AI Chat Summary – 16 October 2025

Location: #core-ai Slack Channel 

The bi-weekly CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI meeting was held on October 16th, 2025:

  • Abilities 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. Progress and Inclusion in WordPress 6.9
    • @isotropic and @jason_the_adams led a discussion focused on the urgent need to finalize the Abilities API for inclusion in the upcoming 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. release, scheduled for the following week.
  • Abilities API HooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. and Extensibility
    • @jason_the_adams raised a discussion around the hooks needed to maintain an Abilities API pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that can provide more bleeding edge features between core releases. @justlevine and @jason_the_adams agreed the current MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia hooks, like the *_args filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. and unshaped metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., should allow for experimentation and future improvements.
  • Abilities API Categories and Filtering
    • @isotropic discussed the need for robust filtering of abilities, particularly for AI agents, but the group concluded the current categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. and meta system provides sufficient flexibility for now, with the responsibility of filtering abilities falling more on systems like MCP Adapter rather than the core Abilities API.
  • Abilities API and AI Experiments
    • @isotropic and @justlevine highlighted the need for abilities to support AI use cases, such as handling dates and inserting blocks, and encouraged @jmarx75 to create issues in the AI Experiments repo to propose new abilities. The group agreed these could start in experiments before potentially flowing into core.
  • Abilities API Documentation and Terminology
    • @karmatosed suggested adding a terms/glossary section to the Abilities API handbook to help provide clarity, and @justlevine referenced Tanstack’s “Philosophy” approach as a potential model for documenting the project’s beliefs and principles.

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