वर्डप्रेस ने मुझे मेरे ज़िंदगी में कुछ अलग करने का मौक़ा दिया।

Introduction

My name is Satyam Vishwakarma, though most people know me as Satya.

I come from a small village called Mahmadpur, near Fatehpur, the city of Doaba, in Uttar Pradesh, nestled between the sacred Ganga and Yamuna rivers. This is the place I’ve always called home.

I studied Electronics Engineering (Micro) at Government Polytechnic College in Fatehpur. Growing up and studying in a relatively small city, I never had a clear idea of where technology or the internet could take me.

I didn’t discover WordPress with a big career plan. I was simply curious about technology and wanted to help the people around me.

Most of my classmates, including me, came from Hindi-medium schools or the UP Board. A lot of the technical material we found online was either difficult to understand or simply wasn’t written in the kind of simple English we were comfortable with.

At the same time, I was probably one of the more tech-savvy people around me. I loved trying new software, exploring new features, and figuring out how things worked. Whenever I discovered something interesting, I would share it with my WhatsApp groups and classmates.

I didn’t think of that as writing or teaching at the time.

I was simply sharing something I had discovered.

Eventually, I thought: why not put some of this information somewhere that more people could find it?

That small thought became the beginning of my writing career.

Before WordPress, there was Blogger

Some of my earliest opportunities to write online came through people I met on WhatsApp.

I became friends with Mohit Vyas and Arpit Nuwal through one of the technology-focused WhatsApp groups I was part of. They had built a website called TopJankari. It wasn’t running on WordPress. It was a custom-built, dynamic website with its own basic way of managing content, but it was still fairly simple compared with the content management systems I discovered later.

I started writing technology and tips-related content for TopJankari.

For me, this was exciting. I was taking the things I was already experimenting with and turning them into something that other people could actually read and use.

Around the same time, I started experimenting with Blogger.com and began publishing my own technology and tips-related content there.

I wasn’t thinking about becoming a professional writer.

I just enjoyed technology; I enjoyed explaining things, and I liked the idea that something I wrote could help another person solve a problem.

That was enough motivation to keep going.

Then WordPress entered the picture

While I was experimenting with blogging, my brother Shivam (now runs a WordPress design agency called Subhash Digital) built his first website with WordPress.

That caught my attention.

I was already curious about how websites worked, and seeing him build something with WordPress gave me an idea of what was possible. I wanted to try it myself.

Around the same time, my brother Kapil and I started learning WordPress together.

Neither of us really knew what we were doing.

We learned through YouTube videos, documentation, blog posts, and mostly through experimentation.

We would try something, break it, search for why it broke, fix it, and move on to the next thing.

My first WordPress project was EngineersGuru, a place where I could share content related to my Electronics Engineering (Micro) course.

I initially ran it as a subdomain, with the idea of making useful course-related tutorials and information easier for fellow students to understand.

We also started an Android-related blog and Jankari.xyz, a more general website where I could write about pretty much anything I found interesting.

In hindsight, those websites were my playground.

They were where I learned WordPress, writing, SEO, content creation, and the basics of running websites.

I wasn’t following a carefully designed career path. I was just building things because I wanted to see what I could do.

And that curiosity kept taking me somewhere new.

Learning by failing

As I continued blogging, I started learning about SEO, monetization, and affiliate marketing.

I experimented with different kinds of websites and eventually built more than ten blogs while I was still learning.

One of my projects eventually became EYNZone (formerly known as EYNWorld), where I started helping others learn WordPress and other skills and grow their own projects.

There were plenty of failures along the way.

I applied for Google AdSense more than twenty times before I finally stopped guessing and actually studied the guidelines carefully. Eventually, I got a brand-new domain approved with only two articles.

That experience stayed with me.

It taught me that rejection doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t capable.

Sometimes you simply haven’t figured out the problem yet.

That became a recurring theme in my life.

Looking for a career, finding a community

Eventually, I started looking for a full-time job in mid 2022.

That was another learning experience, although not always a pleasant one.

I applied to more than 800 companies and went through around 2,000 job applications.

During that period, I discovered UnderrepresentedInTech through Michelle Frechette. That eventually introduced me to Post Status, where I started meeting more people from the WordPress ecosystem.

Something interesting was happening.

While I was struggling to find where I fit professionally, I was slowly finding a place for myself in WordPress.

I started learning not just about the software, but about the project behind it and the people who were building it.

And then I heard about WordCamp Bhopal.

The WordCamp I almost couldn’t attend

My first WordCamp was WordCamp Bhopal in 2023.

I wanted to go.

I had told people I would go.

There was just one problem: I didn’t have the money to actually make the trip happen.

So I asked for help in the Post Status Slack community.

I still think about what happened next.

People who had never met me in person decided to help. Alan, Jenni, and Corey Maass contributed financially. Michelle, Jeff, and others shared my request, and Ronald (from DLXPlugins) also helped after seeing it.

People I barely knew, or had never met at all, helped me get to an event that I otherwise couldn’t have attended.

I made it to Bhopal.

The journey itself was almost comical. I travelled at the last moment, ended up at the wrong location at night, and then had an entire hotel saga before things finally settled down.

But once I got there, none of that really mattered.

Later at the event, Nabin Jaiswal also helped.

I met people I had previously known only through websites, Slack, and social media.

And then something unexpected happened.

I wanted to go to another WordCamp.

Then another.

That first trip was followed by WordCamp Mumbai, WordCamp Udaipur, where I received a scholarship, and WordCamp Ahmedabad in 2023.

Within a few months, WordPress had gone from something I used on my computer to something I experienced through people.

It had faces now.

Names.

Conversations.

Handshakes.

People asking how I was doing.

And I wanted to give something back.

I didn’t know how much I could contribute

I started with the Marketing team and gradually found my way into other parts of the project: Community, Meetups, Polyglots, Photos, Training, and Core.

In January 2024, I published a public contribution goal for myself.

My #WordPress contribution goals for 2024:
1. Contribute 100 photos
2. Translate 5000 strings
3. Write 5 documentation pieces
4. Organize meetups
5. Attend 8+ WordCamps
6. Make impactful marketing contributions! #OpenSource #WordPressCommunity #2024Goals pic.twitter.com/uLxE0BdYVL

— Satyam Vishwakarma (Satya) (@ask_hellosatya) January 17, 2024

I wanted to contribute 100 photos, translate thousands of strings, work on documentation and training, organize meetups, attend WordCamps, volunteer at events, and make meaningful contributions to marketing.

At the time, it was simply a list of things I wanted to try.

I didn’t know where it would lead.

Within that year, I contributed around 150 photos and translated, reviewed, or suggested around 1,400 strings. I also reviewed Training content, organized my first meetup for WordPress’s 21st birthday, graduated as a mentee in the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program 2nd Cohort for Support and Polyglots, worked on marketing for releases and events, volunteered at multiple events, and eventually led Contributor Day tables.

I also became a Project Manager at do_action Bhopal after starting there as a Content and Social Media Manager.

I also volunteered at PHPCamp 2024, an Un(conference) inspired by the BarCamp format.

