5 WordPress updates: new dev tools, 6.9.1 release, AI infrastructure plans, community goals, and FAIR’s roadmap.
Hello WordPressers!
Welcome to this week’s WPMore roundup — WPMore newsletter issue 36, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.
WordPress is evolving fast in 2026, and this week brings updates that touch every part of the ecosystem. From new AI development tools to community-building efforts and infrastructure debates, these stories show where WordPress is headed and what it means for you as a site owner, developer, or community member.
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In this Issue:
- AI Agents Get a WordPress Testing Playground
- WordPress 6.9.1 Fixes 49 Bugs Across Core and Block Editor
- WordPress 7.0 May Bundle AI Infrastructure (But No AI by Default)
- WordPress Meetups Are Getting a Major Revamp in 2026
- FAIR Plans to Rebundle Top 10,000 WordPress Plugins by Year’s End
AI Agents Get a WordPress Testing Playground
AI code agents are getting better at writing WordPress plugins and themes, but testing has been the bottleneck. WordPress contributor Brandon Payton just released wp-playground, a new AI agent skill that uses the Playground CLI to give AI agents a fast, repeatable way to run WordPress and verify their code as they build.
The skill automatically detects where code belongs, mounting plugins into wp-content/plugins or themes into wp-content/themes by recognizing file signatures like plugin headers. This cuts the “ready to test” time from about a minute down to just a few seconds. Agents can now alternate between tools like curl and Playwright to interact with WordPress, verify results, apply fixes, and re-test quickly.
- Install via:
npx openskills install WordPress/agent-skills - New repo launched at github.com/WordPress/agent-skills for community contributions
- Future plans include persistent Playground sites and wp-cli command support
Read the full official blog on WordPress.org here.
This development tool might seem niche, but it signals how AI is becoming part of the WordPress development workflow.
WordPress 6.9.1 Fixes 49 Bugs Across Core and Block Editor
WordPress 6.9.1 is now available as a short-cycle maintenance release. This minor update addresses 49 bugs affecting the block editor, mail functionality, and classic themes. Sites with automatic background updates enabled will update automatically, or you can manually update through your WordPress Dashboard.
The release was led by Aaron Jorbin and Aki Hamano, with contributions from over 80 community members. It’s a testament to the WordPress community’s ability to coordinate asynchronous fixes into stable releases.
- Next major version: WordPress 7.0, scheduled for April 9, 2026 at WordCamp Asia
- Download available at WordPress.org or via Dashboard > Updates
- Full bug fix list in the release candidate announcement
Read the full blog on WordPress.org here.
Speaking of WordPress 7.0, there’s a significant proposal on the table for that release.
WordPress 7.0 May Bundle AI Infrastructure (But No AI by Default)
A proposal is on the table to merge the WP AI Client into WordPress 7.0, providing developer infrastructure for AI features without actually enabling any AI functionality by default. This is about laying groundwork, not shipping AI to every WordPress site.
The WP AI Client is a provider-agnostic API that lets WordPress code call generative AI models through a consistent interface. It includes WordPress integrations for HTTP transport, event handling, caching, credentials, and a REST/JS layer. Crucially, without explicit configuration and explicit calling code, WordPress won’t send any prompts or data to external services.
What this means for you: WordPress won’t automatically use AI. Site owners will install plugins to enable specific AI providers, and plugins can detect whether AI is configured before offering AI features. The goal is to reduce duplicated SDKs and settings pages while giving the ecosystem a stable foundation.
- Security: REST/JS execution is capability-gated; secrets won’t leak
- Privacy: No outbound AI calls by default
- Performance: Minimal footprint when unused
Feedback is being collected via comments and a Trac ticket. Testing instructions will be available when a pull request opens.
Read the full official blog on Make WordPress here.
While WordPress Core explores AI infrastructure, the community team is focusing on something more human.
WordPress Meetups Are Getting a Major Revamp in 2026
Meetups have been explicitly called out as “the primary front door to the WordPress community” in the 2026 Big Picture Goals, and the Community Team is planning a significant evolution. With WordPress Credits and Campus Connect scaling quickly, meetups need to be ready to welcome newcomers and turn curiosity into active participation.
The focus is on adding hands-on, issue-focused sessions alongside the presentations and social gatherings meetups already do well. This means working together on real WordPress problems, expanding learning opportunities tied to actual WordPress needs, and providing clear paths from meetup participation to contribution on Make teams.
The Community Team’s Q1-Q2 priorities include:
- Auditing the Meetup Organizer Handbook for guidance on hands-on sessions
- Reaching out to all existing meetup groups to assess activity and offer support
- Creating templates for contribution-focused meetup formats
- Highlighting meetups already running successful hands-on sessions
They’ll also work to strengthen the meetup-to-contribution pipeline by coordinating with Make team reps and improving visibility of “good first issues” that groups can tackle together.
