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Akismet: A small integration detail with a big impact

GiveWP is the most popular fundraising and donation tool on WordPress, powering over $500 million in donations. It integrates with Akismet to ensure that spammy or potentially fraudulent submissions get filtered out. Recently, some Give users saw an unusually high level of false positives on their donation forms: legitimate donation submissions that were being marked as spam. We investigated and found that the donation forms were being sent to Akismet for checking after each step in the donation process: once after choosing an amount, again after the user entered their name, again after they entered an optional message, etc. To Akismet, this looks like sudden repeated submissions from the same user, all with similar content (better known as spam). Akismet supports rechecking content, but only if the integration includes the recheck_reason parameter. If that parameter is present, Akismet knows not to classify the repeated duplicate (or nearly duplicate) checks as part of a spam attack; however, if recheck_reason is omitted, this kind of consecutive similar content looks very similar to spam, and Akismet blocks it. We reported the root issue to Liquid Web, and they quickly addressed it and released a fix in version 4.16.0. This kind of collaboration is what makes Open Source great! We’re planning on bringing automatic integration review to more clients and platforms, so stay tuned for more tips and insights.

WordPress.org blog: WordPress 7.1 Beta 1

WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing! This beta release is intended for testing and development only. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, use a test environment or local site to explore the new features. How to Test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 You can test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 in any of the following ways: WordPress Beta Tester Plugin Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream. Direct Download Download the Beta 1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website. Command Line (WP-CLI) Use this WP-CLI command: wp core update –version=7.1-beta1 WordPress Playground Use a 7.1 Beta 1 WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required-just click and go! The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing! How important is your testing? Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute – whether or not you have experience. Details on what to test in WordPress 7.1 are available here. If you encounter an issue, please share it in the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums. If you are comfortable submitting a reproducible bug report, you can do so via WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against this list of known bugs. Curious about testing releases in general and how to get started? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack. WordPress 7.1 will include new features that were previously only available in the Gutenberg plugin. Learn more about Gutenberg updates since WordPress 7.0 in the What’s New in Gutenberg posts for versions 22.7, 22.8, 22.9, 23.0, 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, 23.4, 23.5 and 23.6. What’s new in WordPress 7.1? WordPress 7.1 delivers a more complete set of styling controls, a smoother media experience, and a more personalized admin experience. Notes have evolved to add inline notes with @mentions and rich text formatting that make asynchronous feedback feel more powerful. New styling features unlock long requested features to style how blocks look across screen sizes and to style interactive states, all without writing custom CSS. Various client side media improvements means better format support, improved performance, and more resilient uploads when adding media to your site. A new inline cropping tool brings a fresh and more robust experience to editing images. Finally, the admin experience becomes easier to navigate with an ever present admin bar in the editors, improvements to the command palette, and various quality of life improvements. Underneath it all, developers get an expanding set of APIs to build on, and site owners get better support for a truly global audience. New suite of Notes features Notes continue to grow into a fuller collaboration experience, making asynchronous feedback between teams faster and more expressive. Text Formatting: Notes now support inline formatting like bold, italic, code, links and adding emoji; each with a respective keyboard shortcut, so feedback reads clearly without breaking your flow. @mentions: Type “@” in a Note to pull up a searchable list of collaborators and tag someone directly, so feedback points at the right person without leaving the sidebar. Leave notes anywhere: Start more than one conversation on the same block instead of folding every comment into a single thread, making it easier to track distinct pieces of feedback. Inline notes: Leave a note on a text selection instead of on an entire block. Show more / show less: Long notes now collapse by default with a toggle to expand them, keeping the margin tidy while you write. Style it your way, on any screen WordPress 7.1 takes a major step toward built-in responsive design and interactive styling, letting you achieve looks that once required writing custom CSS. Responsive styling: Define how a block looks at different screen sizes directly in the editor, for both Global Styles and individual blocks without the need of writing custom CSS. Viewport breakpoint customization: Theme authors can now define their own responsive breakpoints in theme.json, giving more flexibility for how responsive controls behave on a given site. Interactive state styling: Style how blocks respond to interaction, like a button changing color on hover or focus, using a standardized set of controls for both Global Styles and individual block instances. A smoother media experience Uploading, editing, and browsing media keeps getting more capable and more reliable. Client-side media processing: Image and media processing moves into the browser, now with broader format support that includes HEIC (the default format for iPhone photos), UltraHDR, AVIF and WebP support built in, plus GIF-to-video conversion for lighter, more efficient files. Uploads are also more resilient, with a progress indicator and automatic retries if your data connectivity drops off. New Media Editor Modal: A dedicated modal for editing images replaces the inline cropping tool, bringing cropping, rotation, and metadata editing together in one streamlined workflow. Smarter galleries: Gallery blocks can automatically pull in and sort media already attached to the current post, cutting down on manual set-up. View attached images: After you upload images to a post, the inserter will automatically surface them in a new Attached images section to make it easier to find relevant images. Infinite scrolling by default: The Media Library grid view now loads additional items automatically as you scroll, rather than requiring a click on “Load more” especially handy for sites that handle large media libraries. This can be disabled under your user profile. A more personal, more navigable admin These meaningful upgrades make the WordPress admin easier to move around in and more consistent with how you like to work. Persistent toolbar (Omnibar):