Other WordCamp Events I Attended in 2025–2026

I also helped with sponsorships and the overall program progress of WPSimplified’s three-month live WordPress training program, led by Sunil Kumar Sharma, which ran from November 2025 to January 2026.

On paper, those things look like achievements.

But that’s not how I remember them.

I remember sitting in meetings, wondering whether my idea was good enough.

I remember asking questions.

I remember people patiently explaining things.

I remember realizing that I could actually be useful.

And I remember the feeling of seeing something I had worked on become part of something much bigger than me.

That was when contribution started becoming less about “what can I get from WordPress?” and more about “what can I give back?”

The people became the story

The more I contributed, the more people I met.

Some of them became friends.

Some became mentors.

Some simply inspired me by watching how they showed up for the community.

Michelle Frechette has been one of those people for me. So have Topher DeRosia, Isotta Peira, Nidhi Jain, Ganga Kafle, and many others.

What I admire about people like them isn’t just what they have achieved.

It’s the way they make other people feel that there is room for them, too.

That matters when you’re coming from somewhere like Fatehpur and trying to find your place in a global community.

You don’t always need someone to give you an opportunity.

Sometimes you just need someone to make you believe that you are allowed to try.

I’ve been fortunate to have people do that for me.

From contributing to building

By my second year, I started wanting to build things of my own within the WordPress ecosystem.

I volunteered and led the marketing team alongside Emma Young at WordCamp Asia 2025 in Manila.

I started building plugins of my own, with contributions and support from Harish, Bhargav, Makarand Mane, Hitanshu Sahu, and Sajid Ansari.

The first was QuoteFrameShare.

It lets people create and share customizable blockquotes in WordPress.

That project was particularly meaningful to me because writing and poetry have always been a part of who I am. Something that started with me writing technology tutorials for fellow engineering students had now come full circle into something I was building for writers, poets, and storytellers.

The second was Contributor Photo Gallery.

It helps WordPress contributors display their WordPress.org photo contributions as a portfolio without needing to write code.

That one came from another part of my journey: photography and the WordPress Photo Directory.

I liked that both projects solved relatively simple problems, but for communities and people I actually cared about.

I wasn’t just building a plugin because I could.

I was building something because I had an idea and thought it could be useful to someone else.

Not everything went smoothly

My WordPress journey hasn’t been a straight line upward.

There was a period when I became so enthusiastic about contributing that I started trying to do everything.

Every team.

Every opportunity.

Every event.

Every possible contribution.

I was so focused on proving that I could contribute that I wasn’t paying enough attention to everything else in my life.

Eventually, I burned out.

I also learned that community work has its own challenges. Not every experience was positive, and there were moments when I felt overlooked, misunderstood, or discouraged.

Those experiences were difficult, but they also forced me to think about what I actually wanted from contribution.

I realized that I didn’t want to spend my time trying to prove that I belonged.

I wanted to contribute because I cared about the project and the people in it.

That changed how I look at contribution today.

I learned that I didn’t need to be everywhere, collect every badge, or chase the biggest contribution count to prove that I cared.

I needed to find a way of contributing that I could actually sustain.

I also realized I didn’t need to sacrifice my health, livelihood, or peace of mind to prove that I cared.

If you have one hour a week, contribute that hour.

If you have more time, great.

But contribution should be sustainable.

The support that I will never forget

One of the reasons I can talk about the difficult parts honestly is that the positive side of this community has been very real for me too.

People have supported me in ways they didn’t have to.

The help I received to attend my first WordCamp is one example.

Katie at Barn2 later sponsored a couple of my WordCamp trips through the company’s events budget. Makarand nominated me for the Yoast Care Fund, which I was fortunate enough to receive.

The WP Open Community Collective also supported me through a Contributor Day Lead Sponsorship sponsored by GoDaddy.

And there were people who helped in ways that weren’t financial at all.

People gave me their time.

They answered questions.

They recommended me.

They encouraged me when I was uncertain.

Those things can be easy to overlook when you are talking about contribution numbers, but for me, they are the real story.

Because behind every contribution is usually a person.

And behind my contributions are a lot of people who helped me get there.

What WordPress gave me

When I look back at the person who started writing technology tutorials for fellow engineering students, I don’t think he would have imagined any of this.

I didn’t have a conventional path into technology.

I didn’t study computer science.

I learned WordPress by building things, breaking things, and figuring them out.

And somehow, that was enough to get started.

WordPress helped me develop skills in technology, content, SEO, marketing, product building, and community.

It gave me opportunities to work with people around the world.

It took me to WordCamps that I once couldn’t afford to attend.

It helped me build open-source products.

But those aren’t the things I value most.

The biggest thing WordPress gave me was people.

That’s why the word ‘belonging’ feels more appropriate to me than ‘success.’

I came to WordPress to build websites.

Somewhere along the way, WordPress helped me build a community around me.

I am still figuring it out

I still don’t know exactly where WordPress will take me.

I want to keep building products.

I want to grow further in the marketing and product side of my career.

I want to explore more around partnerships and community.

And one day, I’d love to co-lead a WordPress release.

But I don’t want to chase these things just for a title or a badge.

I want to build things that are genuinely useful.

I want to become better at what I do.

I want to help people who are where I was a few years ago.

And I want to be the kind of person who, when someone remembers their first steps into WordPress, they can say: “Satya helped me get started.”

That would mean more to me than any badge.

Because that’s what happened to me.

People helped me get started.

People made space for me.

People encouraged me.

People believed I could contribute before I was completely sure myself.

So if someone reading this is just starting their WordPress journey, my advice is simple:

Start small. Ask questions. Find something you enjoy. Contribute consistently, but within your capacity.

You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin.

I certainly didn’t.

I started writing because I wanted to make complicated things easier for my classmates.

I started blogging because I was curious about technology.

I started using WordPress because my brother showed me what was possible.

I kept learning because there was always something new to discover.

And eventually, I started contributing because I wanted to give something back.

But somewhere along the way, something else happened.

I found people.

I found opportunities.

I found a community.

And I found a place where I could keep learning, contributing, and becoming a little better than I was before.

I came to WordPress to build websites.

Somewhere along the way, WordPress helped me build a community around me.

And maybe that’s what this journey has really been about.

From blogging to belonging.

Blogging से Belonging तक: मेरी WordPress Journey

शुरुआत

मेरा नाम सत्यम विश्वकर्मा है, हालांकि ज़्यादातर लोग मुझे सत्या के नाम से जानते हैं।

मैं महमदपुर नाम के एक छोटे से गाँव से आता हूँ, जो उत्तर प्रदेश के फतेहपुर, दोआब के शहर, के पास है और गंगा और यमुना नदियों के बीच बसा है। यह जगह हमेशा से मुझे अपना घर लगी है।

मैंने फतेहपुर के Government Polytechnic College से Electronics Engineering (Micro) की पढ़ाई की। एक छोटे शहर में बड़े होते और पढ़ते हुए मुझे कभी ठीक से अंदाज़ा नहीं था कि technology या internet मुझे कहाँ तक ले जा सकते हैं।

मैं WordPress तक किसी बड़े career plan के साथ नहीं पहुँचा था। मैं बस technology को लेकर उत्सुक था और अपने आसपास के लोगों की मदद करना चाहता था।

मेरे ज़्यादातर classmates, मेरी तरह, Hindi-medium schools या UP Board से पढ़े हुए थे।

हमें इंटरनेट पर मिलने वाली बहुत-सी technical सामग्री या तो समझना मुश्किल होती थी या फिर वह उस तरह की आसान English में नहीं होती थी, जिसे हम सहजता से समझ सकें।

साथ ही, मैं शायद अपने आसपास के लोगों में technology को लेकर थोड़ा ज़्यादा curious था।

मुझे नया software आज़माना, नए features explore करना और यह समझना बहुत पसंद था कि चीज़ें कैसे काम करती हैं।

जब भी मुझे कुछ interesting मिलता, मैं उसे अपने WhatsApp groups और classmates के साथ share करता था।

उस समय मैंने इसे writing या teaching के तौर पर नहीं देखा था।

मैं बस वही share कर रहा था जो मैंने खुद discover किया था।

फिर एक दिन मन में आया:

क्यों न इस information को कहीं ऐसी जगह रखा जाए, जहाँ इसे और लोग भी ढूँढ सकें?

