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

Summary, Dev Chat, Apr 17, 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 📢

Forthcoming releases 🚀

WordPress 6.8.1

@jorbin proposed to lead the next minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. and to host a first 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 right after the devchat.

There has been discussion about the need for a WordPress 6.8 retrospective post. Several people have pointed out the lack of interest of this kind of initiative in recent releases. Members of the 6.8 release squad are still welcome to share their thoughts. @jeffpaul pointed out that the goal is to find ways to ensure the next release cycle is easier than the last: What should be stopped (because it doesn’t help); what should the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team start doing (because it would be helpful); what should be changed (because iterating would be better). Ideally the release squad could put together a Make/Core blogpost and invite people to comment to share their thoughts.

Discussion about the WordPress 6.8.x cycle

With no other 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. scheduled in 2025, 6.8.x is going to be a long cycle, comparable to cycle 4.9.x.

@jeffpaul and @michelleames published a Make/Core post to gather nominations for folks to help lead the 6.8.x minors.

@jeffpaul: “If folks find something and are not certain if it should be part of 6.8.1 (or any future minor release), then please drop a link in #6-8-release-leads […] to help further triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors..”

@audrasjb asked whether the Core team should open milestones 6.8.2 and 6.8.3 on TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress., but @jorbin pointed out that it’s better to avoid having multiple milestones open for minors except when the current one is on the 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). step.

@joemcgill suggested that once any immediate issues that need to ship in a 6.8.1 release are addressed, the Core team could have a broader conversation about how they want to operate for the rest of the year, given that only minor releases are expected. His preference would be to identify a few volunteers to put together a proposal that we can get feedback on before finalizing the process, with a few things we need to consider: How does the ongoing development of JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors. package in the GB 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 affect how the Core team plan minor release updates, etc. ; How much change do the Core team allow in trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. during this period, given that large changes make it more difficult to backportbackport A port is when code from one branch (or trunk) is merged into another branch or trunk. Some changes in WordPress point releases are the result of backporting code from trunk to the release branch. fixes to the 6.8 branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch". ; What types of tickets are “allowed” to be shipped in a minor over the rest of the year, since no more major releases is expected this year.

@jeffpaul pointed out that the Core team had a decent precedent (4.9.6, with privacy features) that expanded what can happen in minors. If there are ways to expand beyond that that won’t break things (e.g. updater), then let’s explore those but there may still be relatively hard constraints.

A minor release is intended for bugfixes and enhancements that do not add new deployedDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. files and are at the discretion of the release leadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release. with suggestions/input from component maintainers and committers.

Source: Releasing Minor Versions in the Core Handbook

@joedolson suggested the team should consider that the first couple point releases could be reserved to new issues only, the same as most minor releases, and once those are settled, the scope of minors can start to be expanded. But the drift between trunk and minors could be difficult to manage, especially if the scope of what can go into a minor is too restrictive. @audrasjb confirmed that it’s exactly what was done during cycle 4.9.x: the cycle started with bug fixes introduced in version 4.9, the the Core team started to introduce enhancements with 4.9.5 and all along the rest of the cycle.

For now, there is a hard rule, though: No new file can be introduced in a minor release.

@jorbin encouraged Core contributorsCore Contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. to publish their own ideas on their own blogs so then all the ideas can be shared and the Core team could come up with a plan.

@joemcgill volunteered to to coordinate a proposal for Make/Core, unless more guidance is given. He would welcome ideas that folks want to share (please feel free to reach out with him).

Open Floor 💬

Core Trac Workflow Keywords Issue

The discussion concerns an issue raised by @sirlouen on MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. about a 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.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/ Meta Trac (Ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. 7935). This problem makes reports, especially for the testing team, more difficult and leads to incorrect information. Two solutions were suggested: renaming one of the keywords or improving the search algorithm. The conversation continues in the Trac comments.

@sirlouen wanted to run a poll/survey to close this ticket in the next Core Test meeting (23rd April), but he would like to have the consensus (and the awareness) from the core team that this is going to happen, and It’s going to bring a change in core. This item is scheduled for discussion during the next dev chat.

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

Summary, Dev Chat, Apr 9, 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 📢

WordPress 6.8 | 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). 3 is now available 🥳

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

@jeffpaul reminds all CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Committers to read this article and follow the outlined process for the upcoming steps: WordPress 6.8 Release Candidate Phase

Help Test 6.8 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). version 🧪

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

Forthcoming releases 🚀

General Release: April 15, 2025

The general release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, April 15, 2025.

Ahead of it, there will be a Dry Run on Monday, April 14, 2025.

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.

Highlighted posts ✨

Discussion 🤔

Dotorg Core Committers Check In

The discussion concerns the release of version 6.8 as the last 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. for 2025. It was pointed out that the decision was not clearly communicated, and it was recommended to make a clear public announcement. Additionally, a formal proposal should be created in the future to better communicate such decisions and increase transparency.