WPTavern: #225 – Milan Petrović on the Risks of Legacy PHP in WordPress and Why Upgrading Matters for Security

Transcript [00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the risks of legacy PHP in WordPress and why upgrading matters for security. If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there. So on the podcast today we have Milan Petrović. Milan has been deeply immersed in the WordPress ecosystem since 2007, developing an array of plugins, especially for expanding bbPress forums, and running his own company, creating plugins before joining the Freemius team as a full stack developer. With nearly two decades of hand-on experience, Milan has witnessed firsthand the evolution of both the WordPress and PHP landscapes. Many WordPress users may be only partially aware of PHP. Perhaps they’ve noticed version numbers in their hosting panel, but few of the millions of WordPress users understand the real impact that PHP versions have on the security and performance of their websites. Milan is here to shine a light on why embracing newer versions like PHP eight isn’t just good practise, but a crucial step for security and efficiency. Milan begins by recounting his journey through WordPress development. The conversation gets into the heart of his recent WordCamp Europe presentation, which tackles how legacy PHP code exposes sites to thousands of open bugs and vulnerabilities. And why relying on old versions is, as he describes, an active invitation for automated exploitation. The discussion explores the contrast between running legacy code, and using the native shields of modern PHP, and highlights how PHP 8 not only closes security holes, but also delivers major performance boosts, reducing memory usage, and accelerating speed. If you’re wondering why you should care about the PHP version your site is running on, or you’re a developer interested in practical ways to harden your code, Milan unpacks both the existential risks of outdated PHP, and the step-by-step benefits for hosts, agencies, and plug-in developers alike. He introduces his Vulnerability Lab plugin, designed for developers to see firsthand how code exploits play out differently across PHP versions, and makes the case that modernising can happen gradually, one update, one plugin at a time. If you’ve ever questioned how your hosting choice, or plugin stack, could affect your site’s future. Or you’re ready to take the first steps towards building more secure and future proof WordPress products, this episode is for you. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Milan Petrović. I am joined on the podcast by Milan Petrović. Hello Milan. [00:03:58] Milan Petrović: Hello Nathan. Thank you for having me here. [00:04:00] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. We’re in a beautiful, beautiful media room at WordCamp Europe. And I know that you have already done your presentation because we just had a little chat about the fact that you’ve done it and it went well and all of that. Do you want to tell us a little bit about you and your background working with code and developing and security and all of that kind of stuff? And then we’ll talk about your actual presentation and how it went. [00:04:25] Milan Petrović: So I started with WordPress almost 20 years ago, so way back in 2007. And I created a lot of plugins for WordPress, and I especially have a lot of plugins for bbPress for expanding forums. Yeah, people still use forums these days. So that was, I really like bbPress and all the stuff I did with that. I have been working as a freelancer for a lot of years. I have my own company that was doing plugins, it’s called Dev4Press. But in 2024, I joined the amazing team at Freemius. So for almost two years I am a full stack developer at Freemius. And that was a really nice change of pace for me and the work I usually do before that. So yeah, that’s a short of it. [00:05:13] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. That’s great. Thank you. And so the presentation that you did that is now over, goes like this. I’m going to read the entire blurb because it’s short enough to read, and it says, secure by design, hardening plugins with PHP 8.x. In the WordPress ecosystem, we’re often forced to choose between supporting the lowest common denominator of hosting and implementing modern security. But in 2026, writing legacy PHP 7 code isn’t just a bad habit, it’s an active invitation for automated exploitation. It’s time to stop playing whack-a-mole with sanitisation, and start building products that are secure by design. This talk isn’t just another slide deck on security tips. Through comparisons of a Vulnerability Lab plugin, you will see how common exploits like authentication bypass, and server side request forgery succeed on legacy code, only to be neutralised by the native shields of the latest PHP. You learn how to leverage the modern PHP patterns to ensure your plugins are resilient to a wide range of exploits. Now into the show notes I will put Milan’s wordpress.tv presentation so that you can go and watch the entirety of it. I guess basically if at any point you get confused, that would be a good idea, pause this podcast and go and check that out. But, how did it go? How well received was it? [00:06:33]