वही छोटी-सी सोच मेरी writing journey की शुरुआत बन गई।

WordPress से पहले Blogger था

Online लिखने के मेरे शुरुआती मौकों में से कुछ मुझे WhatsApp पर मिले लोगों की वजह से मिले।

मैं technology से जुड़े एक WhatsApp group के ज़रिए Mohit Vyas और Arpit Nawal से online मिला। उन्होंने TopJankari नाम की website बनाई थी।

वह WordPress पर नहीं चलती थी। वह एक custom-built, dynamic website थी, जिसमें content manage करने का अपना basic system था। बाद में मुझे जिन content management systems के बारे में पता चला, उनकी तुलना में वह काफी simple थी।

मैंने TopJankari के लिए technology और tips से जुड़ा content लिखना शुरू किया।

मेरे लिए यह बहुत exciting था।

जिन चीज़ों को मैं खुद आज़मा रहा था, उन्हें मैं अब इस तरह लिख रहा था कि कोई दूसरा भी उन्हें पढ़कर इस्तेमाल कर सके।

उसी दौरान मैंने Blogger.com के साथ भी experiment करना शुरू किया और वहाँ अपना technology और tips-related content publish करने लगा।

उस समय मैं professional writer बनने के बारे में नहीं सोच रहा था।

मुझे बस technology पसंद थी। मुझे चीज़ों को समझाना पसंद था। और मुझे यह विचार अच्छा लगता था कि मेरे द्वारा लिखी गई कोई चीज़ किसी दूसरे व्यक्ति की समस्या हल करने में मदद कर सकती है।

मेरे लिए इतना ही काफी था आगे बढ़ते रहने के लिए।

फिर WordPress मेरी कहानी में आया

जब मैं blogging के साथ experiment कर रहा था, मेरे भाई Shivam ने उस समय तक WordPress पर अपनी पहली website बना ली थी।

इसने मेरा ध्यान खींचा।

मैं पहले से ही websites के काम करने के तरीके को लेकर curious था।

उनको WordPress के साथ कुछ बनाते हुए देखकर मुझे पहली बार अंदाज़ा हुआ कि इसके साथ क्या-क्या बनाया जा सकता है।

मैं भी इसे आज़माना चाहता था।

उसी दौरान मेरे भाई Kapil और मैंने साथ मिलकर WordPress सीखना शुरू किया।

हम दोनों को वास्तव में कुछ खास पता नहीं था।

हमने YouTube videos, documentation, blog posts और सबसे ज़्यादा experimentation के ज़रिए सीखा।

हम कुछ try करते, उसे तोड़ देते, फिर search करते कि वह क्यों टूटा, उसे ठीक करते और फिर अगली चीज़ पर बढ़ जाते।

मेरा पहला WordPress project EngineersGuru था। वहाँ मैं अपनी Electronics Engineering (Micro) की पढ़ाई से जुड़ा content शेयर (publish) करता था।

शुरुआत में मैंने इसे एक subdomain के रूप में चलाया। मेरा उद्देश्य था कि मेरे fellow students के लिए course से जुड़ी tutorials और useful information को समझना थोड़ा आसान हो सके।

हमने एक Android-related blog भी शुरू किया और Jankari.xyz भी, जो एक ऐसी general website थी जहाँ मैं लगभग किसी भी ऐसी चीज़ के बारे में लिख सकता था जो मुझे interesting लगती थी।

आज पीछे मुड़कर देखता हूँ तो ये websites मेरे लिए एक playground थीं।

यहीं मैंने WordPress, writing, SEO, content creation और websites चलाने की basic बातें सीखीं।

मैं किसी carefully planned career path पर नहीं चल रहा था।

मैं बस चीज़ें बना रहा था, क्योंकि मैं देखना चाहता था कि मैं क्या कर सकता हूँ।

और मेरी वही curiosity मुझे लगातार कहीं न कहीं आगे ले जाती रही।

गलतियों से सीखना

जैसे-जैसे blogging आगे बढ़ी, मैंने SEO, monetization और affiliate marketing के बारे में सीखना शुरू किया।

मैंने अलग-अलग तरह की websites के साथ experiment किया और सीखते-सीखते दस से ज़्यादा blogs बनाए।

मेरे इन्हीं projects में से एक आगे चलकर EYNZone बना, जिसे पहले EYNWorld के नाम से जाना जाता था। वहाँ मैंने दूसरे लोगों को WordPress और दूसरी skills सीखाने और अपने projects को grow करने में मदद करना शुरू किया।

इस रास्ते में बहुत सारी असफलताएँ भी आईं।

मैंने Google AdSense के लिए बीस से ज़्यादा बार apply किया, और हर बार कुछ न कुछ गलत हो जाता था। आखिरकार मैंने सिर्फ अंदाज़ा लगाना बंद किया और guidelines को सही से पढ़ना और समझना शुरू किया।

आखिर में एक बिल्कुल नए domain पर सिर्फ दो articles के साथ मेरा AdSense approve हो गया।

उस अनुभव का असर मुझ पर रह गया।

इसने मुझे सिखाया कि rejection का मतलब हमेशा यह नहीं होता कि आप capable नहीं हैं।

कभी-कभी इसका मतलब सिर्फ इतना होता है कि आपने अभी तक समस्या को समझा नहीं है।

मेरी ज़िंदगी में यह बात बार-बार सामने आती रही।

Career की तलाश में निकला था, Community मिल गई

आखिरकार, 2022 के बीच में मैंने full-time नौकरी की तलाश शुरू की।

वह भी अपने आप में एक learning experience था, हालांकि हमेशा अच्छा नहीं था।

मैंने 800 से ज़्यादा companies में apply किया और करीब 2,000 job applications के process से गुज़रा।

इसी दौरान मुझे Michelle Frechette के ज़रिए UnderrepresentedInTech के बारे में पता चला। वहाँ से आगे मुझे Post Status से जुड़ने का मौका मिला, जहाँ मैंने WordPress ecosystem के और लोगों से मिलना शुरू किया।

कुछ interesting हो रहा था।

जहाँ मैं यह समझने की कोशिश कर रहा था कि professionally मेरी जगह कहाँ है, वहीं धीरे-धीरे WordPress में मुझे अपनी जगह मिल रही थी।

