This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on WordPress 7.1 release readiness, the PHPPHP 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/index.php AI Client embeddings and streaming PRs, the near-term scope for 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., developer education, and WCUS AI team booth planning.

WordPress 7.1 release scope

With WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 approaching, the team discussed the need to be cautious about anything still targeted for the release. Because the 7.1 cycle is shorter than usual, contributors agreed that work should only proceed if there is strong confidence in the implementation, review status, and testing. This applies especially to embeddings, streaming, and abilities-related work.

DECISION: If work targeted for WordPress 7.1 is still not ready by next Tuesday, July 14th, then the team should go “pencils down” and defer it to WordPress 7.2 rather than forcing uncertain work into the 7.1 release.

PHP AI Client

The team reviewed current progress on the embeddings PR. The implementation is working from a code perspective, but needs additional review and testing before it can be considered ready for WordPress 7.1.

Testing remains difficult because embeddings require several pieces to work together:

• Embeddings support in the PHP AI Client
• A providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). 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. with embedding support (e.g. OpenAI, Google, Ollama)
• A WordPress-side implementation that uses the client and provider together (e.g. native vector search)

A small proof of concept in the AI Plugin was suggested as the best next step to demonstrate that the client, provider branches, and storage layer can work together in practice.

The team also discussed the streaming PR, which is open and needs additional review. Contributors noted that a concise summary for @jason_the_adams would help focus review and reduce the chance that the request gets lost in GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ notifications.

Abilities API

A significant portion of the meeting focused on the Abilities API and what is appropriate for WordPress 7.1. Contributors discussed whether coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. should include abilities for post, user, and settings management, and how to avoid repeating delays across release cycles. The group also discussed the current shape of create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) abilities, including whether create and update should remain grouped together or be represented as separate primitives.

One key point of agreement was that abilities should be treated as WordPress functional primitives, separate from the transport layers that may expose them. Transport layers such as REST, MCP, command palettes, or other interfaces may consume abilities, but the 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. itself should not be designed as if it belongs to only one of those contexts.

The near-term WordPress 7.1 scope discussed in the meeting remains focused on read-oriented abilities rather than broader management capabilities. The group also clarified that there is no plan to quietly refactor the existing REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/ to use abilities. Any future overlap between REST and abilities should be intentional, reviewed, and clearly communicated.

DECISION: Abilities should remain decoupled from transport layers such as REST or MCP.

DECISION: Share feedback about both 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. design overall and potential 7.1 inclusion on the merge proposal.

AI Plugin

The AI plugin continues to serve as the primary place to test and demonstrate AI-related functionality before broader core consideration. Contributors discussed using the plugin as a model implementation for abilities, helping demonstrate how functional primitives can be used in real features and not only as abstract API design.

The group also noted that better examples are needed to help developers understand why abilities are useful. Suggested developer education work includes showing compelling implementations and highlighting how abilities can be orchestrated outside of AI-specific or REST-specific contexts.

WordPress Agent Skills and evaluation

The group briefly discussed the evolution of skills and the need to treat current implementations as iterative rather than final. The eval folder in the agent skills repository was noted as still being a stub. Additional work is needed to determine whether and how it should connect to WordPress benchmarking efforts.

WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US AI Team booth

The team reviewed planning for the WCUS AI Team booth. Contributors discussed making the booth volunteer form more casual and approachable so more people feel comfortable signing up. The team also discussed signage, QR codes for documentation, and lightweight booth visuals. @gajendrasingh offered to help with booth visuals and coordination needs.

DECISION: The booth volunteer form should be adjusted to feel more casual and lower-friction for contributors who may be available to help.

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Next Steps

• Review and test the embeddings PR.
• Identify a small AI Plugin proof of concept that demonstrates embeddings working across the PHP AI Client, provider plugins, and WordPress-side storage.
• Review and test the streaming PR.
• Prepare a concise streaming PR summary for @jason_the_adams.
• Review the Abilities API merge proposal and provide feedback on the discussion thread.
• Provide feedback on CRUD patterns and ability structure, especially around separating primitive ability definitions from transport-layer exposure.
• Create or share practical developer examples showing how abilities can be used.
• Update the WCUS booth signup form to feel more casual and approachable.
• Continue WCUS booth coordination and visual preparation.
• Have @webdevmattcrom and @gajendrasingh shadow the next AI Team Office Hours session.

Upcoming Meetings

• Contributors are welcome to join every Wednesday at 1700 UTC via Google Meet. In-meeting notes are captured live in a 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/ Canvas and paired with aggregate transcription data to generate this meeting summary post. All team meeting schedules are published directly to the WordPress Meeting Calendar.
• AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 9 July 2026. @justlevine to lead, @webdevmattcrom @gajendrasingh to shadow.
• Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 8 July 2026.

Props to @nikskyverge @justlevine for pre-publish review.

#core-ai, #summary