3 acts, 18 quests, and 112 scenes, the story was co-written with Claude AI. If you love interactive storytelling, this one’s for you. Nano banana handled the pixel art, Miles created the theme, and Kinsta provides the hosting. A family-inspired project: Troy’s kids are avid readers and his wife is a librarian.

WordPress Studio is a free, open-source local development tool powered by WordPress Playground that has been around for two years now. The team has now published wp-studio the CLI installer you can use to spin up local sites instantly — no Docker, NGINX, Apache, or MySQL required — sync them with WordPress.com or Pressable, share live preview links with clients, and tap into a built-in AI assistant that runs WP-CLI commands natively. It’s only early access to there might be dragons. 🐉 Also available in WordPress Studio you can use phpMyAdmin to access the database and use it dark mode.

Carlo Daniele at Kinsta walks you through building PHP-only Gutenberg blocks, a feature introduced in Gutenberg 21.8 that lets you register blocks entirely in PHP—no React, Node.js, or build steps required. Using the new auto_register support flag, your attributes automatically generate inspector controls in the editor. You’ll build a pricing card block and learn how to wrap legacy shortcodes as proper blocks, finally giving your PHP-side clients and developers a gentler path into the block editor. It will also come to a WordPress instance near you soon with WordPress 7.0.

If you’d rather watch a video for education, Brian Coords demonstrates how PHP-only block registration in WordPress 7.0 removes the build-tool barrier entirely You’ll see a Hello World block built with custom fields, a WooCommerce integration using the Store API, and how to handle frontend JavaScript when backend JS has limitations. The real payoff comes when you combine PHP-only blocks with Claude Code skills, letting you generate blocks through conversation rather than scaffolding. The code is on GitHub.

Playground News

On this episode of The WP Minute+, Eric Karkovack sits down with WordPress contributors Alex Kirk and Brandon Payton to explore my.WordPress.net, a browser-based WordPress sandbox built around privacy, portability, and AI. Think personal CRM, private family blogging, chat-to-blog workflows, and an AI playground — all running in your browser without a server. The demo shows how plugins become app-like modules, how messaging apps like Beeper can feed content in, and how AI can modify plugins live. Your data stays yours, portable across devices.

AI in WordPress

Fellyph Cintra announces that AI coding agents can now connect directly to WordPress Playground via MCP, thanks to the new @wp-playground/mcp package built by Berislav Grgicak. One command wires up Claude Code or Gemini CLI to a browser-based Playground instance over WebSocket, letting your agent read and write files, execute PHP, manage sites, and navigate pages — all locally, without touching WordPress admin. Think plugin testing, live database debugging, and theme scaffolding driven entirely by conversation.

Gary Pendergast, long-time core committer, introduces claudaborative-editing, an MCP server — written by Claude Code, fittingly — that lets Claude edit WordPress posts live alongside you in Gutenberg. Built on WordPress 7.0’s Yjs-powered collaborative editing protocol, your changes and Claude’s sync in real time with no conflicts. A single npx claudaborative-editing setup gets you started. Claude appears in the collaborators list, edits at the block level, and even streams text character by character as it types.

Darin Koster, developer at Fueled, walks you through how AI featured image generation works inside the WordPress AI plugin. One button click kicks off a five-step chain built on the Abilities API: gather post context, generate an image prompt via an LLM, generate the image, optionally create alt text, then import and set it as the featured image — all in about 30 seconds. The post doubles as a practical demonstration of how WordPress’s AI building blocks can be composed into real editor workflows.

In this lively WP Builds debate on AI, content, and the future of WordPress, Jamie Marsland — Automattic’s head of YouTube and prolific WordPress educator — squares off against a gleefully curmudgeonly Nathan Wrigley. Marsland champions the new Claude–WordPress.com integration, which gives AI full context of your site for content, branding, and SEO. Wrigley pushes back on authenticity, AI slop, and eroding community skills. You’ll find both sides genuinely persuasive — and probably switch teams more than once.