मैं सिर्फ software के बारे में नहीं सीख रहा था।

मैं उस project के बारे में सीख रहा था जो software के पीछे था, और उन लोगों के बारे में भी जो उसे बनाने में मदद कर रहे थे।

और फिर मैंने WordCamp Bhopal के बारे में सुना।

वह WordCamp जिसे मैं लगभग attend नहीं कर पाता

मेरा पहला WordCamp, WordCamp Bhopal 2023 था।

मैं जाना चाहता था।

मैंने लोगों से कह भी दिया था कि मैं जाऊँगा।

बस एक समस्या थी।

मेरे पास उस trip के लिए पैसे नहीं थे।

इसलिए मैंने Post Status Slack community में मदद माँगी।

आज भी मैं सोचता हूँ कि उसके बाद क्या हुआ था।

जिन लोगों ने मुझे कभी सामने से देखा तक नहीं था, उन्होंने मेरी मदद करने का फैसला किया।

Alan, Jenni और Corey Maass ने financially मदद की। Michelle, Jeff और दूसरे लोगों ने मेरी request को share किया। Ronald, जो DLXPlugins से हैं, उन्होंने भी इसे देखकर मदद की।

जिन लोगों को मैं मुश्किल से जानता था, या शायद कभी मिला ही नहीं था, उन्होंने मुझे उस event तक पहुँचने में मदद की जहाँ मैं अपने दम पर नहीं जा सकता था।

मैं Bhopal पहुँच गया।

और वह सफ़र अपने आप में काफ़ी उलझनों से भरा था।

मैंने आखिरी समय में यात्रा शुरू की, रात में गलत जगह पहुँच गया और फिर होटल को लेकर एक अलग ही किस्सा शुरू हो गया। आखिरकार, किसी तरह सब ठीक हुआ।

लेकिन जब मैं वहाँ पहुँच गया, तो इनमें से किसी चीज़ की उतनी importance नहीं रही।

Event के दौरान Nabin Jaiswal ने भी मेरी मदद की।

मैं उन लोगों से मिला जिन्हें अब तक सिर्फ websites, Email, Slack और social media के ज़रिए जानता था।

और फिर कुछ unexpected हुआ।

मेरा मन हुआ कि मैं एक और WordCamp में जाऊँ।

फिर एक और।

उस पहली trip के बाद WordCamp Mumbai, WordCamp Udaipur, जहाँ मुझे scholarship मिली, और WordCamp Ahmedabad आए।

कुछ ही महीनों में WordPress मेरे लिए computer पर इस्तेमाल की जाने वाली किसी चीज़ से बदलकर लोगों के ज़रिए अनुभव की जाने वाली चीज़ बन गया था।

अब उसके चेहरे थे।

नाम थे।

बातचीत थी।

हाथ मिलाना था।

लोग पूछते थे कि मैं कैसा हूँ।

और मेरा मन हुआ कि अब मुझे भी कुछ वापस देना चाहिए।

मुझे नहीं पता था कि मैं कितना contribute कर सकता हूँ

मैंने शुरुआत Marketing team से की और धीरे-धीरे WordPress project के दूसरे हिस्सों तक पहुँचता गया: Community, Meetups, Polyglots, Photos, Training और Core।

जनवरी 2024 में मैंने अपने लिए एक public contribution लक्ष्य बनाया।

मैं 100 photos contribute करना चाहता था, हजारों strings translate करना चाहता था, documentation और training पर काम करना चाहता था, meetups organize करना चाहता था, WordCamps attend करना चाहता था, events में volunteer करना चाहता था और marketing में meaningful contributions देना चाहता था।

उस समय यह बस उन चीज़ों की एक list थी जिन्हें मैं try करना चाहता था।

मुझे नहीं पता था कि यह मुझे कहाँ ले जाएगी।

उस साल मैंने करीब 150 photos contribute कीं और लगभग 1,400 strings को translate, review या suggest किया। मैंने Training content भी review किया, WordPress के 21st birthday के लिए अपना पहला meetup organize किया, releases और events के marketing पर काम किया, कई events में volunteer किया और Contributor Days में tables भी lead करने लगा।

मैं do_action Bhopal में Content and Social Media Manager के लिए चुना गया और बाद में Project Manager बना दिया गया।

कागज़ पर देखें तो ये सब achievements लगती हैं।

लेकिन मुझे ये इस तरह याद नहीं हैं।

मुझे meetings याद हैं, जहाँ मैं सोचता था कि मेरा idea सही भी है या नहीं।

मुझे अपने सवाल पूछना याद है।

मुझे याद है कि लोग धैर्य से चीज़ें समझाते थे।

मुझे याद है वह एहसास जब मुझे पहली बार लगा कि मैं वास्तव में useful हो सकता हूँ।

और मुझे वह feeling याद है जब मेरे काम की कोई छोटी-सी चीज़ मेरे से कहीं बड़ी किसी चीज़ का हिस्सा बन गई।

शायद वहीं से contribution मेरे लिए बदलना शुरू हुआ।

यह सवाल कम होने लगा कि:

“मुझे WordPress से क्या मिल सकता है?”

और उसकी जगह एक दूसरा सवाल आने लगा:

“मैं WordPress को क्या दे सकता हूँ?”

कहानी में लोग आने लगे

जितना मैं contribute करता गया, उतने ही ज़्यादा लोगों से मिलता गया।

कुछ दोस्त बन गए।

कुछ mentors बन गए।

कुछ ऐसे लोग थे जिन्होंने बस community में जिस तरह अपनी जगह बनाई और दूसरों के लिए मौजूद रहे, उससे मुझे inspiration मिली।

Michelle Frechette मेरे लिए ऐसे ही लोगों में से एक रही हैं। उनके साथ Topher DeRosia, Isotta Peira, Nidhi Jain, Ganga Kafle, और कई दूसरे लोग भी हैं।

मैं इन लोगों से सिर्फ इसलिए प्रभावित नहीं हूँ कि उन्होंने क्या हासिल किया है।

बल्कि इसलिए कि वे दूसरों को यह महसूस कराते हैं कि उनके लिए भी जगह है।

जब आप Fatehpur जैसी जगह से आते हैं और एक global community में अपनी जगह बनाने की कोशिश करते हैं, तो यह बहुत मायने रखता है।

हर बार किसी का आपको opportunity देना ज़रूरी नहीं होता।

कभी-कभी आपको सिर्फ किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति की ज़रूरत होती है जो आपको यह विश्वास दिला दे कि:

“हाँ, तुम भी कोशिश कर सकते हो।”

मैं खुशकिस्मत हूँ कि मेरी journey में ऐसे लोग आए।

Contribution से building तक

मेरे दूसरे साल तक आते-आते मेरे मन में WordPress ecosystem के अंदर अपने कुछ products बनाने की इच्छा होने लगी।

मैंने WordCamp Asia 2025 में Manila में Emma Young के साथ marketing team में lead किया और volunteer किया।

इसके साथ मैंने अपने plugins बनाना भी शुरू किया, जिसमें Harish, Bhargav, Makarand Mane, Hitanshu Sahu, और Sajid Ansari के contributions और support ने मदद की।

