Summary, Dev Chat, January 14, 2026

Welcome!

The WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:

Found a bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority.? Create a ticket in the bug tracker.

Want to contribute? Get started quickly with tickets marked as good first bugs for new contributors or join a bug scrub. There’s more on the reports page, like patches needing testing, and on feature projects page.

Other questions? Here is a detailed handbook for contributors, complete with tutorials.

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 @desrosj 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 7.0 Call for Volunteers

If you are interested in volunteering for WordPress 7.0, please comment here by January 16.

Nominations for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team Reps 2026

The nomination process for Core Team Representatives for 2026 is now open. Please submit your nomination here.

Dropping support for PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher 7.2 and 7.3

Support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3 will be dropped in WordPress 7.0. Here you can find more information.

6.9 Release Retrospective

The 6.9 release retrospective is open to all contributors, not only release squad members.
Broader feedback helps improve future release processes. The form and comments will be open until January 15.

Discussions 💬

PHP Extensions List – `filter`

The topic was about the PHP filter extension and if it should be default. It was noted that the extension already exists on almost all PHP installs. The idea was to move it from optional to built-in (default), so no extra checks are needed. It was also noted that WordPress Core barely uses it, except in PHPMailer, and that filter functions, especially for email checks, are not very reliable.

#7-0, #core, #dev-chat

Welcome!

Communication