As an example of how AI might change how you use WordPress, Jamie Marsland demonstrates that You can now Vibe Code with WordPress.com. on YouTube. He shows what’s possible once Claude is connected to your site via MCP, from building full landing pages and wiring up contact forms with a single prompt to running promotions across multiple sites, generating downloadable SEO reports, auditing for accessibility, and tracking activity with visual dashboards. Think of it as your WordPress workflow, but driven entirely by conversation.

You can learn more about the official WordPress.com connector for Claude in below blog post and video.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

Featured Image:

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Welcome to the Source of Truth for WordPress 7.0!

Before you dive headfirst into all the big and small changes and pick your favorites, make sure to read these preliminary thoughts about this post and how to use it. If you have questions, leave a comment or email me at pauli@gutenbergtimes.com.

Huge Thank You to all collaborators on this post: Anne McCarthy, Sarah Norris, Ella van Durpe, Maggie Cabrera, Ben Dwyer, Jonathan Bossenger, Justin Tadlock, Dave Smith, Courtney Robertson and a lot more. It’s takes a village…

Estimated reading time

21–31 minutes

at

4,869 words

Table of Contents

Changelog

Any changes are cataloged here as the release goes on.

  • March 27, 2026: First edition
  • March 30, 2026:
    • Fixes for clarity and grammar.
    • Changed feature image of the post.
    • RTC: Added Introduce filters for the polling intervals (76518)
  • April 1, 2026:
  • April 17, 2026
    • Update on new release date no later then 4/22.

Important note/guidelines

Try not to just copy and paste what’s in this post since it’s going to be shared with plenty of folks. Use this as inspiration for your own stuff and to get the best info about this release. If you do copy and paste, just remember that others might do the same, and it could lead to some awkward moments with duplicate content floating around online.

  • Each item has been tagged using best guesses with different high-level labels so that you can more readily see at a glance who is likely to be most impacted.
  • Each item has a high-level description, visuals (if relevant), and key resources if you would like to learn more.

Overview

Highlight grid WordPress 7.0 (still a work in progress)

Note: 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 7.0.

WordPress 7.0 introduces several new features and performance enhancements.

Key new features include:

  • Real-time collaboration: multiple users can now work on the same post.
  • Navigation overlays: Customizable mobile menus for more flexible styling.
  • Content focused pattern editing: Pattern editing now prioritizes the content editing experience with more available options when needed.
  • Visual revisions: A new revisions screen inside the block editor gives a visual preview of the changes with an easy-to-understand color-coded system.
  • AI Foundation in WordPress: User can connect their site to an AI agent of choice to use the AI experiments plugin. Plugin developers can use the Connectors API to register connections to external services.

Furthermore, WordPress 7.0, entails:

  • Two new blocks: the Icon block and the Breadcrumbs block.
  • Viewport-based block show/hide: Block visibility extended to customize display according to screen-sizes.
  • Gallery lightbox navigation: improved browsing through images placed in a gallery.
  • Font management for all themes: The screen to upload and manage fonts is now available in the Appearance menu for classic and block themes.

Many more quality of life changes for workflow and design tools made it into this release. You’ll find the complete list below.

WordPress 7.0 is set to be released on April 9, 2026 at Contributor Day of WordCamp Asia.
The new release date will be announced no later than April 22. (see Ventura’s announcement)

Of note, this release consists of features from the Gutenberg plugin version 22.0 – 22.6. Here are the release posts of those plugin releases: 22.0 | 22.1 | 22.2 | 22.3 | 22.4 | 22.5 | 22.6. Later Gutenberg releases contain bug fixes, backported to WordPress 7.0. release branches.

Assets

In this Google Drive folder you can view all assets in this document.