पहला था QuoteFrameShare

यह लोगों को WordPress में customizable blockquotes बनाने और share करने की सुविधा देता है।

यह project मेरे लिए खास था क्योंकि writing और poetry हमेशा से मेरी ज़िंदगी का हिस्सा रहे हैं।

जिस चीज़ की शुरुआत fellow engineering students के लिए technology tutorials लिखने से हुई थी, वह अब घूमकर ऐसे product तक पहुँच गई थी जिसे writers, poets और storytellers के लिए बनाया जा रहा था।

दूसरा था Contributor Photo Gallery

यह WordPress contributors को अपनी WordPress.org photo contributions को बिना code लिखे एक portfolio की तरह दिखाने में मदद करता है।

यह मेरी journey के एक और हिस्से से आया था: photography और WordPress Photo Directory।

मुझे अच्छा लगा कि दोनों projects छोटी और relatively simple problems को solve करते थे, लेकिन उन communities और लोगों के लिए, जो मेरे लिए सच में मायने रखते थे।

मैं सिर्फ इसलिए plugin नहीं बना रहा था क्योंकि मैं बना सकता था।

मैं इसलिए कुछ बना रहा था क्योंकि मेरे पास एक idea था और मुझे लगा कि वह किसी और के लिए useful हो सकता है।

सब कुछ हमेशा ठीक नहीं रहा

मेरी WordPress journey हमेशा सीधी ऊपर की ओर जाने वाली कहानी नहीं रही।

एक समय ऐसा भी आया जब contribution को लेकर मेरा उत्साह इतना बढ़ गया कि मैं सब कुछ करने की कोशिश करने लगा।

हर team।

हर opportunity।

हर event।

हर possible contribution।

मैं यह साबित करने में इतना व्यस्त हो गया था कि मैं contribute कर सकता हूँ कि मैंने अपनी ज़िंदगी की बाकी चीज़ों पर पर्याप्त ध्यान देना शुरू नहीं किया।

आखिरकार, मैं burnout हो गया।

मैंने यह भी सीखा कि community work की अपनी challenges होती हैं।

हर experience अच्छा नहीं था। कुछ ऐसे moments भी आए जब मुझे लगा कि मेरी बात को देखा नहीं गया, मुझे समझा नहीं गया या मैंने discouraged महसूस किया।

वे experiences आसान नहीं थे।

लेकिन उन्होंने मुझे यह सोचने पर मजबूर किया कि आखिर मैं contribution से क्या चाहता हूँ।

मुझे एहसास हुआ कि मैं अपना समय यह साबित करने में नहीं लगाना चाहता था कि मैं belong करता हूँ।

मैं contribute इसलिए करना चाहता था क्योंकि मुझे इस project और इसमें शामिल लोगों की परवाह थी।

इसने contribution को देखने का मेरा तरीका बदल दिया।

मुझे समझ आया कि मुझे हर जगह होना ज़रूरी नहीं है। हर badge collect करना ज़रूरी नहीं है। सबसे बड़ा contribution count हासिल करना भी ज़रूरी नहीं है ताकि मैं यह साबित कर सकूँ कि मुझे परवाह है।

मुझे बस ऐसा तरीका ढूँढना था जिससे मैं लंबे समय तक contribute कर सकूँ।

मुझे यह भी समझ आया कि यह साबित करने के लिए कि मुझे परवाह है, मुझे अपनी health, livelihood या peace of mind को sacrifice करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है।

अगर आपके पास हफ्ते में सिर्फ एक घंटा है, तो उतना ही contribute कीजिए।

अगर आपके पास ज़्यादा समय है, तो बहुत अच्छी बात है।

लेकिन contribution sustainable होना चाहिए।

वह support जिसे मैं कभी नहीं भूलूँगा

शायद यही वजह है कि मैं अपनी journey के मुश्किल हिस्सों के बारे में भी ईमानदारी से बात कर सकता हूँ, क्योंकि इस community का positive side भी मेरे लिए उतना ही वास्तविक रहा है।

लोगों ने मेरी ऐसे तरीकों से मदद की, जिसकी उन्हें कोई मजबूरी नहीं थी।

मेरे पहले WordCamp तक पहुँचने में मिली मदद इसका एक उदाहरण है।

बाद में Katie at Barn2 ने company के events budget के ज़रिए मेरे कुछ WordCamp trips sponsor किए। Makarand ने मुझे Yoast Care Fund के लिए nominate किया, जिसे पाना मेरे लिए सौभाग्य की बात रही।

WP Open Community Collective ने भी मुझे Contributor Day Lead Sponsorship, जिसे GoDaddy ने sponsor किया था, के ज़रिए support किया।

और कुछ लोगों ने ऐसी मदद की जो financial बिल्कुल नहीं थी।

लोगों ने अपना समय दिया।

मेरे सवालों के जवाब दिए।

मेरी recommendations कीं।

जब मैं खुद को लेकर uncertain था, तब मुझे encourage किया गया।

Contribution numbers की बात करते समय इन चीज़ों को आसानी से नज़रअंदाज़ किया जा सकता है।

लेकिन मेरे लिए असली कहानी यही है।

क्योंकि हर contribution के पीछे अक्सर एक इंसान होता है।

और मेरी contributions के पीछे बहुत सारे ऐसे लोग हैं जिन्होंने मुझे वहाँ तक पहुँचने में मदद की।

WordPress ने मुझे क्या दिया

जब मैं उस लड़के को पीछे मुड़कर देखता हूँ जिसने अपने fellow engineering students के लिए technology tutorials लिखना शुरू किया था, तो मुझे नहीं लगता कि उसने कभी सोचा होगा कि उसकी journey यहाँ तक आएगी।

Technology में आने का मेरा कोई conventional रास्ता नहीं था।

मैंने computer science की पढ़ाई नहीं की।

मैंने WordPress की चीज़ें बनाकर, उन्हें तोड़कर और फिर उन्हें समझते हुए सीखा।

और किसी तरह, शुरुआत करने के लिए इतना ही काफी था।

WordPress ने मुझे technology, content, SEO, marketing, product building और community जैसी skills विकसित करने में मदद की।

इसने मुझे दुनिया भर के लोगों के साथ काम करने के मौके दिए।

मुझे उन WordCamps तक पहुँचाया, जिन्हें मैं कभी afford भी नहीं कर सकता था।

इसने मुझे open-source products बनाने का मौका दिया।

लेकिन इन सबमें से कोई भी चीज़ वह नहीं है जिसे मैं सबसे ज़्यादा महत्व देता हूँ।

WordPress ने मुझे सबसे बड़ी चीज़ जो दी, वह लोग थे।

शायद इसीलिए मेरे लिए “success” से ज़्यादा सही शब्द “belonging” है।

मैं WordPress पर websites बनाने आया था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, WordPress ने मेरे आसपास एक community बना दी।

