Issue #291 | October 6, 2026 | Reading time: 26 mins
Hello!
This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the WP 7.2 test scrubs, updates to the Presence API, WC Asia 2027 opens call for Wapuu designs, WooCommerce Store Defect Study, community publishing their creations to Spacefast, along with new projects and more.
Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.
See you next week!
Team WP-CONTENT.CO
🙌 This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by ProfilePress, HireZoot and AccessMate
🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN
WordPress Accessibility Day is a 24-hour global event dedicated to promoting and learning website accessibility best practices for WordPress websites. There will be a single track of about 24-27 presentations. Attendees can register for free and watch live streams of talks.
📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND
All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies
The cleanup removes inactive or disconnected contributors from Core Component Maintainer and Bug Gardener lists, while adding corresponding GitHub teams with triage-level access to help contributors request reviews, assign labels, and manage pull requests
- WordPress 7.2 is scheduled for release on December 8, 2026: WordPress core committer David Baumwald shared the release party schedule. Earlier Anne McCarthy had shared the Roadmap to 7.2.
- Test scrub schedule for WordPress 7.2: The test scrubs will replace the usual Future Milestone Tickets sessions, focusing on milestone tickets and issues ahead of the release targeted for December 8, 2026. The sessions will take place on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 3:00 PM UTC in the #core-test Slack channel.
- Gutenberg 24.1 brings more consistent design tools to core blocks: The release adds background, color, typography, shadow, border, and text-shadow controls to more core blocks, alongside expanded text-shadow support and new media selection options in the block inspector.
- WordPress Presence API adds post locks, multisite support and AI agent visibility: The recent updates add presence support across post types, recording and privacy controls, improved multisite visibility, and performance changes. Version 0.13.0 also added AI agent presence, while 0.14.0 includes new developer functions and changes to REST presence entries.
- WordPress.org is moving its HelpScout inboxes to FreeScout: The move to a self-hosted FreeScout instance is intended to provide a more scalable solution, allow more of the community to use shared tools, and make inboxes easier to customize. The migration will happen in phases, with Plugins moved last because of its integration with the plugin directory code, while WordPress.org SSO will give existing HelpScout users automatic access.
- The Experimental WooCommerce Dual API is now a plugin: WooCommerce 11.2 is moving the experimental Dual API engine out of core and into a dedicated plugin, allowing developers to receive updates independently of WooCommerce releases. The change also removes the proof-of-concept product and coupon endpoints, while the Dual API remains experimental and is not recommended for production extensions.
- Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (September 21, 2026 to September 27, 2026): There were 319 vulnerabilities disclosed in 222 plugins.
- Varun Dubey, founder of Wbcom Designs, shared his experience cleaning 60+ WordPress installs and revealed why malware can keep coming back: A fully infected WHM/cPanel server with 22 cPanel accounts and more than 60 WordPress installs kept getting reinfected even after file-level scans reported the sites clean. The cleanup tackled the persistence layers first, removing malicious must-use plugins, drop-ins, database payloads, cron hooks, rogue admin accounts, theme and .htaccess injections, and an unauthorized SSH key before removing the visible malware. Files and database rows were archived before removal, destructive actions required confirmation, and the sites were rescanned hours later to make sure the infection did not return.
🔧 TIP OF THE WEEK
Use wp_enqueue_block_style() for Block CSS
For block-based themes, WordPress provides a dedicated API:
wp_enqueue_block_style(
‘acf/testimonial’,
[
‘handle’ => ‘testimonial-style’,
‘src’ => get_theme_file_uri(‘/assets/css/testimonial.css’),
]
);
This gives you a cleaner relationship between:
Block → Block CSS
instead of treating every stylesheet as a global theme asset.
👥 COMMUNITY NEWS
Updates and News from the WordPress Community
The call is open to everyone, regardless of design experience, with submissions open from October 6 to December 8, 2026. Designs should reflect Penang’s culture and the spirit of WordCamp Asia 2027, with references including Malaysia’s Malay, Chinese and Indian art forms and Peranakan influences. The winning Wapuu will be announced on January 9, 2027.
