On a Tuesday?! Well, as it so turns out, yes, on a Tuesday. I’ve been very busy in the past couple of weeks with lots of different things, but a big chunk has been CloudFest.
I spent 3 days at the Hackathon and was invited to speak at the WP [Agency and Business] Summit as well as at the CloudFest event itself. Both talks were about Performance and how we’re too tunneled into just one aspect of performance. I’ll publish a video on that shortly
That’s, btw, also where you can find
Anyway, lots to cover for this edition. Hope you enjoy it!
🗞️ Within WordPress News
Here’s what I saw happening this past week:
- WordPress 7.0 is almost here, and as mentioned before, one of the biggest feature it’s going to ship with is the included PHP AI Client. But that client only works if you use an AI Connector plugin alongside it. And those need to be tested thoroughly. Check out the
Call for Testing: Community AI Connector Plugins .
Related:
And related to that article:
It allows you to route AI requests to different provider configurations based on capability. Configure multiple instances of the same AI provider and let AI Router automatically select the right one.
- Brad Vincent of Foo Plugins vibe coded an
MCP WP plugin that allows you to query your Google Search Console and Google Analytics data via Claude. Way cool.
- We all know WordPress’ native search sucks. Matt Cromwell has
started an initiative to improve this and invites you to join!
- WordPress Studio now has an
independently installable CLI . With one command you can install WordPress locally: npm install -g wp-studio And another to run WordPress locally, no desktop app needed: npx wp-studio
- Local WP
version 10.0.0 was released, and it now integrates Cloud Backups as a native feature.
- If you use AI coding tools such as Claude, Cursor, or VS Code’s AI features, you can now connect them directly to the WordPress.org Plugin Directory.
A new MCP (Model Context Protocol) server lets your AI assistant access plugin guidelines, validate readme files, check submission status, and even submit plugins.
Related docs:
Pressocampus by Nick Hamze stores every AI preference you have in your own WordPress database. Your server. Your file. Forever. Your AI finally remembers you, and you finally own it.
- We’re really seeing AI break through in opening up working with WordPress in many ways, including just the writing part. Keanan Koppenhaver shared
a post in how Claude Code is his new WordPress Editor .
- Very much related to this is Brad Williams from WebDevStudios
demoing how he’s having AI fix meta descriptions and other SEO-related things. Say something like “Scan every post. Find missing SEO titles, meta descriptions, and focus keywords. Fill them all in.”
- Ollie Pro introduces two super sweet features. One is a
video modal , and the other is text wrap styles . I’m sure by now you understand I’m a big fan of Ollie, but with dates and improvements like this, surely you understand why.
- REST Pro Tools was released by Jeff Starr.
REST Pro Tools gives you superpowers to manage and test the WP REST API. Features include one-click disabling of all routes, all /users routes, and the entire REST API itself. And lots more.
- Apparently we’re rethinking the Left Navigation for the WordPress Dashboard. I mean, if you remember, we’ve had top navigation before, will we revert to this?
Have you say !
- WordPress 7.0 will allow for pseudo-element support for Blocks
and their variations in theme.json
- ACF 6.8 integrates with the upcoming AI hookup in 7.0 as well. Version
6.8 brings three powerful features : WordPress Abilities API integration, automatic http://Schema.org structured data, and new WP-CLI commands for managing ACF JSON.
🚀 Performance & Security
- Delicious Brains wrote
The Developer’s Guide to wp_usermeta: Scaling Membership Sites . A good read for everyone dealing with performance issues with membership sites.
- Let’s talk ab
out the brutal truth about WordPress Page Builders and Performance. Because at best, it’s a trade-off!
🔆 Within WordPress Highlight
Haven’t agreed so hard with an article in ages. Johanna Courtright wrote just about what I would write on the topic of “WordPress is dying”. I highly recommend you read her take:
💡 Interesting Finds
- CSS nesting is now Baseline.
Write nested selectors directly in CSS , just like Sass, but natively. - 67 features from PHP 5.4 → 8.5 that genuinely make developers happy. Code examples, version info, the works.
https://haphpiness.com/ - Someone just open-sourced a computer that works when the entire internet goes down. It’s called
Project N.O.M.A.D. , and it’s a self-contained offline survival server with AI, Wikipedia, maps, medical references, and full education courses. - Came across
Jam which is a one-click bug report solution you might like. - Simulation Theory: The Double Slit Experiment proves particles act like waves until observed, then they snap into particles. What if our reality only “renders” when we’re looking,
just like a video game optimizing resources ? - Your brain
treats a physical book like a landscape . It builds a spatial map of the text, the same way it maps trails, rooms, and city blocks. When you scroll on a phone, that map breaks apart.
🛒 WooCommerce News
- We’re going to see lots of AI integrations coming up for WooCommerce. Nik McLaughlin from SkyVerge announced they launched their first foray into Abilities API integration for their
WooCommerce Memberships extension .
- This one is very nice inside of WooCommerce, but Mateusz Zadorożny is asking whether anyone is using RediSearch because he has been experimenting with a custom
SHORTINIT endpoint that skips the full WordPress bootstrap for autocomplete. With that, he is achieving roughly 50–60 ms round-trip times on a $5 VPS .
- Josh Kohlbach shipped
StoreAgent integration with Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce. It allows you to create coupons in natural language. For example, Give me a BOGO deal on all products over $50, expires Friday”… and it just builds the coupon for you.
🔎 Scanfully Updates
That’s it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!
Best, Remkus
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