मैं अभी भी इसे समझने की कोशिश कर रहा हूँ

मुझे अभी भी ठीक से नहीं पता कि WordPress मुझे आगे कहाँ ले जाएगा।

मैं products बनाते रहना चाहता हूँ।

मैं marketing और product के क्षेत्र में और आगे बढ़ना चाहता हूँ।

मैं partnerships और community के बारे में और explore करना चाहता हूँ।

और एक दिन, मैं WordPress release को co-lead करना चाहता हूँ।

लेकिन मैं इन चीज़ों के पीछे सिर्फ किसी title या badge के लिए नहीं भागना चाहता।

मैं ऐसी चीज़ें बनाना चाहता हूँ जो सच में useful हों।

मैं अपने काम में बेहतर बनना चाहता हूँ।

मैं उन लोगों की मदद करना चाहता हूँ जो आज वहीं खड़े हैं जहाँ मैं कुछ साल पहले था।

और मैं ऐसा इंसान बनना चाहता हूँ कि जब कोई अपने WordPress journey के शुरुआती दिनों को याद करे, तो शायद वह कह सके:

“Satya ने मेरी शुरुआत में मेरी मदद की थी।”

मेरे लिए वह किसी भी badge से ज़्यादा मायने रखेगा।

क्योंकि मेरे साथ भी यही हुआ था।

लोगों ने मेरी शुरुआत में मेरी मदद की।

लोगों ने मेरे लिए जगह बनाई।

लोगों ने मुझे encourage किया।

लोगों ने मुझ पर भरोसा किया, उस समय भी जब मुझे खुद पूरी तरह यकीन नहीं था कि मैं contribute कर सकता हूँ।

इसलिए अगर आप अपनी WordPress journey अभी शुरू कर रहे हैं, तो मेरी सलाह बहुत simple है:

छोटे से शुरू कीजिए। सवाल पूछिए। जो पसंद है, उसे खोजिए। लगातार contribute कीजिए, लेकिन अपनी capacity के भीतर।

आपको शुरुआत करने से पहले सब कुछ पता होना ज़रूरी नहीं है।

मुझे भी नहीं पता था।

मैंने लिखना इसलिए शुरू किया क्योंकि मैं अपने classmates के लिए मुश्किल चीज़ों को आसान बनाना चाहता था।

मैंने blogging इसलिए शुरू की क्योंकि technology को लेकर मेरे अंदर curiosity थी।

मैंने WordPress इसलिए शुरू किया क्योंकि मेरे भाई ने मुझे दिखाया कि इसके साथ क्या किया जा सकता है।

मैं सीखता रहा क्योंकि हमेशा कुछ नया सीखने के लिए था।

और आखिरकार, मैंने contribute करना शुरू किया क्योंकि मैं कुछ वापस देना चाहता था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, इस journey के दौरान कुछ और भी हुआ।

मुझे लोग मिले।

मुझे opportunities मिलीं।

मुझे एक community मिली।

और मुझे एक ऐसी जगह मिली जहाँ मैं सीखता रह सकता था, contribute करता रह सकता था और हर दिन थोड़ा बेहतर बनता रह सकता था।

मैं WordPress पर वेबसाइटें बनाने आया था।

लेकिन कहीं न कहीं, WordPress ने मेरे आसपास एक community बना दी।

और शायद यही इस पूरी journey का असली मतलब है।

Blogging से Belonging तक।

The post From Blogging to Belonging: My WordPress Journey – Blogging से Belonging तक: मेरी WordPress Journey appeared first on HeroPress.

tl;dr:

15 years stuck in the same wp-admin, why don’t you try in playground the new wp-admin experience?

WordPress has spent the last fifteen years becoming capable of doing almost everything, yet somehow we have continued interacting with wp-admin in fundamentally the same way: click somewhere, load another screen, go back, open another tab because you do not want to lose the previous one, and after a while end up with ten different WordPress tabs scattered across your browser.

I find it quite funny that we all accepted this as completely normal.

Today WordPress is used to run stores, publications, membership sites, communities, LMS platforms, agencies and entire businesses. We have plugins that are effectively full applications, incredibly complex editing experiences, analytics, forms, CRM systems, media tools, commerce, automation and thousands of other things living inside the same installation. Yet the interface connecting all of them still assumes that, most of the time, you want to look at one thing at once.

And when you don’t, the browser has to solve the problem for us.

Browser tabs have essentially become the window manager of WordPress.

That is one of the ideas that eventually led us to OpenStation.

Why don’t we have windows?

It sounds ridiculously obvious when you phrase it like that, but that is exactly why I find the question interesting.

On a normal computer I can have my editor open next to a browser, keep a terminal in the background, drag files around, minimize something I want to return to later, or simply arrange my workspace around whatever I am doing at that moment. Nobody thinks about this as a feature anymore because it is just how computers work.

Then we open WordPress and suddenly that whole model disappears.

If I am editing a post and need something from the Media Library, I navigate away or open another tab. If I am checking an order while editing a product, another tab. If I want to compare two posts, another tab. If I am configuring something and need to check how another part of the site is set up, another tab.

There is nothing technically wrong with that, of course, and it has worked for years, but after building and using OpenStation every day I started noticing how much context we constantly throw away simply because wp-admin was designed around pages rather than workspaces.

That distinction matters much more today than it probably did fifteen years ago.

WordPress quietly became something much bigger

I keep describing WordPress as the operating system of the web, and obviously I do not mean that literally. What I mean is that WordPress has gradually accumulated many of the characteristics you would expect from a platform where applications live.

Plugins install capabilities into it. Users have identities and permissions. Applications share data. We have APIs, scheduled processes, notifications, media, editors, databases and an enormous ecosystem of software that knows how to work with the same underlying environment.

The strange part is that the interface never fully made the same transition.

We kept adding more applications to WordPress, but we continued presenting them largely as destinations in a menu.

OpenStation started from a very simple thought: what happens if, instead of redesigning every individual wp-admin page again, we change the environment in which those pages live?

That immediately opens a much larger set of possibilities.

A post editor does not need to replace your media library on screen. A WooCommerce order does not need to replace the product you were editing. A plugin screen does not necessarily need to occupy the entire browser just because you clicked its menu item.

They can simply be windows.

You can move them, resize them, minimize them, keep several of them open, organise them across different desktops and return to exactly what you were doing without recreating the context again.

The funny thing is that none of this feels particularly futuristic. Quite the opposite. We have been using computers this way for decades.

We just somehow never brought that interaction model into wp-admin.

The interesting part is not actually the windows

The windows are what people notice first because they are visual, but I think the more important idea is what happens once WordPress stops assuming that navigation must destroy context.

Suddenly the admin becomes a workspace.

You can have the Media Library next to the editor instead of travelling between them. You can keep an order visible while checking something else. You can open notes or widgets without abandoning your current task. Applications can coexist on the same desktop and eventually interact with each other in ways that become much harder when everything is isolated in separate browser tabs.

This is also where things like drag and drop become much more interesting.

If two applications are part of the same environment, moving an image, a product, a post or another WordPress entity between them can become an actual interaction instead of a sequence of copy, navigate, search, paste and navigate back.

And once you start thinking about WordPress this way, a lot of things that initially looked like unrelated OpenStation features start making sense together: windows, the dock, multiple desktops, widgets, the command palette and applications are all different pieces of the same idea.

The goal is not to decorate wp-admin until it looks like a desktop operating system. The goal is to make working in WordPress feel less like navigating a website and more like working inside an environment.

