WCEU 2025 Contributor Day: Call for Co-Lead & Supporters

On June 5, 2025, the Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. at 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. Europe will take place in Basel, and the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team is looking for experienced volunteers to support onsite.

Co-Lead (preferably a Core Committercommitter A developer with commit access. WordPress has five lead developers and four permanent core developers with commit access. Additionally, the project usually has a few guest or component committers - a developer receiving commit access, generally for a single release cycle (sometimes renewed) and/or for a specific component.) | One position available:

  • You are a Core Committer or very experienced with the WordPress Core project
  • You have helped lead or support a Contributor Day before
  • You can assist with technical questions and confidently guide new contributors through tools like TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. and 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/
  • You communicate clearly and feel comfortable using English

Supporter | Two positions available:

  • You are familiar with the Core Team workflows
  • You help new contributors with setup, explain tools, and assist with initial tasks
  • You communicate clearly and feel comfortable using English

Details 📅

  • Application deadline: Thursday, May 29, 2025
  • Selection and notification: Friday, May 30, 2025
  • Location: WCEU Contributor Day, Basel (Thursday, June 5, 2025)

Interested? 💡

Please apply by leaving a comment under this post by May 29, 2025.
We look forward to your support—let’s make this Contributor Day a success together! 🥳

Props to @francina for review this article.

#contributor-day, #core, #wceu, #wordcamp

Summary, Dev Chat, May 21, 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 📢

There are no major announcements from the past week.

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.8.2 and beyond

The CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team is putting together a squad for future minor 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: 20.9

Gutenberg 20.9 is scheduled for release on Wednesday, May 28, 2025.

Discussion 💬

Refreshing Workflow Documentation

@SirLouen suggested updating the TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. workflow keyword documentation, noting that some terms are outdated, misused, or conflicting. He plans to draft a revised version to provide clearer guidance for contributors and aims to publish it on the blogblog (versus network, site). The goal is to support future discussion and improve overall understanding of keyword use.

Improving the Local Development Environment

The current local development environment for WordPress is minimal and does not include all tools needed for comprehensive testing. Since different approaches are used, the documentation should be updated and improved to reflect the latest state.

Reducing Redundant Test Reports

@krupajnanda suggests limiting the number of test reports on simple tickets (e.g., UIUI User interface/UXUX User experience, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)) to around 5 and adding a message to guide contributors to more important tickets, to reduce redundant testing. @jorbin and others agree but emphasize that this shouldn’t be automated, as a person needs to verify the validity of test reports.

Additionally, once enough test reports are received, the needs-testing label should be removed to focus efforts on tickets still requiring testing.

Open floor 🎙️

Review Needed: Unicode Email Addresses

@agulbra is requesting a review for ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #31992. The code was written last year, but it’s now ready to be merged since PHPMailer has released the required dependencies. @ironprogrammer has already reviewed it and suggested asking for further feedback here. It would be great if someone could take a look. Thanks!

Call for Core Bug Tickets for the 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. Europe 2025 | Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.

@benjamin_zekavica mentioned that preparation for the WordCamp Europe Contributor Day in Basel should begin. To support this, suitable tickets need to be collected. If anyone finds higher-priority tickets that could be worked on during the event, they are encouraged to add them as comments in this article. This would help streamline the preparation process.

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

Performance Chat Summary: 20 May 2025

The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

WordPress Performance TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets

  • @westonruter shared work on #61734 / PR #8815 adding fetchpriority support for Scripts and Script Modules.
  • @spacedmonkey shared a desire to see some eyes on #59592
    • @spacedmonkey says it seems to have a massive effect for those using object caching. The change has unit tests and has been been reviewed by a non committercommitter A developer with commit access. WordPress has five lead developers and four permanent core developers with commit access. Additionally, the project usually has a few guest or component committers - a developer receiving commit access, generally for a single release cycle (sometimes renewed) and/or for a specific component.. Just needs another committers to give it the thumbs up.
    • @spacedmonkey would like to land this ASAP, to allow as much time as possible to test this change.
    • @rmccue confirmed support for the proposal but cannot review the code in the short term.
    • @westonruter asked whether there’s TTFB benchmarking data available for the patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing..
      • @spacedmonkey noted there would’t be any noticeable difference there. This change would help high traffic site and helps database and object cache performance.
      • @tillkruess noted It will just reduce memory usage in the cache significantly, or make it easier to keep it low.
  • @spacedmonkey noted that #58001, #63021, and #57496 are still awaiting a second round of review.

