Now that we know WordPress 6.9 is coming by the end of 2025, a roadmap has been proposed outlining the core ideas to work on in this version.
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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 July 28st to August 3rd, 2025.
WordPress 6.9 will launch on December 2, 2025, after reevaluating the release plan to include an additional version this year. This release will focus on evolving the Site Editor, with simplified editing modes, more intuitive template management, block-level collaboration, and performance improvements thanks to new APIs.
The Site Editor will receive a simplified mode separating content editing from design tools, along with revamped template management that supports multiple templates per slug and drafts before activation. It will also include the capability to hide blocks on the frontend, enabling non-destructive workflows that encourage experimentation.
The authoring experience will improve with more straightforward drag-and-drop block interactions, expanded transformations, enhanced keyboard navigation, and block-level comments to facilitate asynchronous collaboration. Additionally, the Command Palette will be extended across the entire WordPress experience, laying the groundwork for future AI integrations.
For developers, the DataViews and DataForm packages will be updated, incorporating new field types and operators; the Abilities API will be introduced, and improvements will be made to the Interactivity API, Block Bindings, and the HTML API. Regarding performance, instant navigation with bfcache, management of the fetchpriority attribute, a unified output buffer, and style optimization will be implemented. Moreover, the release will include previews of features such as the new modular admin, the MCP Adapter, and the PHP AI Client SDK in the form of experimental plugins.
Gutenberg 21.3 is now available, bringing improvements to DataViews, new components, and a more convenient inspector sidebar interface.
The DataViews grid now allows grouping items by fields and introduces a new date field type without a time component, as a preliminary step toward incorporating a calendar component to simplify date filtering.
The Cover block now supports a poster image displayed before videos load, while the Post Content block adds a tagName selector to change the wrapper to semantic tags such as main or article.
Migration to TypeScript continues progressing, with multiple packages already converted, contributing to increased security and robustness of the code.
The Test team has addressed inefficiencies in the ticket management process—where around 80% close without resolution after multiple unsuccessful reproductions and patches—and proposed promoting component specialization to strengthen confidence during triage and early review of reports. To support this specialization, they suggest a new workflow based on a “mini-tracker” GitHub board, guiding each ticket from initial classification by a specialist to its final “ready to commit” state. This workflow involves defined labeling stages (needs-reproduction or needs-testing), bug reproduction, patch development, expert review, and final testing, thus reducing the workload of core committers.
During the session, priority component examples were reviewed, emphasizing a shift in approach—from simply performing tests to ensuring quality—aligning the new “reviewer” role with that of component maintainer, thereby easing the path toward official maintainership. Although concerns arose regarding potential work duplication and complexity for new contributors, the pilot and iterative nature of the protocol was stressed, and attendees were encouraged to select a component, engage in Slack, consider future maintainership, attend upcoming hands-on sessions, and review the mini-tracker documentation.
The Plugins team announced that from now on, the plugin readme.txt file must be written in English to speed up its analysis and enhance communication with authors, given the growing volume of submissions and the linguistic diversity of the team.
Additionally, English will serve as the base language for subsequent translations, thus unifying the directory interface by avoiding sections in different languages and alphabets. This decision has been agreed upon by the entire team to improve process efficiency and increase global plugin accessibility.
During WordCamp Krakow 2024, only 10% of attendees joined the Contributor Day, as many felt it was intended for advanced users. To change this perception, the first edition of the WordPress Academy was organized, comprising four free talks aimed at absolute beginners without prior registration. More than 50 people attended (20% of participants), and enthusiastic feedback came from both newcomers and veterans alike.
Building upon that experience, the format was enhanced in 2025 to include even more accessible talks and practical workshops for “false beginners,” guiding them through creating a WordPress site. The result was a resounding success: of the 275 attendees, over 110 participated in the Academy, and combined with the 30 attendees of Contributor Day, they surpassed a 50% participation rate on Day 0. The team now plans to bring this model to WordCamp Europe 2026 in Krakow, intending to replicate and expand its impact.
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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