Tags

To make this document easier to navigate based on specific audiences, the following tags are used liberally:

  • [end user]: end user focus.
  • [theme builder]: block or classic theme author.
  • [plugin author]: plugin author, whether block or otherwise.
  • [developer]: catch-all term for more technical folks.
  • [site admin]: this includes a “builder” type.
  • [enterprise]: specific items that would be of interest to or particularly impact enterprise-level folks
  • [all]: broad impact to every kind of WordPress user.

How can you use these? Use your browser’s Find capability and search for the string including the brackets. Then use the arrows to navigate through the post from one result to the next.

Short video on how to use the tags to navigate the post.

Priority items for WordPress 7.0

Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) [enterprise][site admin]

Multiple users can now work on the same page at the same time, seeing each other’s changes as they happen. No more “someone else is editing this” warnings. Whether you’re co-writing a post, reviewing a layout, or making last-minute edits before publishing, everyone stays in sync without leaving the editor.

It represents the biggest step toward achieving full collaborative editing, not only for newsrooms and big publishing houses. It also simplifies working on a site editing for agencies and their clients as well as designers and writers working together on a post.

A presence indicator in the editor header shows who’s currently editing. Under the hood, title, content, and excerpt now sync via Y.text for more granular conflict resolution, and numerous reliability fixes address disconnection handling, revision restores, and performance metrics. (75286, 75398, 75065, 75448, 75595).

You can enable the feature via Settings > Writing. Check the box next to Enable early access to real-time collaboration, in the Collaboration section.

The infrastructure implementation uses HTTP polling for universal compatibility, CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type) update data is stored persistently in post_meta on a special internal wp_sync_storage post type (one per “room”/document).

The sync provider architecture is designed so that the storage and transport layer can be swapped out. Updates are batched and periodically compacted. WordPress code initially limits simultaneous collaborators to two to protect hosts. (64622).

Hosting companies have the option to add a different provider. There will be a wp-config constant that can be used to change the defaults.

Introduces JavaScript filters to allow third party developers to slow down or speed up polling via the RTC client. (76518).

For more details, check out the Dev Note Real-Time Collaboration in the Block Editor.

Update:

Since October, WordPress VIP beta participants — spanning newsrooms, research institutions, and enterprise publishers — tested the real-time collaboration against live editorial workflows, reporting back what worked, what broke, and what they couldn’t live without. Their voices didn’t just validate the feature — they shaped it.

Matias Ventura explains why the WordPress 7.0 cycle is being extended by a few weeks: the real-time collaboration feature needs more time to nail its data architecture. After Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, expressed a preference to revisit the proposed custom table for syncing presence and content changes, the team is refining the design before committing.

The proposal for custom table to keep a record of the changes to a post/page from each browser window, was discussed in the trac ticket (64696)

Plugin developers relying on metaboxes will want to take note — collaborative editing is disabled when metaboxes are present, making this cycle your window to migrate.

Navigation blocks now have customizable overlays and give user full control over mobile hamburger menus. A prominent Create overlay button in the side bar guides you through the setup, providing a selection of patterns to achieve various designs for your overlay. WordPress 7.0 comes with multiple built-in patterns including centered navigation, accent backgrounds, and black backgrounds. New blocks default to “always” showing overlays. The Navigation block sidebar section also shows a preview of the selected overlay template parts. You can also access the list of Navigation Overlays via Appearance > Editor > Patterns > Template Parts.

To make it easier for users to create custom overlays for their mobile navigation, four new patterns are now available for the navigation overlay template parts:

  • Submenus: Always visible option: Users can now add navigation blocks to their overlays and toggle if they’d like to have the submenus always visible or not. (74653)
  • Page Creation in Navigation: Create pages directly from the Navigation block with helpful Snackbar notices and improved parent page search using relevance matching (72627, 73836).

Treating patterns like a single block [all]

Get ready for a smoother, more intuitive experience when using patterns in WordPress 7.0. It’s becoming much easier to customize your site’s design sections with a simplified editing workflow and an improved content-focused mode.