Open Floor

  • @b1ink0 brought up some confusion around the 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. scrub timing, asking if the schedule should be revisited to avoid conflicts. (Bug scrub schedule link)
    • @westonruter asked if the time had already been moved to avoid conflicting with coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. dev chat.
    • @westonruter confirmed that, according to the Make Meetings page, it had not been adjusted.
    • @swissspidy suggested moving the bug scrub to Tuesdays on alternate weeks from office hours.
    • @westonruter and @flixos90 both supported the idea.
    • @swissspidy updated the Make Meetings page and Bug scrub schedule, then shared the schedule for the next meetings as follows:
      • May 27 – bug scrub (potentially led by @adamsilverstein)
      • June 3 – office hours (@swissspidy would probably cancel that one because of 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. Europe)
      • June 10 – bug scrub
      • June 17 – office hours

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-performance, #hosting, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

Summary, Dev Chat, May 7, 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 @audrasjb. 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 6.8.2 and beyond

The CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team need to set up a release squad, a plan/scope and a schedule for 6.8.2 (and beyond)

Forthcoming releases 🚀

Call for 6.8.x release leads

@michelleames and @jeffpaul published a Call for 6.8.x Release Managers. Anyone interested to lead a 6.8.x release can drop a comment in this P2P2 A free theme for WordPress, known for front-end posting, used by WordPress for development updates and project management. See our main development blog and other workgroup blogs. post.

Discussion 💬

CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. Regressions in 6.8

@luminuu reported regressions in several third-party plugins caused by bugfixes introduced in WordPress 6.8 (PR #64770). Affected projects include Jetpack and WooCommerce. One key issue—buttons stretching full width—was tracked in Trac ticket #63373 and is scheduled to be fixed in version 6.8.2.

The group discussed how to prevent similar issues in the future. Suggestions included:

  • Introducing a 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. format to track frontend CSS changes per release
  • Improving visibility of such changes before they ship
  • Investing in visual regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. testing
  • Collecting and surfacing CSS-related changes in “What’s new in 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/?” posts

Better communication, testing, and transparency are needed to reduce the risk of regressions in future releases.

Thanks to @audrasjb for proofreading this post.

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

Performance Chat Summary: 6 May 2025

The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

WordPress Performance TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets

  • @westonruter asked if any performance-related fixes were included in the WordPress 6.8.1 release.
    • @b1ink0 confirmed that the update focused primarily on general 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. fixes across WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and the 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, with no specific performance items.
  • @westonruter noted that he has some pending PRs to review and merge.

Performance Lab 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 (and other performance plugins)

  • @flixos90 has started work on the new View Transitions feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins. (see issue #1997). The work is being tracked through a series of iterative PRs, starting with theme support and dynamic transition name handling. It builds on the experimental Core PR wordpress-develop#8370 and will include a UIUI User interface for customizing transitions.
    • @flixos90 plans to work on the next PRs later this week, with most work focused on porting the experimental code into plugin shape.
    • When asked if the plugin would be considered stable or experimental upon release by @mukesh27, @flixos90 noted that it depends on the final feature set and the team’s evaluation at that time.
  • @mukesh27 briefly noted progress on Accurate Sizes (part of the Auto Sizes plugin) and will share a more detailed update later this week.

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-performance, #hosting, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

Summary, Dev Chat, Apr 30, 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 @audrasjb. 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

WordPress 6.8.1 is now available 🥳

WordPress 6.8.1 was released right after the dev chat. It is a maintenance release.

For now, 6.8 is identified as the last major release of the year.

