Matt Mullenweg 10:50 pm on April 14, 2026

Requests for Automation

Howdy, I wanted to spin up a thread for anyone to request a look at automating a manual process or task around 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/. I’m excited to try a few of these out, I know in my own life I found within a few hours I could automate things I have spent hours on for decades.

Felipe Velzani 12:06 am on April 15, 2026
I don’t have quick wins coming to mind in terms of automation, but overall I believe these are great opportunities:
- The Plugins team has already beautifully implemented some automations like 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. Check (PCP). But I believe we could use AI to fully take over the review process and even approve/decline exception requests and no longer have the +2 weeks wait time. Humans would focus on edge cases, appeals, and replying to security reports.
- The Community team events (meetups, camps, etc.) approval process can take a really long time, so a similar idea to what I mentioned for Plugins: we could let AI look at the applications and set a score, then auto-approve based on a threshold. It would also be good to have a decent kanban + auto-creation of event sites, sending emails, etc. Many parts of the process are manual right now.
- Every support topic on the forums could receive an initial reply by AI, and maybe be able to mention an at-bot user to follow up or ask additional questions. Btw, the forums and bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org really deserve some love. They are the main/initial place that the majority of WPorg users find when they create an account, and it all feels like it’s still 2010 (terrible UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. overall).
- Translations, as discussed here.
- I’ve been working with the Contributor Dashboard working group to improve engagement overall with users. I believe it would be great if we could have something like Klaviyo where teams can create flows and notify contributors to keep them involved.
- azharckra 11:04 am on April 24, 2026
  
  Having all support topics replied to by AI bots may not be a good idea. Run it for a year, and you will end up with only AI-generated junk in the forum, which AI will end up feeding back on.
Matt Mullenweg 3:31 am on April 15, 2026

Okay get ready, we’re going to have a lot of Wapuus running all over the place.
matysanchez2 5:12 am on April 15, 2026

I would love to help with 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. review process! We are running our internal process against each new or updated plugin that touches the SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/.. So we have a security profile of each plugin.

Our approach is deterministic, we do not use any LLM yet, what we normally look for is security issues, lack of database optimization, stuff that could influence negatively the web vitals and we do run wpscan to them. And we can easily run it against the PCP. I am happy to contribute by developing or even donating compute from our infra to run this process to each plugin, we have the expertise and I think the community could benefit a lot!

For example a quick report I can pull for the last 500 newest plugins (from the last 17 days).

49% of new debuts are flagged high or critical risk by wpscan (246 / 499). That number feels alarming; it partly is, but wpscan is loud and you have to look at the specific findings.

18,192 total findings across the 479 scans. That’s ~38 findings per plugin on average, heavily right-skewed.

We ran this several times per day as new or updated plugins reach. We found 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. keys from OpenAI, Google Maps, source maps, etc.

I think a JetPack + WPScan against the plugins + PCP auto check + a layer of a LLM for something else, is a great first step to speed up the process for plugins. I know myself the biggest bottleneck is the first review, once they provide feedback some people never send it again, and other people act on it and the 2nd or 3rd round are way faster until you get your SVN data.

Another stuff we can do to leverage AI is a middleware to auto SVN<> GITGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system.
https://git-scm.com/, so we can give the developers a modern way to keep track of their versions and stuff in something they use in their modern development.
Marc Armengou 9:30 am on April 15, 2026

I think a tool that helps contributors navigate the complex WordPress ecosystem, such as TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. components when submitting a ticket, a pull request, or an issue on 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/, with thousands of files and over 100 repositories, could be useful. It would save time on triage and reorientation, and make it easier for occasional contributors or new contributors to get started.

Similar to: https://make.wordpress.org/contribute/

It could be included in the “make welcome” for each Make WordPress Team that needs it, or as an new area in https://make.wordpress.org/contribute/

An LLM trained on the project’s file and component ecosystem would be able to identify the exact file, specific component, or appropriate repository needed to do what you want to do. This is already possible with general-purpose LLMs, but they don’t always get it right or sometimes suggest non-existent paths.
Nilo Velez 9:48 am on April 15, 2026

I’m working on a refactor of the WordPressTV site. Right now it is a mess of old, hard-coded templates, patched over and over again and hosted at wordpressdotcom vip multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core. Advanced Administration Handbook -> Create A Network..

With the help of a lot of people from Automattic, I already have a demo site working on standalone wordpressdotcom Business hosting. There are still a few unfinished features, but so far everything is working fine.

Once we have it running and do a test run, it should be easy to do a clean migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. to Atomic. At that moment, we will have a regular WordPress site working that we can open to AI, connect to YouTube for automated uploads, integrate with WordPress profiles and event sites…
- Nicholas Garofalo 2:02 pm on April 27, 2026
  
  connect to YouTube for automated uploads
  
  @nilovelez This is already set up. We’d just need to retain the RSS structure or update the automation accordingly. If you need to know which parts of the RSS are in use, hit me up on 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/. This is due for an update anyway.
  - Nilo Velez 7:30 pm on April 27, 2026
    
    Sure, we can keep the existing integration as long as we need, but once we have a clean version, we can connect WPTV to YouTube using a internal call to the Google 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., which is faster and sturdier than using a external service.
    - Nicholas Garofalo 4:27 pm on May 1, 2026
      
      This has not proven to be sturdier in the past, which I cover in A Brief History of the WordPress YouTube Channel. Zapier provides a layer of enterprise reliability and error handling that has proven difficult to implement and maintain via internal calls. They maintain compatibility with the YouTube 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. so we don’t have to. There are also no benefits to any speed improvements as the process is not user-facing.
Tammie Lister 11:04 am on April 15, 2026
These are suggestions based on things I’ve experienced being very manual in my time (some might be less manual for some now).

For coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. tickets on tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. (across all of trac including core, theme) the following:

Note: these are starting ideas, more radical moves could include to generate a report to clear then add processes in place going forward.
- First pass triage: duplicate labels, asking for extra information such as screenshots or missing details.
- Stale states and closing: the would be in an archive so not lost.
For theme review:
- Complete auto review no humans involved.
For /updates:
- Parse all the make sites / communication spaces for teams (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/, GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system.
  https://git-scm.com/) and load up summaries each week from teams.
Team meeting summaries:
- Auto-posting from Slack/wherever have it.
- Felipe Velzani 2:41 pm on April 15, 2026
  
  Parse all the make sites / communication spaces for teams (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/, GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system.
  https://git-scm.com/) and load up summaries each week from teams.
  
  That’s interesting. We could start doing this probably as part of the Contributor Dashboard. Created it here: https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-contributor-dashboard/issues/8
  - Tammie Lister 2:46 pm on April 15, 2026
    
    @felipevelzani if it’s useful sure, I’m more thinking to take it where people are. If enough are there great and that’s to be the goal of the dashboard. I think contributor dashboard to me felt something different but I could be off-course. My use case originated because team leads were meant (unsure still) to post to /updates regularly. Automating that feels amazing.
    
    I also think wherever this ends up having it be as a ‘team pulse’ is super useful. Looking at you 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/ and @desrosj for that inspiration. I’d quite like this for all the makes.
    - Felipe Velzani 2:50 pm on April 15, 2026
      
      Tbh, the Contributor Dashboard project has been changing a lot because we already have the data there (already bringing the events/contributions for all teams). So adding stuff like that would be relatively easy.
      - Felipe Velzani 2:52 pm on April 15, 2026
        
        @karmatosed we could probably use the WP Rest APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”)
        https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/ or maybe 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. could create an 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. and we could take these snapshots and publish them on /updates with it.
- annezazu 2:42 am on April 21, 2026
  
  First pass triage: duplicate labels, asking for extra information such as screenshots or missing details.
  
  +1 to automating some level of triage and surfacing where human judgment is needed.
  
  Team meeting summaries:
  
  +1 for meeting summaries. For the activity for the week for different teams, I’d rather see a dashboard of updates than an automated post. I’m not really sure if the contributor dashboard is the best spot for that kind of automation. I’d rather see it here: https://make.wordpress.org/ Curious if folks want to pursue that now that I can make more changes 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/! I can add it to the list. cc @karmatosed @felipevelzani
Niko Vittaniemi 2:39 pm on April 15, 2026

Proposed automation: WP.org support forums ↔ 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ sync

One area that would really benefit from automation is the connection between the 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/ support forums and GitHub issue tracking.

The problem
Currently, when a bug or issue is identified in the support forums, it often gets escalated to GitHub by support contributors.

Users are then typically directed to GitHub with a message like:

“By commenting there, you can share that you are also experiencing the issue and subscribe to notifications…”

While this makes sense from a development workflow perspective, it’s not very user-friendly for non-technical users.

Many store owners and business users:

Don’t want to create a separate GitHub account
Don’t follow through to GitHub
End up dropping the issue entirely

You can see this pattern quite often in the forums:
https://wordpress.org/search/as+a+Github+issue/

The opportunity
This feels like a perfect place for automation.