- WooCommerce Store Defect Study 2026 by NorthDuty: In a September 2026 sample of 100 agency-portfolio WooCommerce stores, NorthDuty found five with a reproducible public Store API or TLS defect and ten more whose menu, footer, cart or product links led to a missing page. All 15 homepages loaded normally.
- WordPress Developer Security Benchmark 2026 Report: This report looks specifically at 91 developers who took part in the wider 2026 WordPress Security Survey, examining their security concerns, incident experiences, security controls, monitoring practices, and recovery planning. It found that 80% had experienced at least one security incident, while 69.4% of developers with a past incident did not report having a current breach recovery plan.
- GoDaddy receives takeover offer from maker of Norton antivirus software: Gen Digital, the maker of Norton 360, has made an early-stage takeover offer for GoDaddy as it looks to expand beyond cybersecurity and privacy technology. The proposed deal would give Gen Digital access to GoDaddy’s more than 20 million customers and 81 million registered domains. A class-action lawsuit is pending against GoDaddy, with the complaint alleging that the company misled investors about its customer growth strategy and failed to disclose the impact of $4.99 one-year .com domain promotions on upfront bookings and near-term revenue.
- Community members have started pushing their creations to Spacefast: Porkbun and Mauro Pereira have released their games on the platform.
- Adam W. Warner is exploring what comes next: After eight years at GoDaddy, Warner is exploring new opportunities and challenges while giving his side projects room to grow. His background includes field marketing, events, community, partner marketing, relationship building, growth, and pipeline.
- Nick Diego announces his return to Automattic after eight months away: After leaving the company in February to focus on AI and personal projects, Diego says he is returning to work on how WordPress evolves alongside AI and will contribute to the Meta, Core AI, and Core teams.
- Matt Cromwell says new free plugins should ask for support tickets instead of reviews: He says support tickets are the metric that matters for a new free plugin and recommends building a community before launching on the Plugin Directory. Community members joined the discussion, with Maria Ansari, Anita, Per Søderlind and Rob Cairns sharing their views. Cromwell also asked whether WordPress is moving toward an enterprise-first future as AI and static site generators take over simpler content websites. He questioned whether WordPress could leave bloggers and simple content sites behind in favor of larger sites such as The New York Times and Disney, while noting that this was a thought exercise rather than his current opinion.
- Admire The Web asks what to build a new brochure site with tomorrow if WordPress is dead: They asked what to use for a site with multiple content types for a client, with Jainam Patel, Katie Keith, Dave Grey and David Michael joining the discussion with suggestions including WordPress with custom fields, Looops.ai and Astro 7.
- Maciej Bis asks how plugin developers should handle refund requests made nearly a year after purchase: After receiving a refund request from a customer who purchased a one-year Permalink Manager Pro license in November 2025, Bis asks how others would handle a request made 11 months later, noting that Paddle does not allow him to issue a refund. Vincent Josse suggests refusing the refund or offering only 1/12 of the purchase price, while Anita argues that a customer should not reasonably expect a refund after using the license for most of its term.
- Blake Whittle on whether free plans should require a credit card: The poll received 76.7% of votes against requiring a card. Community members Zachery Mimbs, Andrew Hoyer, and Katie Keith shared their views, with Mimbs arguing that requiring a card can undermine trust, Hoyer noting that companies may do it because users can forget to cancel before being charged, and Keith saying credit cards should be required for free trials but not free plans.
- Brad Vincent says FooPlugins needs to change how it builds and sells plugins: With FooGallery at more than 100,000 active installs and paying most of FooPlugins’ bills, Vincent says the company cannot keep doing things the old way as AI makes it easier to build competing plugins. His approach is to “build the things a prompt can’t,” from a high-performance gallery plugin and cloud-backed services to agency bundles, fast support, and products built for AI agents such as FooPixel. He says he has “no idea yet” whether it will be enough.
- Paul Charlton of WPTuts says EmDash needs to improve its installation process: He says manually editing config files to log in is not a good experience. EmDash maintainer Kevin Kyburz responded that a recent security fix introduced a site URL requirement that the Cloudflare deployment process does not ask for, and said fixes are being worked on for that issue and a similar problem with passkeys when moving to a custom domain.
