Thanks to the launch of the AI Experiments Plugin, it’s now possible to start testing simple experiments together with the MCP Adapter.
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Program transcript
Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, you’ll find the information from November 24 to 30, 2025.
You’ve likely run into this before: you migrate a site from staging to production, everything seems fine… but when you visit the page, problems appear. Images still pointing to the staging domain, internal links that don’t work, broken shortcodes because they kept the old URL. A classic WordPress migration problem. Well, that is finally beginning to change.
The WordPress Importer is now able to automatically migrate URLs inside your content when you import a site to a new domain. During import, it detects links, images, attachments, and internal references, and replaces them with the correct paths for the destination site. No more checking page by page or using external tools for batch search-and-replace: the importer handles the work.
This improvement, the result of coordinated work between the Core and Meta teams, makes moving a site from staging to production—or from one domain to another—far more reliable and far less manual. It eliminates one of the oldest headaches in the WordPress ecosystem and brings us closer to migrations that truly feel like one click and done.
WordPress 6.9 is now fully ready for launch after Release Candidate 3, a version created solely for final testing before the December 2, 2025 release.
This RC3 includes a final round of small tweaks and fixes in both core and the editor, polishing new features such as Notes, template management, the Interactivity API, and the new blocks arriving in this version.
The release date of WordPress 6.9 has been officially adjusted to align with State of the Word 2025. Both will take place on December 2. The event begins at 20:00 UTC, and the core team has set the final release for 20:30 UTC, about thirty minutes after the keynote begins.
There is a small flexibility window: if anything unexpected needs adjusting during the event, the launch may shift slightly within that timeframe. Still, the plan is clear: the version will be released during State of the Word, turning the announcement and deployment into a single synchronized moment.
The November Core Committers meeting provides a clear picture of the real state of WordPress 7.0 and what features are starting to take shape. Although the immediate priority has been finishing 6.9, many teams have confirmed which parts of their work move directly into 7.0 due to timing or longer development needs.
The first major area confirmed for 7.0 is real-time collaboration, powered by Yjs. The technology is already being tested in environments like WordPress VIP, but it’s not quite ready for core. Version 7.0 is expected to include the first visible integration: stable simultaneous editing, real-time presence indicators, and synchronized undo/redo. In parallel, the Notes feature will continue expanding, adding fragment notes, @mentions, compact mode, and template compatibility.
Another major focus is the Admin Redesign. While 6.9 delivered DataViews, DataForms, and the foundational design tokens, most of the visual and structural redesign shifts to 7.0. Teams confirmed that the redesign is moving forward, new components are in active development, and 7.0 should deliver the first fully visible version for users: modernized navigation, unified styling, and consistent screens.
On the technical side, WordPress 7.0 will collect improvements that didn’t make it into 6.9: parts of the new template management (reverted in 6.9), expansions to the Block Bindings API, deeper HTML API updates, and enhanced Interactivity API features. The Abilities API will also continue maturing, especially the JavaScript side, which did not make the 6.9 deadline.
As for the timeline, no dates are set yet — expected at this stage — but committers were clear: 7.0 will be a major release with a focus on collaboration, admin redesign, and the next phase of editor APIs.
Each committer shared personal priorities for December and January. Some will take a break after 6.9’s release, while others plan to focus on documentation, code cleanup, and early proposals for 7.0. The meeting ended with a reminder to maintain strong cross-team coordination and to use the publication of 6.9 as a springboard for consolidating work in 2026.
The Core-AI team has released MCP Adapter 0.3, a version that represents a major advancement in integrating WordPress with future AI agents. This update improves protocol stability, simplifies communication between WordPress and external tools, fixes issues detected during early testing, and introduces clearer documentation and a more modular structure to allow safer experimentation ahead of its core integration.
Alongside this, the new AI Experiments 0.1 plugin has been released, designed as an official laboratory where the community can activate AI prototype features before they are ready for core. This first release includes initial compatibility with the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter, offering a controlled space to experiment with automation and AI-powered assistance inside WordPress. The goal is to enable real-world testing, gather feedback, and accelerate adoption of these capabilities in future versions.
The Playground team has announced that WordPress Playground now allows debugging with Xdebug directly in the browser, with no local setup required. You can activate Xdebug in the Playground interface, set breakpoints, and step through execution — ideal for debugging plugins, themes, or quick tests without configuring a full environment. This opens the door to much lighter development workflows, especially for learners or people working on limited devices.
Playground also adds the ability to preview Gutenberg development branches directly in the browser. Choose a branch, and Playground loads an isolated instance with that version of Gutenberg. This makes it easier to test new features, check compatibility, or evaluate changes before they land in the plugin or core. Together, these improvements turn Playground into an even more powerful environment for experimentation, debugging, and collaboration.
The Test team has announced synchronization of its Handbook between GitHub and the website, allowing contributors to improve documentation using the same workflow as many other handbooks.
The Training team has launched an initiative to review and secure all code examples published on Learn WordPress. They are seeking contributors to help identify outdated, vulnerable, or non-best-practice samples. The goal is to ensure that all educational material remains safe, modern, and easy to understand for learners.
To support the effort, a GitHub project has been created where each code example appears as an individual task. Anyone can participate by reviewing, testing, or suggesting improvements. It’s an opportunity to contribute to the community while helping new developers access reliable, up-to-date resources.
And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!
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