Users naturally stay in the safe lane without accidentally breaking designs. Agencies can hand off a site knowing clients can’t wreck the layout by default — they’d have to deliberately choose to go deeper.

What’s New for Patterns:

  • Quick Content Edits: When you select a pattern, instead of seeing a list of individual blocks, you’ll see a clean, expanded inspector panel. This panel exposes all the editable text and image fields directly, organized for easy access.
  • Content-Only Focus: Patterns will now default to a Content-Only editing mode. This simplifies the experience by letting you quickly fill in the content without seeing all the underlying design tools.
  • Full Customization (If You Need It): If you do need to change the structure or design of a pattern, you can simply “detach” it. This gives you full access to all the individual blocks, just like before. Use the Edit Pattern button from the sidebar.
  • A Unified Experience: This new approach makes patterns feel like single, smart design objects with easy-to-update attributes, whether you’re using a pattern, a design section, or a partially synced pattern.

Head over to the dev note Pattern Editing in WordPress 7.0 for the full picture.

AI in WordPress [enterprise][developers][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 ships with a WP AI client API and a built-in Connectors screen — a centralized hub for managing all kinds of external service integrations, not just AI providers. Connect to OpenAI, Claude, or Gemini and WordPress automatically installs the right plugin and prompts you for your API key. Developers get a consistent framework to build on—enabling features like content generation, block building, and theme creation without reinventing the plumbing every time.

The new Connectors page also sports a shout-out to the AI Experiments plugin if users want to see AI features, like title, excerpt, or alt-text generation, in action.

But the real value of this Connectors API is broader: any plugin that needs to connect to an outside service via API keys or other credentials can tap into this standardized connection management system. Users get one place to maintain all their integrations. And plugin developer a standardized way to tap into the plumbing.

Visual Revisions [all]

How revisions work for the block editor was completely reimagined. The visual Revisions screen keeps you in the editor the entire time, activating a subtle revision mode right where you work, eliminating the need to jump to a separate screen. A timeline slider in the header allows you to browse through different versions, seeing content updates in real-time.

The system highlights visual differences, showing added and removed text, formatting changes, and outlining modified blocks instead of raw code. For long documents, a mini-map along the scrollbar indicates where changes exist, letting you jump directly to them, and the sidebar remains useful with a summary of the changes for the current revision. To simplify reverting, the “Update” or “Publish” button is replaced by a “Restore” button when you are browsing the history (74742).

Yellow marks a changed section/block, in red you’ll find deletions and green are additions compared to the early version.

Wes Theron has a short video on How to restore previous versions of a page or post in WordPress.

Anne McCarthy also gives a great walk through the screens on Youtube:

New Blocks

The new native Breadcrumbs block in WordPress 7.0 provides dynamic navigational trails for the Site Editor. It automatically generates paths from the homepage to the current page, adapting to context.

The block handles hierarchical pages (e.g., “Home / Services / Web Design / Portfolio”) and includes taxonomy for blog posts (e.g., “Home / Technology / Your Post Title”). Beyond simple pages, it correctly constructs paths for archive pages (category, tag, author, date), search results, and 404 errors. For Custom Post Types, it includes the post type archive in the trail.

Breadcrumbs block displaying post categories WordPress 7.0

The block offers alignment options (left, center, right, wide/full), as well as other block design options. Additional settings are available for showing the last item as text or a link and consistent homepage handling (72649).

The dev note Breadcrumb block filters has the details.

Icon Block [all]

The new Icon block empowers users to add decorative icons from a curated collection to their content. It utilizes a new server-side SVG Icon Registration API, ensuring icon registry updates propagate without block validation errors.

The initial release is limited as it doesn’t yet allow registering third-party icon collections. Extensibility for third-party icon registration is planned for future release in 7.1, following further development on the Icon registry API architecture. A REST endpoint at /wp/v2/icons supports searching and filtering. The initial set draws from the wordpress/icons package (71227, 72215, 75576).

