WordPress 6.9 will include the option to leave notes for other writers and reviewers, linked to the content of blocks within the editor.
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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 October 6 to 12, 2025.
It’s time to get ready for WordPress 6.9. In just one week, the first beta version will be released on October 21, 2025. Three weeks later will come the first release candidate on November 11, and the final release is set for December 2, 2025, at 15:00 UTC.
The AI team confirmed the deployment of the MCP Adapter on WordPress.com, a key step to test this new technology in real environments. They also reviewed progress on the Abilities repository, which already has several active contributions, and planned a better documentation structure for the project.
Regarding the Abilities API, it was agreed that categories will be mandatory from the first version to maintain order and scalability. The discussion focused on defining which parameters should go at the root level and which in the “meta” object, to avoid overloading the API. They also discussed adapting the PHP AI client to WordPress coding standards and advancing the experiments plugin, whose next development phase will begin soon.
On the Developers Blog, there’s a summary of recent updates, including the fact that global styles now also apply to form controls. With this improvement, themes can define colors, borders, or typography for text fields, dropdowns, or buttons directly in theme.json. This way, all forms across the site—such as search, comments, or plugin forms—automatically inherit the general design without the need for additional CSS.
The Notes feature, formerly known as block comments, greatly improves collaboration within the editor. It allows users to leave comments directly on blocks, with clearer alerts when the associated block is deleted, and a visual system that highlights the commented content. Performance has also been optimized with a new hook that better manages conversations, making content review smoother and more practical for editorial teams.
The Test team has issued several calls to action.
The first thing to test is the changes in template management within the Site Editor. You can now create, edit, and save multiple versions of the same template, enable or disable each one, and keep custom templates when switching themes. Separate views have been added for active and custom templates, along with improvements to revisions, duplication, and deletion.
They also invite you to test a new feature in Gutenberg 21.8: the ability to hide blocks on the frontend without deleting them from the editor. This option lets you keep content or designs hidden, making it easier to experiment without losing information or affecting the published version. Users can toggle the visibility of any block from the options menu or the list view, even within groups or columns.
And finally, they’re asking for help testing the new Accordion block, which will arrive with WordPress 6.9. This block allows expandable content sections, ideal for FAQs or lists of information. Each accordion contains several items with a title and expandable content area and can be styled with global design settings.
The Accessibility team has shared several updates. The redesign of the admin area has been removed from the WordPress 6.9 plan, which will reduce the design team’s workload. There will also be no new default theme in this release.
In documentation, the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base is now ready to receive contributions, and a Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology audit will be carried out in November to ensure compliance with standards. Contributions are encouraged via GitHub, though it’s recommended to focus on familiar topics, as AI is not yet reliable for accessibility tasks.
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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