Read the official blog on Make WordPress here.
While WordPress.org strengthens its community infrastructure, an alternative distribution network continues to gain momentum.
FAIR Plans to Rebundle Top 10,000 WordPress Plugins by Year’s End
The FAIR project has published its 2026 roadmap with an ambitious plan: rebundle the top 5,000 to 10,000 WordPress.org plugins by December, reformatted to meet FAIR Protocol specifications with added metadata and cryptographic package signing.
FAIR’s roadmap is structured around three quarterly milestones. The first (April 26) focuses on trust systems and verification infrastructure. The second (August 16) targets direct engagement with commercial plugin publishers to build authenticated API endpoints for payment gateways and license validation, letting site admins purchase licenses and manage subscriptions from within their WordPress dashboard. The third (December 6) shifts to infrastructure scaling and sustainability.
What this means: FAIR is positioning itself as a viable alternative to WordPress.org’s centralized repository, with federated distribution and a focus on security verification. The project acknowledges it will need significantly more contributors to handle package vetting at this scale.
- Six months after launch, FAIR has nine software projects in active development
- November 2025 hackathon with Patchstack delivered vulnerability information directly to WordPress dashboards
- Board and committee member announcements are underway but not yet scheduled
Read the full report on The Repository here.
Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:
- WordPress 6.9.1 Released with Fixes for 49 Bugs in Core and Block Editor
- WordPress AI Experiments Plugin Tests Eight New Features, Including Type-Ahead and Comment Moderation
- WP Engine Wins Approval to Add WooCommerce as Defendant as Court Signals Frustration with Lengthy Filings
- WordPress Meetups to Add Hands-On Contribution Sessions Alongside Traditional Formats
Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.
WordPress Must Read
→ How We Waste Great Talks at WordCamps (And How to Fix This) (checkoutsummit.com)
→ Wordfence Bug Bounty Program Monthly Report – December 2025 (wordfence.com)
→ My 7-Year-Old Wanted to Build a Website. Should I Still Teach Him WordPress? (wpmayor.com)
→ Marketing Lessons from WordCamp Asia (make.wordpress.org)
→ Content Guidelines: A Gutenberg Experiment (make.wordpress.org)
→ In the past week, there has been an explosion of visible AI progress in the WordPress project (j.cv)
On other WordPress News
→ Hosting Team Reps 2026 (make.wordpress.org)
→ Automattic Backs University of Illinois Chicago Program Set to Pay Students for WordPress-Based AI Training (therepository.email)
→ It’s official: WordPress.com has a Claude Connector (wordpress.com)
→ WordCamp Asia 2026 WP Campus Connect Scholarship Sponsor Applications Now Open (wp-content.co)
→ New concept: National Championships at WordCamps (make.wordpress.org)
→ Proposal: Monthly Office Hour Meeting for Make WordPress Training (make.wordpress.org)
→ WordPress Studio 1.7.0: Meet the New Studio CLI (wordpress.com)
→ Call for testing: Experimental REST API Caching in WooCommerce 10.5 (developer.woocommerce.com)
→ Apply for Scholarships to Attend WordCamp Asia 2026 (asia.wordcamp.org)
→ Recap: WordPress 6.9 “Gene” Retrospective (make.wordpress.org)
→ Call for Testing – Customizable Navigation (“Mobile”) Overlays (make.wordpress.org)
→ Call for Scholarship Sponsors: Support Student Participation through WordPress Campus Connect (make.wordpress.org)
From WordPress Community
→ The right time: Leaving Automattic (nickdiego.com)
→ WP Engine Launches Newsroom, a Publishing Platform Built on Big Bite’s Newsroom Expertise (therepository.email)
→ #202 – Charly Leetham on Using WordPress to Enable a Digital Nomad Life (wptavern.com)
→ Luke and Jonathan catch up with Jeff Paul, VP of Open Source Solutions at Fueled and an active contributor to the WordPress project for the past decade. They discuss Jeff’s contribution journey, their shared agency experiences, and thoughts on the upcoming 7.0 release. (crossword.fm)
→ Hackathons and jam sessions for WordPress builders (pluginjam.com)
→ Underfunded PHP Tools: A Global Business Threat (openchannels.fm)
→ Excerpt Talks Episode #6 – WP Credits Panel Discussion (wpbakery.com)
Conclusion
WordPress in 2026 is shaping up to be a year of foundational changes, some technical, some cultural, all significant. Whether you’re building sites, writing code, or just keeping up with the ecosystem, these shifts will affect how you work with WordPress.
Have thoughts on any of these stories? Hit reply, I’d love to hear what you think.
Nishat, WP More
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