Agenda, Dev Chat, Mar 19, 2025

Announcements 📢

WordPress 6.8 | 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. 3 is now available 🥳

The Beta 3 release of WordPress 6.8 is now available! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined the Release Party. We appreciate your testing and feedback.

Help Test 6.8 Beta version 🧪

The Test-Team has written two helpful guides for people interested in testing:

• How to Contribute to WP 6.8 Release Party
• Help Test WordPress 6.8

Forthcoming releases 🚀

Next GutenbergGutenberg 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/ version: 20.5

Gutenberg 20.5 is scheduled for release on Wednesday, March 19th.
This will be the first version of Gutenberg to be merged into WordPress 6.9.

Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1 of 6.8: March 25th

The Release Candidate 1 release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, March 25th.

A detailed overview of the release schedule for WordPress 6.8 can be found here. The article also includes information about the individuals assigned to each release party.

Next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope.: 6.8

We are currently in the WordPress 6.8 release cycle. Read more about the release squad, timeline and focus for this release.

Discussions 🤔

The discussion section of the agenda is to provide a place to discuss important topics affecting the upcoming release or larger initiatives that impact the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team. To nominate a topic for discussion, please leave a comment on this agenda with a summary of the topic, any relevant links that will help people get context for the discussion, and what kind of feedback you are looking for from others participating in the discussion.

Release Support Needed

• Assistance with drafting, reviewing, and publishing developer notes
  Assistance is requested for the drafting, review, and final publication of the developer notes.
• Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. draft coming Thursday, please be ready for review
  The Field Guide draft will be available on Thursday. Please be prepared to review it promptly.
• Review of the “About” page and potential issues
  The “About” page should be reviewed to identify any potential issues in the text or content. See more here: #63025
• Reminder of the string freeze next week before RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1
  Please remember that the string freeze will take place next week before the release of RC 1.
• Assistance with reviewing the email to 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 Authors about major changes
  Assistance is needed to review the email to be sent to Plugin Authors, informing them of the key changes.

Critical Issues Before RC 1

• Discussion of critical issues before RC 1
  It’s suggested to discuss any critical or new issues before the release of RC 1 to ensure all problems are addressed in time.

Open floor  💬

Any topic can be raised for discussion in the comments, as well as requests for assistance on tickets. Tickets in the milestone for the next major or maintenance release will be prioritized.

Please include details of tickets / PRs and the links in the comments, and indicate whether you intend to be available during the meeting for discussion or will be async.