A proposal has been raised to introduce staged plugin rollouts, similar to those used by iTunes or Play, where users receive updates gradually.
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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 7th to 13th, 2025.
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, has proposed implementing staged rollouts of plugin updates in the wordpress.org directory, similar to the Apple App Store and Google Play.
This approach would allow plugin authors to initially release updates to a limited percentage of sites, collecting feedback and detecting bugs before a full rollout, without replacing traditional beta testing.
Developers and companies like Hostinger, Automattic, WooCommerce, Elementor, and Awesome Motive have supported the idea, suggesting immediate, balanced, or progressive rollout phases—for example, 10%, 25%, 50%, and 100%—and requesting additional analytics and error reporting in a dashboard. A proof-of-concept patch already exists, and there are discussions about possibly including it in WordPress 6.9.
The Meta Trac ticket #8009 outlines the need for an interface to manage percentage-based releases and suggests starting exclusively with auto-updates. In over 30 comments, various contributors discuss segmentation mechanisms, site thresholds, different states in the update API, differentiating automatic from manual updates, and the challenge of supporting clients from WordPress 2.8 to 6.8.
WordPress 6.8.2 already has a release candidate, and the general release is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15, including 20 core and 15 editor fixes.
And yes, it seems WordPress 6.9 will be released before 2026. Specifically, it’s planned for general availability on December 2, 2025, with its first beta starting on October 21. Volunteers are being sought to lead the release in technical areas, design, triage, and testing.
Ideas behind WordPress 6.9 include:
- Completing and stabilizing current features, such as:
- Design tools and improved writing experience.
- Block bindings API, HTML API, and interactivity API.
- Command palette improvements.
- Early promotion of a canonical AI-related plugin focused on foundational APIs, rather than integrating AI functionality directly into Core.
Regarding the admin panel redesign, there’s preliminary agreement to test the renewal using the Gutenberg plugin, possibly as an opt-in experiment. The conversation about the redesign has also highlighted interest in expanding collaboration tools, like block-level comments and asynchronous workflows, some of which are already in development within Gutenberg.
The Core team has proposed incorporating PHPStan, a static analysis tool for PHP already used in other projects, into the WordPress Core development workflow.
The plan involves adding PHPStan as a development dependency with predefined configuration and baseline, running analyses as mandatory checks in GitHub Actions, and documenting usage in the handbook. Modifications would be implemented during WordPress 6.9’s development cycle via a pull request, allowing existing code to retain its current issues while new code adheres to PHPStan standards.
Adopting PHPStan will help detect errors in code not covered by tests, prevent logical and type-related bugs, improve the contribution experience with automated feedback, and facilitate incremental adoption of rules without forcing massive refactors, aligning with the policy of avoiding unnecessary changes. While there may be a learning curve, the community’s growing familiarity with PHPStan and its complementary nature to PHPCS mitigate this risk. Next steps include keeping the proposal open for several weeks, progressing the pull request, coordinating with the Gutenberg team, and drafting handbook guidance; implementation will require raising the minimum PHP version to 7.4, a decision that will be announced soon, ahead of the 6.9 release.
In line with this, it has been proposed to remove the beta support label for PHP 8.3 in WordPress 6.8, adjusting two criteria: no longer requiring three months of minimum usage after surpassing 10% of active sites, and allowing the change to apply retroactively to the current release without waiting for the next major version, given Core has been compatible since November 2023. This clarifies that PHP 8.3 has full support, encouraging users and hosting providers to upgrade, while PHP 8.4 will remain in beta due to usage below 10%, and PHP 8.5 will remain under development until its November 2025 release.
The Plugins team has announced that the former Plugin Review Team is officially renamed to Plugins Team to better reflect its scope after the June 2023 transition: continuing to review new submissions—which have increased by 87% weekly—enhancing internal tools such as the Scanner, which performs over 220 automated checks and AI-based name checks, and empowering community tools like Plugin Check, in addition to collaborating with the Meta team to resolve tickets and propose features that strengthen directory reliability and security. The name change, already approved internally, will be applied to the team page, mentions on wordpress.org, and communications, and the community is invited to use Plugins Team henceforth.
The WordCamp US 2025 continues forward, and the WordPress Foundation has opened applications for the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship, covering travel expenses to attend WordCamp US 2025 in Portland, scheduled for August 26–29. Any woman contributing to WordPress who hasn’t attended this event before and needs financial support can apply. A single recipient will be chosen, with applications open until July 25, 2025, and notifications to applicants by August 7, 2025.
The WordPress Foundation has launched WordPress Credits, a new contribution internship program for university students. The program combines initial training in open-source principles and community tools like Slack, Make blogs, or GitHub with personalized projects aligned with their studies, such as translation, development, documentation, or event organization. After a pilot with the University of Pisa, presented at WordCamp Europe 2025, the program offers flexible periods of 3–4 months per semester or the completion of specific hours, with individual mentorship and a WordPress Foundation contact ensuring contributions in code, educational resources, or translations are public and integrated into official projects.
Universities and institutions can register through a form, and community companies are invited to sponsor mentors or contribute resources to support the next generation of contributors.
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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