Jonathan Desrosiers 1:55 am on June 25, 2025  

A Little (Late) Spring Cleaning

Following up on the codified criteria for a repository to live under the WordPress organization on GitHub, a comprehensive audit of all repositories under both the WordPress and bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. 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/ organizations has been conducted.

To support this effort, every repository was catalogued in a spreadsheet, along with metadata to assess which met the established criteria. This includes factors such as ongoing maintenance, alignment with an active 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/ team or initiative, and whether the repository serves a continuing purpose.

Archived Repositories

In total, 20 repositories in the WordPress GitHub organization were identified as no longer meeting the criteria for active maintenance under the organization. These include:

  • Feature plugins for projects that have already been merged into WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and are no longer providing any additional functionality.
  • Some repositories were created for short-term experimentation or one-off demonstrations. While useful at the time, they no longer serve an active purpose and were archived to reduce clutter.
  • Legacy communication efforts that are no longer relevant.

The following repositories have been archived between June 5, 2025 and June 24, 2025:

Additionally, one repository was archived under the bbPress GitHub organization: wpbbp.

Archived repositories remain publicly accessible for reference purposes. Specific reasons why each repository was closed can be found in the Archive Notes column of the spreadsheet

Closed Plugins

Archiving repositories was only one part of this effort. Since the GitHub repositories often overlap with plugins hosted on the WordPress.org Plugin Directory, all plugins maintained or supported by the wordpressdotorg user were also reviewed. Plugins tied to deprecated features, outdated support needs, or now-merged projects were closed to reduce confusion and focus contributor attention on current tools.

The following 11 plugins were closed on June 24 2025:

To preserve historical context, a new page in the Core Team Handbook has been published as a reference of all retired plugins that were officially supported by the Core team at one point. Plugins closed prior to this effort can be added retroactively as they’re identified.

Archived 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/. Channels

Beyond code and plugins, Slack was also reviewed. Slack channels associated with completed initiatives, legacy features, or inactive Core components were archived. This helps reduce noise and ensures that active discussion spaces align with the project’s current areas of focus.

feature-* and core-* component channels were considered inactive if there had been no meaningful collaboration for at least one year.

The following 30 Slack channels were archived in the WordPress.org Slack instance on June 24, 2025:

Archived Slack channels remain publicly accessible and can easily be unarchived if new maintainers come forward or if the channel is the most appropriate space for new discussions.

Looking Ahead

As the project continues to evolve, periodic audits like this help keep our resources aligned with current priorities. If you believe something was archived prematurely or have suggestions for future cleanups, please detail in the comments.

When archiving certain code bases, plugins, and channels, it’s important to pause and thank the many contributors who brought them to life. Their work forms the foundation for continued progress. Every commit, idea, and conversation has helped advance WordPress’s mission to democratize publishing. And for that, we say “thank you!”

Props @4thhubbard for post review.