We don’t need to replace wp-admin to do this

This is probably the part I like the most about the approach.

WordPress already has an enormous ecosystem and rebuilding everything would be both unrealistic and, in my opinion, the wrong problem to solve. There are thousands of admin interfaces that already work, plugins developers have spent years building, and workflows users already understand.

OpenStation can sit on top of that rather than asking the ecosystem to start again.

The existing WordPress admin can continue being WordPress. Existing plugins can continue exposing their interfaces. What changes is how those interfaces are presented and how you move between them.

In some ways, I think that is much more interesting than simply designing another admin UI.

We are not trying to decide what every WordPress application should look like. We are trying to give those applications a better place to live.

And once you have that place, building actual OpenStation-native applications becomes possible as well. We have already been experimenting with things like a photo editor, project management tools and forms, but what excites me is not any individual application. It is the idea that WordPress can host an entire collection of tools that feel like they belong to the same workspace instead of a collection of isolated screens connected by a sidebar.

So why did it take fifteen years?

Probably because there was never a single moment where the old model stopped working.

WordPress evolved gradually. A new menu here, another plugin there, a more sophisticated editor, WooCommerce, custom post types, page builders, analytics, SEO tools and so on. Each addition fitted reasonably well into what already existed, so there was never an obvious reason to stop and question the basic interaction model.

But those small changes accumulated.

The WordPress of today asks considerably more from wp-admin than the WordPress of fifteen years ago did, and I think that eventually creates an opportunity to revisit assumptions that once seemed completely reasonable.

The assumption we are questioning with OpenStation is a very simple one:

Why should opening something in WordPress mean leaving everything else behind?

After spending months working this way, I now notice it every time I go back to the traditional flow. I open something, realise I need another part of WordPress, create another browser tab and immediately think: why am I doing this outside WordPress when WordPress itself could manage the workspace?

That is probably the best way I can explain what we are building.

WordPress has had applications for a very long time.

Perhaps what it has been missing all these years is somewhere for those applications to actually live together.

By the way, don’t forget you can always try OpenStation without even installing it in your site, using WordPress playgrounds

Howdy,

Before anything else: if you maintain WordPress sites, go update them. WordPress 7.1.2 shipped on September 22 to patch a single critical vulnerability in page template resolution, one that lets an unauthenticated attacker load a chosen PHP file from outside your active theme’s directories.

Now let’s move on to better things. Anne McCarthy is auctioning off her framed WordPress release albums, the ones given to release squad members. All the proceeds go to Stimpunks, a nonprofit started by Ryan Boren, who joined the project in 2003 and wrote the plugin system that nearly every site runs on. She calls the albums “a form of a gold medal to me,” and she built the auction site herself in a week. The starting bid is $500.

We also learned this fortnight that the next default theme will be called Ipsum, which means 16 years of naming themes after the calendar is over. Admittedly, I’ll miss the old Twenty* names a little. But it’s time for something new for a new era.

Two more quick things: WordPress has taken its turn leading the Open Website Alliance, alongside Drupal, Joomla!, and TYPO3, with Mary Hubbard holding the rotating presidency for the WordPress Foundation. And starting with 7.2 in December, release parties move from in-person events to livestreamed webinars, so the whole squad can actually be there.

Enjoy your weekend!

Your friendly neighborhood dev advocate,
Justin Tadlock

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Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Two security releases in six days. WordPress 7.1.2 is the urgent one, and it’s security-only: an unauthenticated attacker can, under the right conditions, make page template resolution include a readable local PHP file from outside the active theme directories. John Blackbourn led the release, Robert Ressl disclosed it, and the fix was backported to every eligible branch going back to 4.7.

Five days earlier, WordPress 7.1.1 arrived as the regular maintenance release with 11 security fixes, 17 bug fixes on Core, and 19 for the Block Editor. Aaron Jorbin led it, and Anthropic is credited twice in the security list.

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Aki Hamano announced what’s new in Gutenberg 24.0. The big feature: post title changes now show up in revisions with a proper diff, so you can stop guessing when a rename happened. The Gallery block gains a Grid variation with column count and “crop images to fit” configurable per breakpoint, and Site Title picks up fit-text, scaling to the width available instead of a fixed point size. And nearly 100 icons were redrawn on a stroke-based grid.

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Stalled out somewhere between “clone the repo” and “why won’t this build”? Contributor Toolkit 1.2 from JuanMa Garrido now covers Gutenberg as well as Core, and it runs a stock WordPress in Playground with your checkout mounted as the plugin, already activated. No local server, no Docker.

The road to 7.2

Anne McCarthy published the roadmap to 7.2, and it looks to be a security-heavy cycle by WordPress standards. Sudo mode gates sensitive admin actions behind re-authentication, a new Secrets API gives credentials “a first-class way to store credentials safely,” and Application Passwords get hardened. Notes should gain a suggestion mode and emoji reactions. Designers get form element customization in Global Styles and custom block states. The final release lands in early December.

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Real-time collaboration came out of WordPress 7.0, and Chris Zarate has now explained why in a post on moving to a server-aware approach for collaboration, written with Alec Geatches, Dennis Snell, ingeniumed, and Paul Kevan. The old design had browsers hold the post in a CRDT document and sync peer-to-peer, which broke three ways: the server couldn’t tell who made which edit, opening the door to content laundering; REST API and WP-CLI updates couldn’t participate, so saves became all-or-nothing overwrites; and a dropped connection could take your work with it. Three candidate sync engines are on the table, with a gutenberg-sync-engines repo to test against. If you build editorial tooling, have an opinion about this now.

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The next default theme has a name, and for the first time in well over a decade, it isn’t a year. Henrique Iamarino introduced Ipsum, built with Carolina Nymark, Maggie Cabrera, and Juanfra Aldasoro. The reasoning behind the naming change: “default themes will have their own names and change when the design calls for it, not when the calendar does.” The theme is intentionally spare. It’s blog-first, has minimal typesets, and structural elements that stay invisible until you need them. The request is simple: “try it and tell us what breaks and what’s missing.”

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Nik Tsekouras opened a call for testing the DataForm editor inspector, which rebuilds the Post and Page tab of the Settings sidebar so it stops drifting from Quick Edit in the Site Editor. Install Gutenberg 24.0 or later and enable Editor Inspector: Use DataForm under Settings → Gutenberg. Test it as an editor, author, and contributor, not just as an admin.

Behind the release

A minor release can touch more than twenty branches, and much of that work was done by hand. Lance Willett opened a public repo of Core release tools, which includes tagging, release docs, SVN merge verification, and contributor lists.

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Huzaifa Al Mesbah counted 84 people who tested WordPress 7.1 across 337 Trac tickets. Fifty were first-timers, which is 60% of everyone who showed up. The most important line: “you don’t need to be a developer.” 7.2 testing is open now.

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

WooCommerce 11.2 lands the week of October 6, so read Shani Banerjee’s pre-release notes before it arrives rather than after. Order withdrawal emails become configurable, the CSV importer can match products by Global Unique ID when neither ID nor SKU is available, and checkout fields gain date support with min/max validation. Two of the seventeen developer advisories will bite if you ignore them: date filters in wc_get_orders() and wc_get_products() now read a bare date as a day in your store’s timezone rather than UTC, and the Cart and Checkout order summary becomes a fixed 360px column with the two-column breakpoint moving from 700px to 920px.

