The Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI team celebrated a major milestone this week: the Abilities API 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. successfully merged into the WordPress 6.9 Beta 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. This achievement marks the culmination of intense, last-minute work, and the team recognized the extraordinary effort required to meet the core feature freeze deadline.
With the foundational server-side API now in core, the team’s focus is immediately shifting to the future, specifically managing the client-side (JavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/.) portion of the Abilities API and planning the next phases for the AI Experiments plugin 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. A major decision surfaced regarding the destination of the client-side code, with a consensus leaning toward moving it into the Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ repository to leverage existing infrastructure and streamline future development.
The team is also cleaning up post-merge tasks, including resolving follow-up issues in the MCP Adapter and starting to define long-term maintenance and communication strategies for the new components now living in the WordPress core.
Key Highlights
🚀 Abilities API Shipped in WordPress 6.9 Beta
The server-side implementation of the Abilities API has successfully landed in the core WordPress beta, marking the project’s most significant milestone to date.
- Core Integration Complete: The underlying server-side code for registering and retrieving abilities is now part of the WordPress 6.9 beta.
- Team Recognition: The team gave a huge shout-out to Greg Ziółkowski for his “unyielding efforts” in finalizing the merge before the code freeze deadline.
- Post-Merge Cleanup: Several related issues and documentation tasks in the Abilities API repository are being closed or moved, as the source of truth for the API now resides in the core WordPress develop repository.
💻 Client-Side Abilities and Future Development
The front-end portion of the Abilities API did not make the 6.9 beta deadline, prompting a major strategic discussion on its future home.
- Client-Side Deferred: The JavaScript client-side code for abilities did not ship with 6.9, primarily due to the tight deadline and complexity, confirming that none of the client-side registration made it into the beta.
- Strategic Move to Gutenberg: There is a strong consensus among the team and core contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. to move the client-side code to the Gutenberg repository.
- Reasoning: This location offers the best “testing ground” and development environment, simplifying integration with the Block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor and command palette, and aligns with the strategy of centralizing JavaScript development.
- Repo Fate: The long-term plan is to archive the original Abilities API repository once the feature stabilizes in core, officially making the WordPress develop repository the source of truth for the server-side API.
- Maintaining Compatibility: The team will continue to explore methods (like Composer packages) to ship polyfills for WordPress 6.8 and older, ensuring continuity for developers who need to support previous versions.
🧪 AI Experiments Plugin Progress
Development is continuing on the plugin designed to host experimental AI features.
- Unblocking Contributors: The team is focused on merging final scaffolding PRs to unblock more contributors who are eager to start building experimental features.
- Design North Star: A preliminary design discussion considered using a card format for enabling/disabling features (similar to the Add Plugin screen) to provide a familiar user interface.
- Prioritizing Credentials: The most immediate need is the basic service provider settings screen to allow users to enter API credentials and start experimenting.
- Design Contribution: Product design work and mockups are being pulled from Fueled resources to initiate discussions and provide a conceptual starting point, inviting broader community feedback on the Needs Design tasks.
📦 PHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. Client and MCP Adapter Milestones
Work is progressing on the core developer tools that power the AI features.
- PHP AI Client (0.2) Released: The core PHP client SDK had its 0.2 version released.
- Native API Support De-prioritized: Work to use native provider APIs (e.g., for Google Gemini) was deemed not urgent, as the current OpenAI-centric API format is sufficient for initial experimentation.
- MCP Adapter Major Merge: The significant Major Refactor PR (#48) in the MCP Adapter has been merged, though the resulting codebase requires immediate follow-up testing and small fixes before it can be tagged as version 0.3.
- MCP Follow-up: Ovidiu Galatan is currently tackling several small, technical follow-up issues stemming from the large merge, with a plan to prioritize and organize them for community pickup before he goes on vacation.
🚀 Testing and Next Steps
The team emphasized the need for immediate, widespread testing to flush out bugs during the beta phase.
- External Testing Commitment: David Levine plans to actively engage external parties, including the Elementor team, for migration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. and testing next week to provide a crucial influx of real-world feedback.
- Real-World Validation: The successful independent integration of 11 abilities into the GatherPress plugin provides valuable evidence of the API’s immediate utility.
- Process Documentation: The current process of moving features from a feature repository into core is noted as a necessary step, and the team plans to document this handover process to create a clear path for future feature incubation.
#check-in, #core-ai, #meeting, #summary
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