List of directions, illustrated with the icon block

Block Editor enhancements

Custom CSS for Individual Blocks [enduser][site admin] [theme builder]

Previously, applying custom CSS to a block instance required adding a custom class name and then writing a rule in the Site Editor’s global Custom CSS. This two-step process was complex for most users and inaccessible to content editors without Site Editor access.

A new custom CSS block support introduces a Custom CSS input to the Advanced panel within the block editor sidebar, conveniently placed next to the familiar “Additional CSS Class(es)” field. You only need to add the CSS declarations (no selectors!) If you do need to target nested elements, use the & symbol (for example, & a { color: red; }). This field is focused purely on styling and will reject any HTML input. The field is guarded by the edit_css capability to see and use this powerful new field. The editor automatically adds a has-custom-css class for styling consistency. #73959, #74969.

Dive into the dev note Custom CSS for Individual Block Instances for the complete rundown.

Control viewport-based block visibility [all]

When you’re editing a post or page, you can now choose to show or hide any block depending on the visitor’s screen size. Select a block, click Show in the toolbar, and pick which devices — desktop, tablet, or mobile — should display it. You can also hide a block from the document entirely through the same modal.

For the nitty-gritty, see the dev note Block Visibility in WordPress 7.0.

Anne McCarthy walks you through the feature:

Anchor support for dynamic blocks [developer][plugin author]

Dynamic blocks now support Anchor (id attribute) functionality. The anchor reference is consistently stored within the block comment delimiter, enabling dynamic rendering on the front end. (74183)

Paste color values in the color picker [end user][theme builder] [site admin]

Color pickers throughout the block styles sidebar, now offer support for pasting complete color values. You can now copy/paste the brand colors from a design document or website into the color picker box and don’t have to go through the process of selecting the right color and hue (73166).

Dimension support for width and height [theme builder][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 expands the Dimensions block supports system with three significant improvements: width and height are now available as standard block supports under dimensions, and themes can now define dimension size presets to give users a consistent set of size options across their site.

The Dev Note Dimensions Support Enhancements in WordPress 7.0 has the details for block.development and theme builders.

Email notifications for Notes [all]

Collaborators can now get notified when someone leaves a note on their content. No more checking back constantly (73645).

Block Attributions Groups in the sidebar [all]

The block editor sidebar is being reorganized to make controls easier to find. Block settings will be grouped into four clear sections:

  • Content (text, images, captions),
  • List (reordering and nesting for blocks like Lists and Social Icons),
  • Settings (block-specific options), and
  • Styles (typography, colors, spacing).

This means you won’t need to hunt through toolbars or scattered panels — everything will live in a predictable place in the sidebar. Connected data sources will also appear directly next to the attributes they affect, so you can see at a glance what’s linked and where. It also means that for the transition a reordering of the sidebar and controls to be in different place than before. For instance. For an image block that includes the “Alt” text setting is now to be found in the content tab rather than the settings tab. (73845)

Here’s an example of the implementation for Patterns:

The Link Control component in Gutenberg now validates the URLs, you enter helping to avoid broken links (73486).

Improved Blocks and Block handling

Pseudo Styles for Button Blocks [theme builder][site admin]

Theme designers and developers can now style button states (hover, focus, active, and focus visible) directly within the theme.json, making it much easier to keep all design controls centralized and consistent. This reduces the reliance on custom CSS for things like button hover states (71418).

JSON
{
    "styles": {
        "blocks":{
                "core/button":{
                    "color":{
                        "background":"blue"
                    },
                    ":hover":{
                        "color":{
                        "background":"green"
                        }
                    },
                    ":focus":{
                        "color":{
                        "background":"purple"
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
    }
}

More details are available in the Dev Note: Pseudo-element support for blocks and their variations in theme.json.

Extra divs removed from blocks in the editor [theme builder][developer][site admin]

WordPress 7.0 introduced a new HtmlRenderer component, which renders HTML content as React elements with optional wrapper props. For theme authors, this means that several blocks will no longer have an extra wrapping <div> in the editor, allowing for consistent styling with the front end (74228).