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.8.2

There are currently 7 tickets in the 6.8.2 milestone on Trac. Bugfixes currently located in milestone 6.9 can probably start to be moved to 6.8.x milestones, but 6.8.2 will most probably still be focused on remaining issues/regressions found on 6.8.

Call for 6.8.x release leads

@michelleames and @jeffpaul published a Call for 6.8.x Release Managers. Anyone interested to lead a 6.8.x release can drop a comment in this P2P2 A free theme for WordPress, known for front-end posting, used by WordPress for development updates and project management. See our main development blog and other workgroup blogs. post.

Discussion 💬

@sirlouen wanted to bring attention to this ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.: #43936. He commented this ticket with a recap of everything that must be known if someone doesn’t want to read all the way through. @audrasjb pointed out that this ticket is a good candidate for a further 6.8.x release, as the patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. shouldn’t add any new file.

@sirlouen pointed out that publishing a call for dev chats topics should ideally be posted on the Make/CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Slack channel, ideally 2 days before each meeting to help gather topics for the agenda. @audrasjb proposed to post such a call on next Monday and to iterate on this process.

@sirlouen added another topic coming from the Core Test Team: “I’m writing a guide on creating Testing Use-Cases for core developers. The thing is that I’ve found over the period of ~100 ticket reviews, that most old stuck tickets with patches that have been pretty much abandoned, the main cause is that the patch creator did not provide enough information to test and help patch progress (even sometimes other reviewers asked for it). I’ve been ideating some examples and ideas, to help people build testing cases, and I’m going to publish this in the Test WP blogblog (versus network, site).” He is looking for people able and willing to review his proposal. @audrasjb volunteered.

@justlevine proposed to discuss the following ticket: #62622: Bump minimum PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher version to 7.4.
This ticket is on @johnbillion‘s radar. Everyone agreed that this ticket is a major goal for 6.9.

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

Summary, Dev Chat, Apr 23, 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 @francina. 🔗 Agenda post.

Announcements 📢

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.8.1

@jorbin is leading WP 6.8.1 which is scheduled for Wednesday April, 30, after the dev chat.

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/ 20.7

Gutenberg 20.7 was released on Tuesday April, 22.

Discussion 💬

@mamaduka and @karmatosed are planning to start working on the backlog management in the Gutenberg repository. The plan is to close non-actionable issues/tickets and stale PRs. This was mentioned during the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Committers call and they just trying to get things moving at this moment. They will try to publish a more detailed announcement once the path is clear.

@sirlouen reported that the conflictconflict A conflict occurs when a patch changes code that was modified after the patch was created. These patches are considered stale, and will require a refresh of the changes before it can be applied, or the conflicts will need to be resolved. between the needs-testing and needs-testing-info keywords in search results on WordPress Core TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. (Ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. 7935) was about to be resolved by the next #core-test team meeting.

@justlevine is looking for discussion and assistance to move forward with the following tickets:

  • #49442: a parse_blocks filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output., so we can stop dumping parsing functionality on render_blocks
  • #61175: Implementing PHPStan in core, which was recently discussed

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

Dev Chat Agenda – April 30, 2025

The next WordPress Developers Chat will take place on Wednesday April 30, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the core channel on Make WordPress Slack.

The live meeting will focus on the discussion for upcoming releases, and have an open floor section.

Additional items will be referred to in the various curated agenda sections below. If you have ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. requests for help, please continue to post details in the comments section at the end of this agenda.

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.8.1 and 6.8.2

  • WordPress 6.8.1 final release is scheduled on Wednesday April, 30
  • The CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Team will then set up a plan for 6.8.2

Highlighted posts ✨

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 Core 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.

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.

Performance Chat Summary: 22 April 2025

The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

WordPress Performance TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. tickets

Performance Lab 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 (and other performance plugins)

  • No immediate updates or blockers were reported for the Performance Lab plugin suite.
  • @flixos90 shared that work is beginning on a new View Transitions feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins. (issue #1963). This plugin aims to provide a WordPress-specific 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. for enabling cross-document view transitions.
    • Development will start with a few experimental PRs, similar to the approach taken with the Web Worker Offloading plugin. A public release will only happen once an MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia is ready.
    • For those curious about the planned approach, @flixos90 pointed to an experimental PR opened against CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.: wordpress-develop#8370, which will serve as the basis before being ported over to plugin form.

