neillmcshea 1:29 am on 2 October 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 1st, 2025

High-Level Call Summary

The meeting focused primarily on progressing the Abilities APIAbilities API A core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system. and the MCP AdapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. for the upcoming 6.9 release, establishing clear next steps, and making key decisions to keep momentum. A spirit of urgency and a commitment to an iterative, “alpha” approach to early development were evident, particularly for the MCP Adapter, to avoid accruing technical debt and to accelerate testing. Key outcomes included narrowing the scope for abilities included in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. 6.9 (focusing on the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. itself and a few small, stable tools), agreeing to introduce categories as a required part of abilityAbility A registered, self-documenting unit of WordPress functionality that can be discovered and invoked through multiple contexts (REST API, Command Palette, MCP). Includes authorization and input/output specifications. registration, and setting a plan to merge the major refactor of the MCP Adapter to enable wider testing. The team also celebrated a key personnel announcement regarding a transition to an AI-related engineering leadership role at Automatic.

Topics and Supporting Highlights

Abilities API Update & Milestones

The team reviewed the status of the Abilities API, which is a key focus for the upcoming release. A strong emphasis was placed on making necessary decisions quickly, with a general consensus that decisions could be made asynchronously due to high engagement.

  • The team is aiming for an optimistic release plan of one milestone, but pessimistically planning for a pre-6.9 and a 6.9 milestone.
  • There are several issues currently without milestones that need to be prioritized.
  • The project has 10 open Pull Requests (PRs), with 3 failing tests and 7 needing approval before they can be shipped or slated for a release.
  • A decision on issue #30 related to tooling over repos was postponed to prioritize 6.9 tasks.
  • Decisions regarding milestones were mostly made asynchronously due to team members jumping in and adding comments.

Abilities API: Core Inclusion & Roadmap

A major discussion point centered on the scope of abilities to include in the core 6.9 release, ultimately favoring a limited approach.

  • The Abilities API itself is the primary achievement for 6.9.
  • The decision was made to ship only one or two very small, stable tools with the core Abilities API in 6.9.
  • Greg’s proposed site info was highlighted as a good candidate for a core ability, as it’s a base unit of WordPress with useful information.
  • The longer list of proposed abilities (Issue #52) will be moved to the Experiments pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to allow for broader testing and exploration of different implementation approaches (e.g., naming conventions).
  • The roadmap for the Abilities API will be updated and shipped following the decision to limit core tools.

Abilities API: Categories Decision

A critical feature for organizing and exposing abilities to the AI was discussed and agreed upon.

  • The team agreed that categories should be a required part of registering an ability in the API.
  • This feature is necessary for the MCP Adapter to present an “approachable, discoverable set of abilities” to the AI, rather than “throwing every single ability” at it.
  • Ovi is committed to owning the Pull Request (PR) to implement categories in both the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter repos.
  • It was clarified that a way to register a categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. separately will be needed since a category must have a description.

MCP Adapter Update and Stability

The discussion around the MCP Adapter focused on accelerating its release and addressing community concerns about the stability of the protocol itself.

  • The major refactor (0.3/third iteration) is considered a “developer version” or “alpha” and should be merged and released as soon as possible to allow for testing.
  • The team agreed to not worry about technical debt or deprecation warnings at this early, experimental stage, and to simply remove deprecated code in the current PR.
  • The goal is to have the 0.3 version available during the WordPress 6.9 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. period as the officially linked version in announcement posts.
  • Community concern about MCP’s stability was addressed by reiterating that the adapter approach was specifically chosen to future-proof the Abilities API; if the MCP protocol changes or another standard emerges (like “TypeCP”), the Abilities API remains reusable with a new adapter.
  • A plan was made to publish a blog post or strong communication before 6.9 to clarify the adaptive nature of the Abilities API and address these stability concerns.
  • James and (possibly) Jonathan will “tag team” a post to encourage the 70 Core AI contributors to go test the new adapter release.

Action Items & Next Steps for the Week

This heading focuses on the immediate, assigned tasks and plans discussed to be completed before the next check-in.