Blocks that have been fixed are:

Universal Text Alignment [all]

Nearly all text blocks now support the standardized text-align block support system, including Paragraph, Button, Comment blocks, Heading, and Verse. Plus, text justify alignment is now available. See tracking issue to follow along on the progress (60763).

Cover Block Video Embeds [site admin][end user]

For the Cover block this release comes with the ability to use embedded videos (like YouTube or Vimeo) as background videos in the Cover block, rather than being restricted to locally uploaded files. Offloading video to 3rd-party services helps reduce hosting and bandwidth costs. Also, the focal pointer is now available for fixed background. (#73023, #74600).

The Gallery block’s “Enlarge on click” lightbox now lets you navigate between images. When you click a gallery image, back/next buttons appear so you can browse through the rest of the gallery without closing the lightbox. Keyboard navigation (arrow keys) and screen reader announcements are fully supported. It also works with swiping on mobile, however the swiping isn’t yet visual/animated. (62906) and lightbox items still miss captions.

Content Tab in sidebar [site admin][end user]

For fast access to Alt text box the sidebar of the Gallery block shows a new content tab in the sidebar.

Responsive Grid Block [site admin][end user][theme builder]

The Grid block is now responsive even when you set a column count. Previously, you had to choose between setting a minimum column width (responsive, Auto mode) or a fixed column count (Manual mode)—a binary toggle that confused many users. Now you can set both: when you do, the column count becomes a maximum, and the grid scales down responsively based on your minimum column width.

You can set neither, either, or both—the block handles all combinations gracefully. The confusing Auto/Manual toggle is gone entirely, replaced by clearer “minimum width” and “columns” labels with a plain-language description explaining the relationship between the two controls.. (73662)

Heading block variations [site admin][end user]

Each heading level (H1-H6) is now registered as a block variation on the Heading block. These do not appear in the inserter, but the change does add icons to the block’s sidebar for transforming it between variations (73823).

HTML Block Enhancement [site admin] [themebuilder] [end user]

The HTML block was redesigned to work now as a modal-based editor featuring separate tabs for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Admin can now use it for more powerful customizations, when HTML JS and CSS work on a single block. (73108).

Image block inline editing and controls [site admin][end user]

WordPress 7.0 comes with a revamp of the image editing feature in the editor. It’s now easier to crop, rotate or zoom in on a particular image corner. (#72414) (#73277).

Advanced Image Controls [site admin][end user]

Image block now supports the focal point control and aspect ratio adjustments for wide and full alignments, plus reorganized inspector controls with a dedicated content tab. #73115, #74519, #74201

Math Block Improvements [end users][site admin]

LaTeX input now uses a monospaced font, and style options are available for better mathematical expression editing (72557, 73544).

Paragraph [all]

A new typography tool has been added for specifying the line indent of paragraph blocks (73114, 74889). Users and theme creators can specify line indentation rules for a single paragraph block and also at global styles / theme.json level for all paragraph blocks. For global styles and theme.json, it’s possible to choose whether all paragraphs or only subsequent paragraphs are indented, which accounts for different indentation standards around the world.

The dev note on the new textIndent block support has all the details for developers working on blocks or themes.

The example code sets a default indent value of 1.5em globally for paragraphs:

JSON
{
  "settings": {
    "typography": {
      "textIndent": "true"
    }
  },
  "styles": {
    "blocks": {
      "core/paragraph": {
        "typography": {
          "textIndent": "1.5em"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

More details can be learned in the Dev Note: New Block Support: Text Indent (textIndent)

Columns in Paragraph blocks [all]

Now that there is block support for typographical columns, the paragraph block can now handle text columns by default (74656).