Open Floor 💬

Core TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. Workflow Keywords Issue

The discussion concerns an issue raised by @sirlouen on MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. about a 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.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/ Meta Trac (Ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. 7935). This problem makes reports, especially for the testing team, more difficult and leads to incorrect information. Two solutions were suggested: renaming one of the keywords or improving the search algorithm. The conversation continues in the Trac comments.

Thanks @francina for the review

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

Performance Chat Summary: 8 April 2025

The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

Announcements / Reminders

  • The Performance team is shifting the timing of out meetings to 3pm UTC to match many countries having shifted their time 1 hour in recent weeks. Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 at 15:00 UTC.

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

    There wasn’t much to discuss on performance tickets for the upcoming 6.8 release, since it is coming out next week.

    The team discussed the recently announced slowing 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. cadence and how that might impact the team’s work. While this means we will have more time to land new features in 6.9, @swissspidy pointed out what “with more time between releases it becomes even more important to keep an eye on any performance regressions over time”. He plans to work to better document the existing tools we have that help address that. He also pointed out that plugins become more important, so we might want to build more Performance Lab plugins going forward.

    Meeting time

    With many countries having shifted their time 1 hour in the last few weeks, the team discussed and emoji-voted on whether to move our meeting time to match. The decision was to change the time from 4pm UTC to 3pm UTC. The time at https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/ was adjusted to reflect this change. The same one hour shift was made to the timing of our 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. scrubs as well.

    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)

        Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

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

        Summary, Dev Chat, Apr 2, 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 | 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). 2 is now available 🥳

        The Release Candidate 2 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.

        @jeffpaul reminds all CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Committers to read this article and follow the outlined process for the upcoming steps: WordPress 6.8 Release Candidate Phase

        Help Test 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. version 🧪

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

        Forthcoming releases 🚀

        Release Candidate 3: April 8, 2025

        The Release Candidate 3 release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.

        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 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: 20.6

        Gutenberg 20.6 is scheduled for release on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.

        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.

        Highlighted posts ✨

        Discussion 🤔

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

        Open Floor 💬

        PHPDocs Improvements

        @sirlouen is requesting a status update on Ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #57299 on Core TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress., which concerns the improvement of PHPDocs for arrays. The goal is to enhance code quality and developer-friendliness in WordPress.

        Style Book Integration

        @smrubenstein is asking for advice on handling tab color states. Currently, custom color attributes and slotfill are used for the color inspector, but there’s no clear way to define 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. states like hover or focus. He’s asking how to integrate these into the Style Book and Style Engine so users can set default values.

        Github Pull-Request

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

        Summary, Dev Chat, Mar 26, 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 📢

        WordPress 6.8 | 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 is now available 🥳

        The Release Candidate 1 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.

        @jeffpaul reminds all CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Committers to read this article and follow the outlined process for the upcoming steps: WordPress 6.8 Release Candidate Phase

        We are in the process of finalizing the development notes, after which 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. will be released, followed by an 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 containing the necessary information.

        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/ 20.5 is now available

        The new version of the Gutenberg plugin is now available in our plugin directory.

        Help Test 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. version 🧪

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

        Forthcoming releases 🚀

        Release Candidate 2 of 6.8: April 1st

        The Release Candidate 2 release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

        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 Gutenberg version: 20.6

        Gutenberg 20.6 is scheduled for release on WednesdayApril 2, 2025.

        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 🤔

        Hosting Issues Found During 6.8 RC1 Release Party

        @joemcgill created a follow-up ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. (#63175) to update the tests and might need additional support.

        @johnbillion explained that the fail() method is being called because the test environment doesn’t support Argon2. There have been discussions about whether this should cause the test to fail or be skipped. Skipping would be risky, as it’s harder to spot if, for example, the PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher version in 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 suddenly stops supporting something the test depends on. @desrosj is currently investigating why the failures are happening in their setup.

        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).-Testing and Bug Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors.

        @joemcgill reminded everyone to monitor the new tickets and forum feedback as RC testing begins. He emphasized flagging any bugs related to the 6.8 release, noting that a few tickets from yesterday still need triaging.

        Open Floor 💬

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

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

        Performance Chat Summary: 25 March 2025

        The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

        Performance Lab plugins

        • As a consequence from the previous meeting and last week’s release (which for the first time saw releases for only a few of the performance plugins, without Performance Lab), changes to the release cadence were defined
        • Specifically, the team will change release cadence from monthly to on-demand (which could be more frequent or less frequent).
        • Consequently, the release procedure will be much more streamlined, avoiding the previously used “release party” format in favor of someone simply following the release handbook and sharing progress along the way.
        • Related to that, @westonruter has taken the separate release party chats handbook docs and moved the relevant example chats inline with the sections in the releasing the plugin handbook page. This eliminates the duplication of release instructions between the two resources.
        • @mukesh27 shared that PRs #1795 and #1818 are ready for review.

        Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

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

        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

        Summary, Dev Chat, Mar 12, 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 📢

        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. 2 is now available 🥳

        The Beta 2 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:

        Thanks @ankit-k-gupt and @krupajnanda for your contribution!

        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.

        Next Beta 3 of 6.8: March 18th

        The Beta 3 release of WordPress 6.8 will be available on Tuesday, March 18th.

        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.

        Reminder

        We have only two weeks until 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. Dev notes should be in progress. Please check @jeffpaul‘s message on Slack for details.

        Editor Updates 🔄

        Stay tuned for weekly updates to keep you informed about the latest in WordPress editor development. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or content creator, these updates will keep you in the loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. on all the key changes.

        Don’t miss out — check out the weekly update and get ready for more!

        Discussion 🤔

        Finalizing the About Page for WordPress 6.8

        • Jeff Paul requested help reviewing and finalizing the About page text.
        • Deadline: March 25 (RC1), but earlier completion is preferred.

        “Source of Truth” Document

        @poena asked for updates on the “Source of Truth” document, which provides extenders with details about the WordPress 6.8 release. Currently, no one is actively working on it due to limited capacity. @joemcgill suggested prioritizing 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. instead, as it serves a similar purpose and is officially published. Stevenlinx may have a draft of the Field Guide, and a request was made to share it for collaboration. If no one takes on the “Source of Truth” document, it will likely not be created for this release.

        Unused Code in WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

        @zodiac1978 reported unused constants in WordPress Core and created 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. #63017 to address the issue. He asked whether their deprecation had been officially documented. @joemcgill suggested verifying if their removal was intentional or if they are still needed. @desrosj pointed out that some plugins might still rely on these constants, making their removal risky. @joedolson agreed, emphasizing that plugins could use them in ways not immediately visible in Core. @zodiac1978 plans to investigate further in 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 directory and update the ticket with his findings.

        Open Floor 💬

        There were no further topics to discuss today.

        Thanks to @francina for helping review this summary.

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

        Performance Chat Summary: 11 March 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 The second beta of 6.8 was just released.
        • @westonruter There are 5 performance tickets in the milestone.
          • @johnbillion RE #63026, this is an issue with the performance of the tests due to the high number of user fixtures, all of which generate and hash a password for the user with each fixture. The regular performance tests are not indicatiny any general performance 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.. I think we can therefore remove the performance focus unless there’s an objection.

        Performance Lab plugins

        Discussing the upcoming release scheduled for Monday, Mar 17, 2025 at 17:00 UTC.

        • @westonruter Let’s start with the upcoming set of Performance Lab releases which is due March 17th.
        • @westonruter As noted by @flixos90, this release won’t actually include any update to the 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 itself. Instead there will be updates to Optimization Detective, Image Prioritizer, Embed Optimizer, Speculative Loading, and Modern Image Formats. Therefore, he suggests that we take this as an opportunity move away from using the PL’s version for the release tags. In reality this should have been done long ago when we split up the plugin into standalone plugins. So instead of the release branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch". being release/4.0.0 it could instead be release/20250317. The title of the release then I suppose would be 2025-03-17 as well.
        • @mukesh27 Does the release triggered manually as we didn’t release PL plugin?
          • @westonruter The GHA workflow doesn’t depend on releasing the PL plugin anymore, right? I mean, ever since the plugin was split into standalone plugins, I don’t think this was the case
        • @flixos90 It would feel a bit odd to have a release called 2025-03-17 in the 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/ releases page, but I’d argue that’s only because of the previous releases using the PL version number. It’s already odd now in that each release is labelled by the PL version number, but actually includes multiple releases using different versions. So I think that would be fine.
        • @westonruter We can include a note in the release description that explains the naming convention change.
        • @mukesh27 What happens in the future if we find ourselves in the same situation? Will we use the release date again?
        • @westonruter Yeah, I think we’ll use dates from now on.
          • @flixos90 Are you saying we should use dates for the release branches and GH releases going forward even when PL is among the released plugins? If we are going to do that, we should modify the documentation in the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Performance Handbook.
          • @westonruter Yes, I think we should use dates going forward.
          • @swissspidy Agreed. Would be even more confusing otherwise.
        • @westonruter There are 4 milestones for Monday which have issues/PRs:
        • @westonruter Looks like Modern Image Formats primarily just needs a couple tweaks prior to merging one PR. It looks like the other PR will need to get bumped.
        • @flixos90 Regarding the changed branch naming and release naming strategy, anyone up for updating the Make Core Performance Handbook documentation accordingly?
          • @westonruter I can do it. I typically tweak the handbook after going through the release based on how it went.
        • @mukesh27 I have to share update on the accurate sizes project: I picked it up and started working on it this week. The PR #1795 adds the ancestor 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. context and is ready for review.

        Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2025 at 16:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

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