- David Pérez highlights a record week for new WordPress plugin submissions: The team received 1,021 new plugin submissions in a single week, compared with 254 during the same week a year earlier.
- Imran Siddiq says creating WordPress plugins is becoming easy, but maintaining them is the real challenge: With more than 1,000 WordPress plugin submissions in a single week and thousands still waiting in the review queue, he points to a responsibility that can be easy to overlook as AI makes plugin development simpler. Authors still need to respond to reviewers, fix bugs, support users, release updates, address security issues, and maintain their plugins for years, raising the question of how many new plugin creators have considered that responsibility.
- New milestone for Xspeedcache: The plugin now has over 10,000+ active installations.
- Andrew Palmer announces the closure of Bertha AI: The AI product is shutting down immediately due to rapid innovation across the AI landscape, with all licenses rescinded and refunds being arranged for its 13 paying customers.
- Modular DS launches an MCP server and public API: The MCP server lets users manage their WordPress sites through AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor, with more than 100 tools for tasks including site management, updates, backups, uptime checks, and vulnerability monitoring. The public API enables agencies, development teams, and hosting providers to integrate Modular DS with their own applications and automation workflows. Both are available in beta on all Modular DS plans through the end of 2026.
- Gutenslider 7 introduces 26 new effects, video slides from links and a new lightbox: The update adds a new editor, a faster front end without jQuery, more slide layout options, and several features that were previously available only in Pro. It also introduces a new lightbox, video slides from YouTube, playlists and video files, and improved performance, with mobile Lighthouse scores increasing from 66–88 to 95–99.
- Infinite Uploads 3.4 lets AI agents set up and manage your WordPress media library: The new release lets AI agents connect Infinite Uploads, scan and sync media to the cloud, organize files into folders, upload new media, and manage existing files through the WordPress Abilities API.
- Gato GraphQL adds a new extension for FluentCart: The new extension lets users fetch and write FluentCart data through Gato GraphQL, covering products, orders, customers, subscriptions, coupons, shipping, tax configuration, and other store data. It supports filtering, sorting, pagination, nested relationships, mutations, and GraphQL enums, while also exposing FluentCart Pro licensing and inventory data when the Pro plugin is installed.
- Novamira Pro adds Ghost Mode for hiding Novamira from client administrators: Ghost Mode lets agencies run Novamira on client sites while hiding its menu, admin bar entry, notices, and plugin and update screen entries from selected administrators. Agencies can choose which administrators can still see Novamira, manage the setting through the dashboard or WP-CLI, and receive update notices for themselves, while Ghost Mode remains a visibility feature rather than a security control.
- FluentCart brings product reviews to Elementor with six new widgets: Elementor Blocks for FluentCart 1.1.0 brings FluentCart’s product reviews to Elementor with six review widgets, eleven review layouts, and controls for individual review card elements. It also adds options for lists, sliders, photos, filters, and ratings, along with ratings for shop cards and more control over bundled templates, which are no longer overwritten by plugin updates.
- Desktop Mode becomes OpenStation, bringing your WordPress site into one workspace: OpenStation, formerly Desktop Mode, lets WordPress users keep posts, media, pages, and other WP Admin screens open side by side in the same browser tab, with live previews, persistent windows, and separate workspaces. The new name reflects the plugin’s growth beyond a simple mode, while also making it easier to distinguish from the desktop mode setting found in mobile browsers.
- Reaktiv makes its sustainability commitment official with science-based emissions targets: Reaktiv has committed to reducing absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 from a 2024 base year, while also measuring and reducing Scope 3 emissions. The agency has partnered with RyeStrategy to calculate its carbon footprint, implement mitigation strategies, and support its climate goals, with its near-term emissions reduction targets officially approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.
🚀 NEW PROJECTS
| “I got tired of WordPress REST API slow response times specially on shared hosts that did not always respect rules and conditions already applied, even with custom endpoints.” Sébastien Dumont about creating Frosty Cache. |
- Frosty Cache: A REST API caching plugin by Sébastien Dumont that stores them as static JSON files and serves them before the database even loads.