WordPress.org blog: Your Guide to WordCamp US 2026

August 16-19, 2026 | Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Arizona WordCamp US 2026 returns for another year, this time in Phoenix, Arizona, for four days, August 16 to 19. It comes at a moment of real energy for WordPress, as artificial intelligence reshapes everyday workflows, the business of building and maintaining sites is shifting, and new people keep discovering the platform every day. Four tracks address this moment, covering AI, Honing Your Skills, Technical WordPress, and Beginner WordPress. Between them, there is something for everyone, whether you lead an agency, freelance for local clients, write code for a living, or are building your very first site. Whatever draws you in, you will leave Phoenix better equipped and better connected than ever. Get Your Tickets Sign Up for Contributor Day Phoenix itself rewards anyone who adds a day or two to their trip. The capital of Arizona sits in the Sonoran Desert and pairs a lively downtown with a rich arts and food scene. The Roosevelt Row arts district is known for its galleries, murals, and independent restaurants. It is also home to one of the largest art walks in the region. Nearby, Chase Field and the Footprint Center host professional baseball and live shows, and the surrounding desert offers striking scenery at places like Papago Park and the Desert Botanical Garden. Start with Contributor Day The week begins with Contributor Day, a full day set aside for giving back to the project that makes everything else possible. Attendees will gather in teams to improve WordPress itself, from Core code and documentation to design, training, accessibility, and translation. WordPress is so unique because we’re not just a product; we’re a movement. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder Contributor Day is open to everyone, whatever your skills, and whether or not you have ever contributed before. Come and experience the open source collaboration that is at the heart of the project. Signing up in advance helps us prepare our veteran contributors and provide you with the best experience. Explore Real-World Projects on Showcase Day Day 2, Showcase Day, is dedicated to real-world WordPress projects and focuses on how teams develop features, manage publishing, and run demanding sites at scale. It brings to life the kind of work collected in the WordPress Showcase, the directory of standout sites built on the platform, from global brands like Disney to community publishers and institutions like NASA. Past WordCamp US Showcase days have brought teams from the likes of Wikimedia and CANCOM to explain how they manage large, high-traffic systems. Other sessions took a builder’s perspective on catching bugs faster with automated testing and even running the Block Editor inside a custom app. Dive Into Two Conference Days The two main conference days will bring a full slate of sessions across four tracks. First among them is the AI track, which treats the technology as a tool to handle with care rather than a headline to chase. Its sessions set guardrails for AI-assisted development, prepare for a web where AI agents become the visitors a site must serve, and weigh the legal and ethical questions of putting AI tools in the hands of clients. Speakers from companies like Elementor will be taking a look at where the web is heading, while keeping the focus on what teams can adopt today without giving up control of their work. The Technical WordPress and Honing Your Skills tracks cover the craft and business of building with WordPress. On the technical side, sessions dig into modern development workflows, automated testing with tools like the browser-based WordPress Playground, and plugin pipelines. The Honing Your Skills track adds practical guidance on pricing, maintenance, and how the agency model is changing as clients ask for more. The Beginner WordPress track keeps the door open for newcomers, with approachable sessions that make your first WordCamp less daunting. Hands-on work runs through all of these tracks, so alongside the talks, attendees will find workshops and working sessions where they can build something real and leave ready to apply it to their own projects. Not all of the value happens in the session rooms. On the show floor, the Happiness Bar is a free, drop-in help desk where you can sit down with a volunteer WordPress expert and work through whatever has you stuck. The Sponsor Hall next door is where many of the best unplanned conversations happen, and its Career Corner gives anyone weighing their next move a relaxed place to browse the job board, meet company reps, and see who is hiring across the ecosystem. Plan Your Trip to Phoenix Getting to Phoenix is straightforward. The Phoenix Convention Center sits in the heart of downtown, less than five miles from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) and about 15 minutes away on the Valley Metro light rail. WordCamp US has a room block at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, close to the convention center, so book your hotel before the block fills, and reserve your ticket if you have not already. The full event lineup and details live on the WordCamp US 2026 site, and the conference closes with an evening social before everyone heads home. Reserve your ticket Find accommodations Plan your trip Explore Phoenix Help Us Spread the Word! Whether attending in person or following along online, share your experience and help welcome others to the WordPress community. Use the #WCUS and #WordPress hashtags to tell your story on social.

Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #132 – Proposals for Core, Calls for Testing, WordPress 7.1 and Gutenberg 23.4 and 23.5

In episode 132 of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast, host Birgit Pauli-Haack and guest Ellen Bauer explore the latest updates within the WordPress ecosystem. The conversation centers on the releases of Gutenberg 23.4 and 23.5, the recent WordPress 7.0.1 maintenance update, and the strategic roadmap for the upcoming WordPress 7.1.A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to major merge proposals destined for WordPress 7.1 that aim to evolve the core software. These include “Core Abilities” for AI agent integration, the new “Knowledge” post type for managing site standards and guidelines, and “Design System Theming” to enhance consistency and accessibility via CSS custom properties. The hosts also discuss the shift toward mandatory iframing for the post editor in block-based themes, a critical architectural change designed to improve content rendering.Beyond core architecture, the episode highlights user-focused improvements such as enhanced responsive editing controls, which now allow for granular canvas resizing without preset limits. They also touch on media-related updates, including aspect ratio controls in the media editor, and improvements to the Icon block. With WordPress 7.1’s Beta 1 approaching, Birgit and Ellen emphasize the importance of community involvement, encouraging developers and site owners to participate in ongoing “Call for Testing” efforts. Whether discussing React 19 status or new grid layout properties, the episode serves as a comprehensive briefing for anyone looking to stay current with the rapidly changing landscape of the block editor and WordPress core development. Show Notes / Transcript Editor: Sandy Reed Logo: Mark Uraine Production: Birgit Pauli-Haack Show Notes Special Guest: Ellen Bauer On X (former Twitter) @ellenbauer WordPress.org Ellen Bauer Bluesky ElmaStudio Previews appearances on the show Gutenberg Changelog #124 – Gutenberg 22.0 and WordPress 6.9 Gutenberg Changelog 117 – WooCommerce Starter Theme and Blocks, WordCamp Europe, and Gutenberg 20.7 and 20.8 Gutenberg Changelog #105 – Gutenberg 18.9, Block Themes and WooCommerce Gutenberg Changelog #88 – WordPress 6.4 and Gutenberg 16.4 and 16.5. Announcements Call for Testing: Responsive Styling Modal Media Editor Client media processing and the Real-time collaboration outreach effort Call for Testing: Unicode email addresses Community Contributions Merge Proposal: Expanding WordPress Core Abilities Merge Proposal: Guidelines built on Knowledge Merge Proposal: Design System Theming What’s released WordPress 7.0.1 WordPress 7.0.1 RC1 WordPress 7.0.1 Fixes Registration Spam, wp_kses() CSS Corruption, and 7.0 Admin Design Glitches Roadmap to 7.1 Post Editor iframed Post editor: always iframe #74042 iframed Editor Changes in WordPress 7.0 (February 2026) Preparing the Post Editor for Full iframe Integration (November 2025) Blocks in an iframed (template) editor (June 2021) Punted from 7.1 The Classic block stays in the inserter for WordPress 7.1 React 19 upgrade temporarily reverted in Gutenberg Gutenberg releases What’s new in Gutenberg 23.4? (June 17, 2026) Docs: Auto-generate per-block API