The Presence API Feature Plugin has been introduced as an experimental feature, designed to show which users are currently logged in, what areas of the admin interface they are accessing, and which posts they are working on.
What It Aims To Solve
During the WordPress 7.0 Product Review meeting with Matt that took place on February 19th, 2026, the concept of “Presence” was covered with Matt saying, “ This idea of presence is really cool, and seeing where people are…and how we can bring that to like all other parts of wp-admin…”
In the announcement post, Joe Fusco ( Senior Software Engineer at WP Engine) introduced the Presence API and its intent as an experimental feature plugin for improving visibility into activity within the WordPress admin, “ The Presence API is an experimental feature plugin that provides a system-wide awareness layer — who is logged in, what admin screens they are on, and which posts they are editing.”
Fusco highlighted that the feature is intended to address several limitations in the WordPress admin, including what is described as “There is currently no way to see who else is logged into the WordPress admin at the same time.”
He also noted that editing conflicts are currently only identified “when a lock collision occurs,” which may happen after work has already overlapped, and that the post list does not indicate active editors until a user attempts to open a post.
The Presence API Feature Plugin adds several interface elements to surface user activity within WordPress. These include dashboard widgets highlighting active users and posts, an admin bar indicator displaying online users, an “Editors” column in the post list, and an “Online” filter in the users list.
It also introduces REST API endpoints and WP-CLI commands, while maintaining compatibility with existing post-locking behavior.
How It Works Under the Hood
The plugin uses a dedicated wp_presence table with a 60-second time-to-live (TTL) to provide awareness data “with zero cache side effects,” with data flowing through the existing Heartbeat API.
It uses a separate database table, based on insights from discussions around Real-time Collaboration which highlighted limitations of storing high-frequency ephemeral data in shared tables, as highlighted by Fusco, “ During WordPress 7.0 development, discussion in #64696 identified that storing high-frequency ephemeral data in shared tables causes persistent cache invalidation site-wide. This feature plugin was built to test that workload independently using a dedicated ephemeral data table with a 60-second TTL.“
The plugin was submitted to the Plugin Directory on April 6, 2026, but as of now, it has not been approved, as the review queue currently exceeds 4,000 submissions.
The plugin can now be tested in WordPress Playground using preconfigured blueprints, including a 5-user setup or a 40-user version. The bug reports and discussions can be provided on the GitHub repository, and discussions are also happening on the #feature-presence-api Slack channel.