- MCP Adapter: The plugin, developed by the WordPress.org AI Team as part of AI Building Blocks for WordPress, exposes WordPress abilities as Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools, resources, and prompts for AI agents.
- Repile: Created by Riza, this is an AI technical support tool that clones a customer’s WordPress site into a private sandbox, reproduces reported issues, checks the code to identify the cause, and drafts a response for the support team to review and send.
- NiroHelp: An AI-native WordPress help desk that combines a knowledge base, ticketing, and AI features in one plugin. It can answer tickets and chatbot questions from your documentation, while unanswered tickets are left for the support team.
- ZenApp Builder: Developed by kodezen, lets users turn WordPress sites into native mobile apps without coding, using a drag-and-drop builder to customize screens, preview changes on a phone, and publish to the App Store and Google Play.
- Quill: A native macOS app for writing and managing WordPress content developed by Chris Poteet.
- Bitnary Preorder Dates for WooCommerce: The plugin by Davi Souto adds pre-order functionality to products and variations, with separate cutoff and release dates. It allows stores to control when pre-orders open and close, display pre-order details to customers, and automatically return products to their normal status after release.
- Sitemap Inspector: A free Chrome extension by Joost de Valk for browsing and checking XML sitemaps
🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS
More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss
- In this episode of Seriously, Bud?, Charleen Mullenweg (sister of Matt Mullenweg) makes her first-ever podcast appearance and talks with Bud Kraus about her family history, genealogy work, crafts, travel, and WordPress community. They also discuss her interest in building an AI wiki for genealogy.
- This episode of The WP Minute brings together Alex Panagis, Brian Coords, Andy Peatling, and Mike McAlister to discuss how AI agents can use WordPress, why WordPress is not always recommended when agents are asked to build websites, and what agents need from the platform.
- Rob Pugh and Tony Arcangelini join WP Tavern Jukebox to discuss Jetpack’s new podcasting features, bringing podcasting, newsletters, blogs, and other content together on WordPress while keeping data ownership. They also cover podcast distribution, Pocket Casts, Jetpack AI, and the flexibility of building a show on WordPress.
- Steve Burge speaks with Jason Cohen on the PublishPress Podcast about his new book, Hidden Multipliers, and its approach to pricing, customer research, profitability, and business strategy. They discuss pricing in the WordPress market, customer profitability, validating business assumptions, and how founders can improve their businesses using their existing teams and resources.
- Robert Abela spoke with Milana Cap on The Melapress Show about making documentation part of the development process, how the WordPress Documentation Team handles release documentation, and where AI can help. They also discuss Milana’s Doc2Me project and its approach to documentation.
- Katie Keith shares Barn2’s six-week test of ChatGPT ads, which spent $477 and generated 370 clicks but no conversions or revenue. She argues that poor targeting and limited ad reporting made the ads ineffective for the company’s niche products.
- Satyam Vishwakarma shares his WordPress journey, from his early blogging experiences and learning WordPress to contributing to the community, attending WordCamps, and building his own projects. He also reflects on the people who supported him and the sense of belonging he found through the WordPress community.
- Karol K tested seven popular WordPress image optimization plugins, comparing how they handle JPG and PNG images, page size, and load times.
- Varun Dubey details the move of five WordPress sites to EmDash CMS, with four migrated before EmDash 1.0 and the fifth on the day of its release. He covers the upgrade to 1.0.1, including slower uncached pages that were improved after D1 read replication was enabled, and explains why EmDash is considered a strong fit for content and lead-generation sites while communities, stores, course platforms, and membership sites remain on WordPress.
- WP DEV DESK looks at why more WordPress agencies are considering Breakdance for long-term client sites, covering its performance, smaller plugin stack, global design controls, client-friendly editing, WooCommerce customization, and flexibility for developers.
- Russell Aaron on how WordPress plugin pricing is changing as buyers increasingly compare paid plugins with what they can build themselves using AI. He argues that plugins need to provide clear value, work on first install, avoid unnecessary features and discounts, and offer functionality that cannot be easily replicated with a simple AI-generated snippet.