  • Ship the MCP Adapter: The primary action is for Ovidiu and James to proceed with merging and releasing the major refactor (0.3) of the MCP Adapter after final review, despite its “alpha” state.
  • Write Testing/Announcement Post: James and Jonathan will collaborate on a post (likely a blog post or SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. announcement) to encourage testing of the newly released MCP Adapter, setting clear boundaries and opportunities for community engagement.
  • Implement Categories PR: Ovidiu committed to creating the Pull Requests for the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter to implement categories as a required field for registering an ability.
  • Update and Publish Roadmaps: Tammy will finalize updates to the Abilities API roadmap (Issue #83) and the Experiments roadmap based on the decisions made (e.g., scoping the number of core abilities).
  • Check on Built-in Abilities: James will confirm with Greg (or another team member) the creation of the two basic, built-in abilities for 6.9 core (e.g., site info).

Contribution & Workflow Reminders

This section pulls out a specific process reminder about crediting contributors and mentions general developer exploration.

  • Co-Author Credit for PRs: Jeff reminded the team to be mindful of using the generated co-author-by text on PR comments when merging commits to ensure proper, liberal credit is given to all contributors (filtering out simple “+1, great idea” comments).
  • Modular Architecture Focus: A general architectural desire was restated to keep all features modular to easily pull features in and out, avoiding complex dependencies.
  • Future Ability Exploration: James noted an interest in doing personal exploration (not assigned work) using tools like GPT-5 Pro to test various ability naming conventions (e.g., verb naming) to see which is most effective for different AI models.
  • Potential for Non-AI Adapters: The idea was briefly resurfaced that the Abilities API could potentially be used to create adapters for non-AI contexts, like a command line (CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress.) or REST interface, providing “free” functionality for simple plugins.

Contribution & Workflow Reminders

The team addressed internal best practices and forward-looking architectural ideas, focusing on how contributions are credited and the potential future uses of the Abilities API structure.

  • Potential for Non-AI Adapters: The idea was briefly resurfaced that the Abilities API could potentially be used to create adapters for non-AI contexts, like a command line (CLI) or REST interface, providing “free” functionality for simple plugins.
  • Future Ability Exploration: James noted an interest in doing personal exploration (not assigned work) using tools like GPT-5 Pro to test various ability naming conventions (e.g., verb naming) to see which is most effective for different AI models.
  • Co-Author Credit for PRs: Jeff reminded the team to be mindful of using the generated co-author-by text on PR comments when merging commits to ensure proper, liberal credit is given to all contributors (filtering out simple “+1, great idea” comments).

Community Feedback & Strategic Communication

Proactive communication is planned to address community concerns regarding technical decisions and highlight the strategic approach being taken.

  • Plan Proactive Announcement: A commitment was made to publish a clear, strategic announcement (likely a blog post before 6.9) to explain the decoupled adapter architecture and celebrate its future-proofing advantage.
  • Defend the Adapter Approach: The response emphasizes that the Abilities API’s decoupled adapter architecture is the precise solution to community questions about the stability of the MCP protocol, allowing the core to remain stable regardless of external protocol changes.
  • Address MCP Stability Concerns: The team acknowledged the recurring community question about the stability of the MCP protocol and the risk of it being superseded by a better standard.

Action Items & Next Steps for the Week

The team established a short list of immediate, assigned tasks to be completed to maintain momentum toward the 6.9 release.

  • Check on Built-in Abilities: James will confirm with Greg (or another team member) the creation of the two basic, built-in abilities for 6.9 core (e.g., site info).
  • Update and Publish Roadmaps: Tammy will finalize updates to the Abilities API roadmap (Issue #83) and the Experiments roadmap based on the decisions made (e.g., scoping the number of core abilities).
  • Implement Categories PR: Ovidiu committed to creating the Pull Requests for the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter to implement categories as a required field for registering an ability.
  • Write Testing/Announcement Post: James and Jonathan will collaborate on a post (likely a blog post or Slack announcement) to encourage testing of the newly released MCP Adapter, setting clear boundaries and opportunities for community engagement.
  • Ship the MCP Adapter: The primary action is for Ovidiu and James to proceed with merging and releasing the major refactor (0.3) of the MCP Adapter after final review, despite its “alpha” state.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary