The WordPress CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Performance Team is dedicated to monitoring, enhancing, and promoting performance in WordPress core and its surrounding ecosystem. We build and manage the Performance Lab plugin, a collection of performance-related “feature projects” for WordPress core.
The Performance Lab pluginPluginA 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 is a collection of performance-related “feature projects” for WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. These feature projects are represented in this plugin as individual standalone modules.
All modules bundled in the Performance Lab plugin are at different stages of development and may be merged into WordPress core at different points. This section describes the version support policy for the different modules, with a special focus on backward compatibility.
The Performance Lab plugin commits to supporting the latest stable version of WordPress core. With that said, the minimum WordPress version requirement will not be bumped unnecessarily, so realistically the plugin may support additional versions of WordPress core. If or once a feature that is only available in the latest WordPress core stable release is required for a plugin module, the minimum requirement of the plugin will be bumped to that version.
Supporting a greater array of older WordPress core versions would be detrimental for the plugin, as it is primarily intended for betaBetaA 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. testing and often requires using features that have only been introduced in a recent WordPress core version.
It needs to be clarified though that the Performance Lab plugin will never require an alpha or beta version of a future WordPress core release. This policy ensures that sites using the latest stable version of WordPress will always be able to use the plugin as well.
Once a module has been merged and shipped in a WordPress release, there are two potential options for how to proceed with the module:
If module development is considered completed and continuing development within WordPress core is preferred, the module should be removed from the plugin eventually.
If module development can continue in the plugin based on the parts that have already been merged into WordPress core, only the parts of the module that were merged should be removed from the plugin eventually.
Whichever of the two options applies to a module, (critical functionality of) standalone modules in the Performance Lab plugin must never be removed in a way that would break sites which rely on the module’s current feature set.
Therefore, the Performance Lab plugin commits to only removing a module in combination with bumping the minimum WordPress version requirement to the same stable core release that the merged module code was published with. This is best clarified with an example:
If a module gets merged during development of WordPress 6.0, the module will not be removed from the plugin immediately.
Only after WordPress 6.0 has been released, can the module be removed from the plugin.
The first plugin version in which the module is no longer present must bump the minimum WordPress version requirement to 6.0.
The above policy ensures that sites which rely on the feature will never see that feature removed, even if they do not update to the latest WordPress core release. Because the Performance Lab plugin limits removing merged modules to bumping the WordPress core version requirement, plugin versions without the module would then no longer surface to sites on outdated WordPress core versions, keeping their behavior intact.
Obviously, the recommendation is to keep both WordPress core and the Performance Lab plugin up to date for the best experience.