- Sé Reed examined how U.S. labor law could apply to open source contributors whose volunteer work is structured, directed, and financially beneficial to for-profit companies. She looks at the Fair Labor Standards Act, how it distinguishes volunteer work from employment, and why contributors doing structured work for a for-profit enterprise may need to consider their legal classification.
- Deepak highlighted how he built a complete WordPress site using native blocks and Claude in a single conversation, without using wp-admin, a page builder, or editing theme files.
- Brian Coords examines how WordPress can approach AI from a product and marketing perspective, focusing on the Abilities API, MCP, the WordPress ecosystem, and how AI-related tools are presented on WordPress.org.
🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE
Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle
- How to improve your cookie consent rate (and why It decides your attribution): From Conversion Bridge
- How to add a custom email address to your domain: From WordPress.com
📆 SAVE THE DATES
Do not miss a WordPress event ever again
- WordPress Accessibility Day 2026 on October 7th-8th: Interested folks can apply to be part of the Translation Team, and the schedule is now out. Sponsor applications are now open.
- WordPress Day for AI Faro 2026 on October 24: The call for sponsors is open, and tickets are available.
- WP Suomi 2026 on October 16: The call for sponsors is now open, and the tickets are now available. The schedule has been published.
- Cloudflare Connect 2026 on Oct 19 – 21: Registration is now open.
- The Page Builder Summit 2026 on 2 – 6 November: Interested folks can join the waitlist now.
- WordCamp Canada 2026 on November 5-6: The call for sponsors is now open. The Contributor Day tickets are now available and the schedule has been published.
- WordCamp Manchester 2026 on November 6: The tickets are now available.
- CloudFest Americas on Nov 11-12, 2026: The tickets are now available.
- CMS Conf 2026 on 12-14 November: The tickets are now available.
- WordCamp Bengaluru 2026 on Nov 21-22: The call for sponsors, volunteers and Table Leads is now open, and this year’s theme is WordPress and AI. The tickets are now available.
- Enqueue 2026 on Dec 09: The early bird tickets are now available, and the call for speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Athens 2026 on 11-12 December: The call for sponsors, speakers, and media partners is now open.
- WordCamp Delhi 2026 on 12-13 Dec: The call for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers is now open, and the Conference Day Tentative Schedule is now available.
- WordCamp Mumbai 2027 on 13 February: The call for sponsors and speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Switzerland 2027 on 5-6 March: The call for sponsors is now open.
- WordCamp Europe 2027 on 27 – 29 May: The event is in the early planning stages.
- WordCamp Asia 2027 on April 9 – 11: The call for sponsors, volunteers and speakers is now open. The tickets are now available.
🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK
Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!
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- 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
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- 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)
MORE DEALS
- NordVPN Special Offer – Get up to 75% off + 3 extra months on the 2-year plan
- Cloudways limited-time summer offer: 40% off on all hosting plans for 4 months plus unlimited free migrations.
- Up to 50% off on BookingPress plugin
- Up to 50% off on Paid Membership Pro plans.
- Up to $100 OFF Essential Blocks PRO plugin.
- 50% off 3 months on Liquid Web’s Bare Metal server hosting
- 20% off for Constellation plugin
- 28.65% off for the lifetime plan for the Modern Cart for WooCommerce plugin.
- 33% off for the Uncanny Automator plugin.
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by awesome WordPress Companies 🦸♂️🙌
Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇
Automattic has added four new members to its board of directors, including a science-fiction author and a relationship…
Automattic’s Architecture and Open Source Director Anne McCarthy is auctioning off framed WordPress release albums she received for…
WordPress 7.2 is planned for release in early December 2026, with the roadmap outlining updates across security, collaboration,…
I’m comfortable with WordPress and can handle the usual day-to-day work of managing a site. But when something…
Team WP-CONTENT.CO
Issue #291 | October 6, 2026 | Reading time: 26 mins
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by ProfilePress, HireZoot and AccessMate
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