On the front-end only, the Paragraph block now has a .wp-block-paragraph class. This change doesn’t affect global styles, which still use the p selector.(71207)

Query Loop Enhancements [all]

Query loops now support excluding terms. When the block is locked it now hides design change and choose pattern options. #73790, #74160

Verse Block, renamed to Poetry [all]

The Verse Block has been renamed to Poetry block (74722) Also it now utilizes border-box for its box-sizing, which guards against overflow issues and should make it easier to style without additional custom CSS.

Admin / Workflow updates

Manage fonts for all themes in a dedicated page [site admin][theme builder] [enterprise]

A dedicated Fonts page is now available under the Appearance menu for all themes. Until now, font management has lived deep inside Global Styles, requiring navigation through several panels to install or preview a font. This new standalone page lets block theme users browse, install, and manage their typography collection in one dedicated space.

Under the hood, this page is built on a new routing infrastructure for the Site Editor, designed to improve navigation and support new top-level pages in wp-admin. View transitions are now wired into this routing layer, providing early zoom/slide animations when navigating between pages (73630, 73876, 73586).

The Font Library and Global Styles also work with classic themes (#73971, #73876). Like the Media Library, you can access the Font Library as a modal or through a dedicated admin section—regardless of your theme type.

Command Palette in Adminbar [all]

Instantly access all the tools you need with a single click using the new Command Palette shortcut in the Omnibar! In 7.0 Beta 5, logged-in editors will see a field with a ⌘K or Ctrl+K symbol in the upper admin bar that unfurls the command palette when clicked. The new command palette entry point streamlines navigation and customization, giving you full control from anywhere on your site – whether you’re editing, designing or just browsing plugins.

View Transitions [all]

View transitions have been integrated into the WordPress admin in 7.0, enabling smooth transitions between screens. The implementation for the front end is slated for the next WordPress 7.1 (64470) The result is a smoother page-to-page transitions using the CSS View Transitions API — no markup or JavaScript changes required, just a progressive enhancement you’ll notice immediately when navigating between admin screens.

Improved screens across WP-Admin [all]

WordPress 7.0 is getting a CSS-only “coat-of-paint” visual reskin of the wp-admin, bringing the classic admin screens closer to the visual language of the block and site editors — no markup changes, no JavaScript, no functional changes, and all existing CSS class names and admin color schemes preserved. (64308)

  • New default color scheme: “Modern” replaces “Fresh” as the default admin color scheme (#64546)
  • Updated buttons and input fields: primary, secondary, and link buttons, plus text inputs, selects, checkboxes, and radio buttons, now align with the WordPress Design System (#64547)
  • Updated notices: info, warning, success, and error notices refreshed for clarity and consistency (#64548), including on the login screen
  • Updated cards and metaboxes: dashboard widgets and metaboxes get modernized styling (#64549)
  • New wp-base-styles stylesheet handle: consolidates admin color scheme CSS custom properties into a single reusable stylesheet, available across the admin and the block editor content iframe
  • Login and registration screens: the WordPress logo updated from blue to gray to match the new design, and scheme styles now apply to login, install, database repair, and upgrade screens

Developer Goodies [developer][enterprise]

Client-side Abilities API

WordPress 7.0 ships a JavaScript counterpart to the server-side Abilities API introduced in 6.9. The Client-Side Abilities API arrives as two packages: @wordpress/abilities for pure state management usable in any project, and @wordpress/core-abilities, which auto-fetches server-registered abilities via the REST API. You can now register browser-only abilities — navigation, block insertion, and more — opening the door to browser agents, extensions, and WebMCP integrations directly in the client.

WP AI Client

WordPress 7.0 ships a built-in AI Client, that gives your plugin a single, provider-agnostic PHP entry point — wp_ai_client_prompt() — for text, image, speech, and video generation. You describe what you need; WordPress routes it to whichever AI provider the site owner has configured via Settings > Connectors. Official provider plugins cover Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. No credential handling, no provider lock-in, and graceful feature detection before any UI is shown.