reference pages from block.json. (77612) Proposal: Auto-generate Block Editor Handbook docs from block.json Documentation pages: Core Blocks Reference What’s new in Gutenberg 23.5? (July 1, 2026) Stay in Touch Did you like this episode? Please write us a review Ping us on X (formerly known as Twitter) or send DMs with questions. @gutenbergtimes and @bph. If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com. Please write us a review on iTunes! (Click here to learn how) Transcript Birgit Pauli-Haack: Welcome to our 132nd episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today’s episode, we will talk about proposals for core, calls for testing Gutenberg 23.4, Gutenberg 23.5, and whatever side ideas we have about 7.1, which is in the works. I’m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and a full time core contributor for the WordPress open source project sponsored by Automattic. With me today on the show, and I’m very delighted to tell you that is Ellen Bauer, product manager at WordPress.com and early adopter of block themes. Thank you for joining me, Ellen. How are you today? Ellen Bauer: Thank you very much. Always happy to be here. I’m great. I just landed back in Bangkok this week where we are. I’m staying here a little bit longer with my family this year from Germany, visiting family and attending a meetup. And yeah, it’s good to kind of do that travel because it always inspires me to get out of a routine. And yeah, I’m really glad I’m here now and motivated. Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Ellen Bauer: To get back into working, improving WordPress. Birgit Pauli-Haack: That’s a great time to spend in Germany. And I hope you had luck with the weather. Ellen Bauer: Well, there was this heat wave in the second week. It completely knocked me out, to be honest. Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that was really hard. And a lot of people say that. Ellen Bauer: It was great and went on the last day I went to Legoland for the first time, which was also an experience and exhausting, but great. Birgit Pauli-Haack: That’s here between Munich and Augsburg. Ellen Bauer: Yeah, I think it’s close. Yeah. Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, between my first time. Oh, nice. Yeah, maybe I should go there too. But it is fun. Ellen Bauer: It is fun. Maybe not. I don’t recommend to go in the summer on a Sunday, which we did, but. Oh yeah, that’s actually really fun. Birgit Pauli-Haack: Family day. Yeah. So you mentioned you attended the meetup in Porto. What was your takeaway from the meetup with digital? Ellen Bauer: So it was actually the main reason I came to Europe for it was the first time all products meetup from Automattic in beautiful Portugal for me, also the first time I’ve been to Portugal, which shouldn’t happen to not visit before. But it was really cool. I love Portugal. Really lovely people, beautiful vibe, nice weather. Yeah, it was really relaxing, really a treat. And then very inspiring and motivating to be in the product group for the first time all together in a nice setting and we had amazing conversations. For me, I also got to know my team a little bit

Gutenberg Times: Roadmap 7.1, Gutenberg 23.5, Responsive Styling, Migration to Block themes — Weekend Edition #368

