Summary, Dev Chat, October 15, 2025

Announcements 📣

Release party schedule for 6.9 is now available!

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.9 Timeline

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. is currently in the WordPress 6.9 release cycle. There are now less than six days until 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. 1 on 21 October!

Regular scrubs are already underway, led by @wildworks and @welcher across time zones. Full details are in the Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.9.

Next maintenance release 6.8.4

No maintenance release is currently being planned. If anyone has an issue they think would require a maintenance release, you are encouraged to discuss it in the #6-8-release-leads channel.

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/ release: 21.9

Gutenberg 21.9 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). was pushed back to Friday. More Info in this slack thread

Call for Testing 

The Test Team invites testing and feedback on the following upcoming blockBlock 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 features:

• Call for Testing: Accordion Block
• Collaboration: add block-level comments:
  • Actively developed for 6.9. See #66377
  • Several existing issues have already been reported. See #71774
• Call for Testing: Ability to Hide Blocks
• Help test changes to template management

Discussion 💬

A number of issues require some final review

Multiple people brought up issues that are close to being complete but could use some help getting over the finish line.

• @westonruter highlighted https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/8412 (Output Buffering)
  
  This is expected to be merged very shortly and there is a fast-follow ticket for leveraging this to improve the LCP metric for classic themes.
• @luminuu highlighted https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/71703 (Fix selection of font size presets if presets have the same size value)
• @dmsnell highlighted https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/9105 (Introduce WP_Block_Processor for efficiently parsing blocks)
• @dmsnell highlighted https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/10011 (Polyfill utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() )
  
  This could really use some additional input from anyone with time to help.
• @cr0ybot highlighted https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/49094 (Term Query Block)
  
  The two specific pieces that could use some help here are:
  • Feature enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature., selected terms: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/72286
  • Update inherit control: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/72313
    

Merging the 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.

@gziolo is working merge the Abilities API into core for WordPress 6.9. There is new version of the Composer package for wider testing and a PR to core that is ready for review.

The Feature Plugin Merge Criteria were reviewed and as this was never published as a 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 (only a composer package), it’s not necessary to deactivate it when it is merged into core.

Everyone is invited to review the documentation describing the API and the Pull Request to ensure this code is ready to be shipped in beta 1. Follow https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/64098 for more information.