Core Performance Team Update: February 2024

Tickets and contributions

The Performance Team works on performance-related tickets in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and holds a fortnightly Bug Scrub on Wednesdays; check https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/ for current time.

The Performance Team is focusing on upcoming tickets for WordPress 6.5, including the Performant Translations work #59656, and support for the AVIF image format #51228. The team have created several dev notes for the Performance work included in WordPress 6.5:

Interactivity 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.

The Performance Team has been supporting on the efforts for the interactivity API TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket #60356 has now been merged as part of WordPress 6.5 which will allow new interactive features to be shipped to users using less client-side JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/., resulting in better metrics for LCP, CLS and INP. The merge announcement post provides additional information.

Server Response Improvements

In addition to the performance improvements to the I18n system and for registering 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. Type Variations—both of which target server response times—the team also worked on:

  • Improving Block Pattern registration performance (#59532)
  • Improving the performance of the new 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 Dependencies feature (#60518) 

Plugin Checker

The Performance Team has continued work on the Plugin Checker, collaborating closely with the Plugin Review team and are pleased to announce the release of version 1.0.0, which alongside a new technical foundation brings several enhancements, such as WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ support. 

Additional Plugins

The Performance Team are also working on 2 new plugins; Embed Optimizer and Optimization Detective. Please see#core-performance channel in Slack for more details on when these will be released.

Team headlines and updates

The team has been working closely on profiling WordPress 6.5 throughout 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. this month and look forward to sharing the results once the release is out.

Performance Lab Plugin

Performance Lab plugin updates are released monthly on the third Monday of the month.
February’s release 2.9.0 included several enhancements for working towards creating standalone plugins. It now recommends the new plugins “Auto Sizes for Lazy-loaded Images” and “Speculation Rules” (958), and it comes with an enhanced generator tag that includes the standalone plugin slugs (949). A  Server-Timing headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. bug has been fixed (957). The team are working towards the major 3.0.0 milestone which will introduce separate plugins, where the user will be asked to install/activate the standalone plugins instead of the previously used PL modules.

#core-performance, #performance