Open Floor

  • @flixos90 removed the milestone due dates from the performance plugin repo, following the team’s decision to move to an on-demand release schedule. Due dates will now be set only when a specific plugin release is planned.
  • @flixos90 shared an adapted 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Actions workflow originally created by @shyamgadde to bump the “Tested up to” version in readme.txt without triggering a full deployment. The updated version works for single-plugin repos and can be reused by most plugins on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. Example: bump-tested-up-to-dotorg.yml
    • @flixos90 is planning to write a blogblog (versus network, site) post to promote the workflow.

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-performance, #hosting, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

WP_Query changes in WordPress 6.8

WordPress 6.8 includes some caching optimizations that may affect themes and plugins using the WP_Query::get() method and the WP_Query::$query_vars property.

In #59516, WP_Query was optimized to improve cache hits for queries with equivalent arguments.

This enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature. improves performance for sites that run equivalent queries with a different order of arguments. The impact will be most noticeable on sites without a persistent cache, as these equivalent queries would run multiple times on a single page request, whereas they will now run once.

As such theme and 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 making use of filters within WP_Query (source code: GitHub, trac) are recommended to check their code for compatibility with WordPress 6.8. An example of code that would be affected by this is using equality to check for the contents of an array:

$query = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page' ) ) );

add_filter( 'posts_where', function ( $where, $query ) {
        // True in WordPress 6.7, false in WordPress 6.8
        // WordPress 6.7 returns array( 'post', 'page' )
        // WordPress 6.8 returns array( 'page', 'post' )
        if ( array( 'post', 'page' ) === $query->get( 'post_type' ) ) {
                // Modify WHERE clause.
        }

        return $where;
}, 10, 2 );

When comparing the contents of two arrays for equivalence, it is recommended to use the code empty( array_diff( /* arrays */ ) ) rather than equality comparisons. See this example for a demonstration.

Standardized arguments.

The most common example of where these changes will improve performance is when querying multiple post types:

$q1 = new WP_Query( [ 'post_type' => [ 'post', 'page' ] ] );
$q2 = new WP_Query( [ 'post_type' => [ 'page', 'post'] ] );
$q3 = new WP_Query( [ 'post_type' => [ 'page', 'post', 'post' ] ] );

In WordPress 6.7 and earlier, these queries would each result in database queries as they were not seen as equivalent in the resulting database query and cache key.

To standardize equivalent queries, WP_Query now sorts and type casts arguments as appropriate. For each of the queries above the post types are sorted alphabetically and any duplicates removed. In WordPress 6.8 the ::get() method and ::$query_vars property will differ from the arguments passed to $q1 and $q3:

$q1->get( 'post_type' ) // returns [ 'page', 'post' ]
$q2->get( 'post_type' ) // returns [ 'page', 'post' ]
$q3->get( 'post_type' ) // returns [ 'page', 'post' ]

$q1->query_vars['post_type'] === [ 'page', 'post' ]
$q2->query_vars['post_type'] === [ 'page', 'post' ]
$q3->query_vars['post_type'] === [ 'page', 'post' ]

For items that accept values as either an integer or a string, these have been sorted and typecast as appropriate, for example author__not_in => [ '2', '1' ] becomes author__not_in => [ 1, 2 ]. A full list of affected arguments can be found in the commit message [59766].

Due to differences in the code paths when the post type and status are passed as a string, these are not type cast to an array 

$q4 = new WP_Query( [ 'post_type' => 'post' ] );
$q4->get( 'post_type' ) // returns 'post'

These changes are part of an ongoing effort to improve the performance of WordPress. The coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team are monitoring the changes for any major issues that may occur, see #63255

Props @joemcgill and @jorbin for their review of this post.

#6-8, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-8, #performance