Summary, Dev Chat, Mar 19, 2025

Start of the meeting in 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/., facilitated by @benjamin_zekavica. 🔗 Agenda post.

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:

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.

Discussion 🤔

To avoid listing the topics here twice, all the necessary links and information can be found in the agenda. This section now includes a few additions.

Release Support Needed

@jeffpaul provided an update: only a few dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. remain to be drafted and will be published this week. A Miscellaneous Dev Notedev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. will be updated and released by 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. The 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 will be shared later this week as more dev notes are completed. The 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 Author email will likely go out next week due to current priorities.

Critical Issues Before RC 1

@joemcgill stated it’s the last week of beta and critical issues need prioritizing. @audrasjb mentioned 17 tickets are left before RC1, with no major issues, though #63122 is annoying. @joemcgill is tracking new tickets and ensuring regressions in 6.8 are added to the milestone. He also requested non-release prep tasks be resolved this week for a clean RC.

Open Floor 💬

There were no significant topics that we would list in the summary.

#6-8, #core, #dev-chat, #summary