PHP-only block registration

Developers can now create simple blocks using only PHP. This is meant for blocks that only need server-side rendering and aren’t meant to be highly interactive. When possible this feature also auto-generates sidebars for user input for suitable attributes and design tools.

To do so, call register_block_type with the new autoRegister flag. A render_callback function must also be provided. (71792)

Dev note with all the details. PHP-only block registration

Pattern Overrides for custom blocks

Since WordPress 6.5, Pattern Overrides let you create synced patterns where the layout stays consistent but specific content can change per instance. The catch? Only four core blocks supported it: Heading, Paragraph, Button, and Image.

Not anymore. Any block attribute that supports Block Bindings now supports Pattern Overrides by default. Block authors can opt in through the server-side block_bindings_supported_attributes filter. This closes a long-requested enhancement and opens up synced patterns to custom blocks (73889).

DataViews, Data Form components and Fields API

A substantial API update introduces new layouts, validation rules, grouping options, and picker improvements affecting plugins using wordpress/dataviews. The Dev Note has all the pertinent details: DataViews, DataForm, et al. in WordPress 7.0

UI Primitives and Components

The WordPress UI package just got a significant update, adding multiple new components and tools to help developers create more polished and accessible interfaces for WordPress users.

A list of all the dev notes can be reviewed from the Make Core blog

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:37:11 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribT?t}T? ?~s";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"Open Channels FM: Shaping Data Sovereignty and Internet Resilience";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2550900";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://openchannels.fm/navigating-data-sovereignty-and-internet-resilience/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:388:"In recent years, the concept of data sovereignty has become increasingly important. As more countries introduce or tighten regulations around where and how data must be stored and protected, companies serving the global internet community face a unique set of challenges. These regulatory requirements force hosting providers and infrastructure companies to think not just about […]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:19:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Bob Dunn";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:" ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=20324";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/03/wordpress-7-0-release-candidate-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8700:"

The second Release Candidate (“RC2”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 7.0 RC2 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC2
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required – just click and go!

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is April 9, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC2?

What’s new in WordPress 7.0? Check out the Beta 1 announcement and 7.0 Developer Notes for details and highlights. For technical information related to issues addressed since RC1, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute.

Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

What else to test:

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. If you haven’t yet, make sure to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC2) also marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

An RC2 haiku

At first just a dream,

RC2 flows like a stream

with seven-oh gleam.

Props to @amykamala @annezazu for proofreading and review.

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Over 10 years ago, we introduced the oEmbed API to WordPress, expanding how WordPress handled embedding to cover all WordPress sites. It was an intentional decision to focus on oEmbed at the time: we wanted to focus on the embedding mechanism that would give site owners maximum control over what their embeds looked like. The code we wrote back then still runs on tens of millions of WordPress sites every day.

There was something extra that continued to bug me, however. What about all the other sites? oEmbed provides rich embed experiences, but not every site needs that. Sometimes, you just need a card with an image and a description, which is where OpenGraph has similarly stood the test of time. It provides a straightforward method for both site owners to create simple, rich embeds, and for service providers like Slack, Discord, or even Apple Messages to safely create a rich card to place alongside links.

WordPress has grown since then, too. The big change is Gutenberg, of course, which really brought forward the idea that the editor should be a rich content experience, that shouldn’t just be reserved for the front end.

With that in mind, I build a plugin to handle embedding all the other sites.

OpenGraph Fallback Embed

This is a block plugin that tries to avoid you using the block it provides if at all possible! Instead, it hooks into the end of the Embed block rendering process – if the URL you pasted couldn’t be embedded all the normal ways, this plugin will try a few more fall back options: OpenGraph, Twitter Card tags, or even just a plain description in the meta tags. It’s the kind of plugin that you cantT?KL~T?  install, and never have to think about again.

One of the nicest things about WordPress is how pluggable it is. Even as a long time WordPress Core developer, I don’t think everything needs to land in Core, sometimes a feature can live as handy little plugin. If you like everything just magically embedding, give this plugin a try!

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