Proposed solution
If a support thread is linked to a GitHub issue:

Automatically display a linked GitHub status 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. inside the forum thread
(e.g. open / in progress / fixed)

Sync key updates from GitHub back to the forum thread:
status changes
important comments from maintainers
release/fix notifications

When the issue is resolved:
Automatically post a summary in the forum thread
Optionally mark the thread as resolved

Why this matters
Removes friction for non-technical users
Keeps everything visible in one place (the forum)
Reduces dropped conversations
Improves perceived support quality

Right now, the workflow assumes users will adapt to developer tooling — but automation could instead bring the updates back to where the users already are.
Ali Khallad 3:53 pm on April 18, 2026

One angle from 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 side, whatever AI + wpscan layer gets built for the review team, it would be great to expose it through Plugin Check so authors can run the same scan locally before submitting.
PCP already has the CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. and admin UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., so it’s mostly a matter of wiring the new checks in ( it might cost more potentially, so could be gated behind some rules ). The bottleneck for me as a plugin author isn’t really the review speed itself, it’s the submit → wait → “fix this” → resubmit → wait 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. If I can reproduce the reviewer’s report before submitting, most of that loop goes away.

Pairs well with matysanchez2’s offer to donate compute.
- Tyler Martin 5:12 pm on April 19, 2026
  
  Putting it out here for evaluation, comment and testing. The idea is it uses the same WP 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. guidelines the review team uses so you can nail every little aspect of your submission to get it right the first time.
  https://github.com/tymrtn/pcp-ai-addon
  
  Note: I have not tested it on WP 6.9+.
ianatkins 10:32 am on April 19, 2026

May I flag – Ai output is completely non-deterministic. If you are planning on using it for completely automated 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. review you may find it creates another problem with inconsistent and variable outcomes.

Would suggest ( if you haven’t already ) playing with some AI APIs with the logprobs enabled so you can see the probability chain – and you get a feel for how fragile it is. Whilst there are settings to tweak, even with temperature dialled right back and a seed, you’ll see repeated calls for the same prompt move from day to day with output varying seemingly by time, load and the end server the request runs on.

You can mitigate by running the AI requests multiple times, but at your scale that may become expensive. Perhaps a multiple signals approach that is fed from code review is more deterministic and appropriate.
- ianatkins 10:33 am on April 19, 2026
  
  Or perhaps you run on a local model, that then gives you a standard version that remains static, running on the same server.
Tyler Martin 5:10 pm on April 19, 2026
I built this back in September when my first 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. took 2.5 months to review (what a shitshow). I offered it to the review team but there was little interest. I took it as a warning and haven’t really looked back since.

What it does
- Runs five AI review passes (general, security, performance, 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), WP.org repo guidelines) alongside PCP’s static checks.
- Uses OpenRouter as the inference backend so you can choose your model. I always go with the top coding model, so in this case it’s set to Opus 4.7. It’ll likely run you ~$3 per review.
- Adds a Settings page (Settings → PCP AI Add-on) with feature flags and packaging guidance.
Putting it out here for evaluation, comment and testing.
https://github.com/tymrtn/pcp-ai-addon

Note: I have not tested it on WP 6.9+.
Drew Jaynes 8:46 am on April 20, 2026

@matt I’m interested in tackling the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. backlog, particularly the Ancient Tickets report (~4500+ at the time of writing), though I suppose I may realistically just be looking for the ability to query trac directly to avoid having to scrape the open tickets.

My thinking is that we may be able to leverage Claude (or similar) to make an assessment of the necessary completion effort for a sizable chunk of those tickets. At the very least, automating the tedium of figuring out where any given ticket in that list stands by ingesting the contents/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. and analyzing them.

For a concrete example, it seems roughly 230 of the ancient tickets have the needs-unit-tests keyword. It’s fairly trivial to supply Claude with the needed context to understand how to write core unit tests and how to address the needs of some of those tickets. I’m not necessary proposing that we start having Claude submit PRs or patches for allthethings, but doing some high level analysis could give new and seasoned contributors a head start toward slimming down the open ticket count(s).
- annezazu 2:45 am on April 21, 2026
  
  My thinking is that we may be able to leverage Claude (or similar) to make an assessment of the necessary completion effort for a sizable chunk of those tickets. At the very least, automating the tedium of figuring out where any given ticket in that list stands by ingesting the contents/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. and analyzing them.
  
  Check out this for inspiration: https://github.com/Automattic/gitaudit I use it for reviewing issues 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/’s 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repo.
  - David Levine 12:50 am on April 29, 2026
    
    I’d suggest a more sustainable pattern than what Claude Code committed there, something closer to https://github.com/openclaw/clawsweeper
    
    Started a thread in https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C08TJ8BPULS/p1777421957339539
Agentic Plugin Team 12:10 am on April 23, 2026

Ali’s framing of the bottleneck is exactly right — it’s not the queue length, it’s 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.

Welcome to the 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. Team!

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Requests for Automation

Welcome to the 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. Team!

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