Hi there, After a four-week break — courtesy of a sciatic nerve with strong opinions — I’m happy to be back in by office chair and in your inbox. There is plenty to catch up on. Beyond the updates on the new WordPress and Gutenberg versions, you’ll find stories below from WordPress veterans on migrating to and working with block themes on client sites and dive into more complex theme solutions or Don’t let me keep you from your light summer reading. Have a splendid weekend ahead! Yours, Birgit Developing Gutenberg and WordPress The team around release lead Aaron Jorbin pushed WordPress 7.0.1 Maintenance release out the door to update millions of WordPress sites. The update covers 17 Trac tickets and 14 Gutenberg PRs. The full list is available in the RC 1 announcement post from last week. In WordPress 7.0.1 Fixes Registration Spam, wp_kses() CSS Corruption, and 7.0 Admin Design Glitches, I cover the most important fixes for end users and developers of this release. You’ll learn how the registration-spam loophole got closed, which admin design glitches were sanded off, and why developers can finally remove their wp_kses() CSS workarounds. Update your sites soon if auto-updates aren’t enabled. Ryan Welcher compiled What’s new for developers (July 2026), and it’s all about the 7.1 cycle getting real: Beta 1 lands July 15, final release August 19 at WordCamp US. You’ll want to test responsive styling, the React 19 runtime flag, and Unicode email addresses now. Also on your radar: merge proposals for Core Abilities and Guidelines, the 40px component default, icons inheriting color, and Playground’s MCP support. The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #131 – Gutenberg Plugin Releases 23.1 – 23.3, Calls for Testing for 7.1 and more Berislav “Bero” Grgičak announced what’s new in Gutenberg 23.5, released July 1. The headliner: you can now drag the editor canvas to any width, with the device preview dropdown and resize handles working together for responsive editing. The experimental Media editor gains a magnified crop canvas, pixel-snapping handles, and Cover block support. Also notable: text shadows in Global Styles, flip and rotate controls for the Icon block, and a minimum WordPress version bump to 6.9. For the next episode of the Gutenberg Changelog, I sat down with Ellen Bauer to chat about what’s coming next for WordPress. We dug into the latest Gutenberg plugin releases (23.4 and 23.5) and the recent WordPress 7.1 update. Plus, we walked through some big merge proposal, like the Design System Theming. our excitement around responsive styling coming to WordPress. It’s a packed episode full of news you won’t want to miss! The episode will land in your favorite podcast app over the weekend. WordPress 7.1 roadmap and more calls for testing Anne McCarthy published Roadmap to WordPress 7.1., scheduled for August 19, 2026. Longstanding styling gaps are being tackled: responsive styling and interactive-state styling let you adjust blocks per viewport or on hover — no custom CSS required. You’ll also find new Playlist, Table of Contents, and Tabs blocks, a smarter command palette, a Design → Identity screen, the admin bar inside the editors, a media editor modal, and expanded Unicode support for email addresses. Also mentioned Real-time collaboration, Knowledge Guidelines, React 19 upgrade, Classic block deprecation have been punted since the posts came out. Beta 1 arrives July 15 and will settle which of the other Roadmap features are in and which will be punted to a future release. The latest Weekend Edition listed three calls for testing. Meanwhile, two more came online: Nikunj Hatkar, this year’s team rep of the Core Test team, posted a call for testing responsive styling. You’ll be able to style blocks differently for tablet and mobile right in the editor — no custom CSS or media queries needed. The underlying PR unifies the resizable canvas with the device-preview switcher. Fire up the linked WordPress Playground instance, walk through the four test scenarios, and share what feels intuitive or broken. Plugin and theme developers should test their canvas integrations, too. Dennis Snell published a call for testing Unicode email addresses. With initial support merged, is_email() and sanitize_email() now accepting non-ASCII addresses like grå@grå.org, and validation aligns with the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) spec. You’ll want to check your plugins and themes: the new WP_Email_Address class gives you structured access to local and domain parts, and a snippet lets you disable Unicode support until third-party integrations catch up. Three Merge Proposals Core contributors put together three merge proposal for new features to be added to Core for public comment. Jorge Costa published a merge proposal to expand WordPress Core Abilities in WordPress, adding three read-only abilities covering settings, content, and users. Building on the Abilities API from 6.9, they give the AI Client real tools to call, so agents can understand your site’s configuration, posts, and people. Settings and post types opt in through a dedicated flag, and management abilities are planned for a later WordPress version. Greg Ziółkowski published a merge proposal for Guidelines built on Knowledge, a new custom post type headed for WordPress 7.1. Knowledge gives your site one shared home for standards, memories, and notes — with revisions, capabilities, and REST access built in. Guidelines is the first feature on top, letting you capture voice, tone, and per-block rules right where writing happens. Although, originally aimed at WordPress 7.1, in their latest comment, Anne McCarthy indicated that it needs to simmer some more before it’s considered for inclusion in WordPress Core. Andrew Duthie published a merge proposal for Design System Theming, bringing design tokens and a new theme component to WordPress. Built by the Gutenberg Components Team, it turns hard-coded admin styles into CSS custom properties, so your plugins and screens stay consistent and accessible. A color ramp tool generates harmonious, accessible scales from just two seed colors, and the user color scheme reaches the Site Editor — with dark mode on the horizon. Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and