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Two dot releases arrived in between, both flagged as security updates. WooCommerce 11.1.2 fixes the infinite recursion that was breaking product variation galleries, and 11.1.1 hardened API permissions and session handling.

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The latest WordPress.com changelog moves the AI website builder from picking a theme to generating one: on Premium and Business plans, it “now generates a fully custom theme built around your goals and brand.” A new Annotate feature lets you queue several targeted edits and send them at once.

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GatherPress started on a fourteen-hour drive to WordCamp US in 2018, when two Montclair meetup organizers came up with a name and then didn’t write any code for nine months. Rae Morey tells the story of how it grew into WordPress’ Meetup.com replacement, through July of this year, when Automattic’s Karen Arnold confirmed WordPress is going ahead with it. The gatherpress.org domain is transferring to the Foundation, and the plugin has been testable at events.wordpress.org since August 28. No launch date yet, and co-maintainer Mervin Hernandez Sitnikovski would rather you help than wait.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

WooCommerce has a new block theme. Brian Coords announced that Purple is back and ready for beta testing. The project was paused during a strategy update last year, and it’s Woo’s first official block theme.

Ten color palettes, ten font pairings, custom styles for both WooCommerce and core blocks, and templates covering everything from Shop to Checkout to My Account. The inserter category is being renamed from “WooCommerce” to “Shop.” If you’re wondering where Storefront’s featured extensions went, block editing absorbed most of them. Peter Schimke also notes that Purple is now the default for new WordPress.com Commerce stores.

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Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 30 at 10 a.m. PDT / 1 p.m. EDT / 7 p.m. CEST: Woo is hosting a live session on building with WooCommerce block themes. Mike McAlister of Ollie joins Woo engineers Karol Manijak and Lucio Giannotta. There’s a Q&A at the end and a recording afterward, but questions only work if you show up.

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“We need more workflow in Core,” said K. Adam White, principal engineer at Human Made, talking with Nathan Wrigley on WP Tavern about migrating to blocks with artisanal care and enterprise efficiency. At the center of it is Human Made’s open-source Rehydrator, which uses pattern HTML as a template and injects migrated content into it, so structure and styling survive a move off something like Sitecore. He describes building SQLite databases from client exports just to find the edge cases. He’s candid about the gaps, too: granular permissions, editorial approval workflows, and internationalization.

	“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2026” A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly.  The previous years are also available: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor

Your Query Loop returns nothing, and the heading and pagination you wrapped around it render anyway. Ryan Welcher spent a live stream adding a “hide if empty” control to Advanced Query Loop, his free plugin that extends the core Query Loop with taxonomy relationships, meta queries, and relative date filters.

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Gutenberg’s JavaScript tests have moved off Jest. Marco Ciampini explains that unit and integration tests now use Vitest, driven by ESM: as more dependencies shipped ECMAScript modules, the CommonJS-based Jest setup needed more and more compatibility glue. The part that affects you: @wordpress/scripts 36.0.0 makes Vitest the default for test-unit-js, with @wordpress/eslint-plugin 27.0.0 following. Not ready to migrate? Switch to wp-scripts test-unit-jest and install the Jest dependencies yourself.

AI in WordPress

Your agent builds you a landing page, and then what? It sits in a chat log, or a folder, or a local dev server nobody else can reach. That’s the gap Spacefast is built for, and Automattic soft-launched it this week: Matt Mullenweg announced it on X. The pitch is the last mile for agent output: publish from a conversation with Claude or ChatGPT, from npx spacefast publish, or from a GitHub push, and get a permanent URL with immutable versions, one-click rollback, and access controls. It hosts full-stack projects, not just static files.

The WordPress hook is a Spacefast plugin with two modes. Static mode hooks into Simply Static, exports your site, and publishes the snapshot. Headless mode treats WordPress as the content source for a repository project, triggering a production rebuild when you publish or update public content.

MCP turns up everywhere

WordPress Trac now speaks MCP. Lance Willett announced a Trac MCP server that’s “public and free to use: no account or API key needed.” Ask what’s left on a ticket and which pull requests are still open, or what someone committed in January 2005—yes, it goes back that far. It covers every WordPress.org Trac, from Core and Meta to bbPress and GlotPress. James LePage wrote the first version, with props to Jon Surrell, David Newman, and Konstantin Obenland.

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Jamie Marsland makes the case for why WebMCP is going to be big for WordPress and, more usefully, shows you how to try it this afternoon: open the ChatGPT desktop app in Work mode, load WordPress Playground in its built-in browser, and ask it to build you a homepage. His framing is the clearest I’ve read. WebMCP gives an assistant “an instruction manual with working buttons” instead of making it squint at screenshots.

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For the enterprise view of the same shift, Shane Schick compares WebMCP and traditional MCP and lands on a line I’d pull out of the whole piece: “MCP is not going away, and WebMCP shouldn’t be seen as a rival protocol.” His table sets them side by side on deployment, access scope, scalability, and auditability. That auditability row is the one that matters if you answer to a compliance team.

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Schick also introduces Parse.ly MCP, which connects Parse.ly data to whichever assistant your team already uses. You authorize once with your existing login, and the assistant sees exactly the sites your account already sees. “Analysis that used to take a request and a day now takes a conversation.”

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One more, for the security-conscious: WPShout walks through connecting Cursor to WordPress with MCP using ThemeIsle’s Easy MCP AI plugin. Every tool call still passes a WordPress capability check, with a 60-requests-per-minute default. Their advice is the part to take seriously: “read-only first, watch the audit log for a week, then grant write scopes deliberately.”

Putting agents to work

Anthropic open-sourced its commerce agents on September 2, and WooCommerce has already adapted them. Shani Banerjee walks through running the Claude Commerce Agent on WooCommerce, which spins up a demo store with eight products and nine orders in about fifteen minutes. The neat piece is a bridge plugin: the assistant’s cart lives under a Store API token your browser session can’t see, so at checkout the plugin re-adds each item to your real cart with normal stock checks. Merchant-side changes stage behind an approval gate, and “ask it to approve itself and it declines.”

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There’s a second kind of visitor to design for now. Carlo Daniele argues for building WordPress for AI agents instead of just human visitors, and the distinction he draws is the useful one: “Crawlers primarily retrieve or index information. Agents can go a step further and take action on a user’s behalf.” That turns architecture questions into permission questions: who is asking, on whose behalf, what can they change, which actions need approval. The Abilities API and MCP Adapter are where WordPress answers them.

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A week later, Daniele turned to operations. What happens when AI agents become your new website operators? works through a five-stage autonomy ladder and argues most teams should sit partway up it for a while. I feel like he’s right about that. As he puts it: “An agent that makes a bad production change creates another.”

Learning and practice

Want a structured introduction rather than a pile of blog posts? Destiny Kanno announced that the AI-Powered WordPress course is now live on Learn WordPress: four modules, 23 lessons, roughly nine hours. The first three are for anyone who publishes; the fourth introduces the developer APIs and assumes no prior PHP experience.

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The AI team’s contributor summary for September 16 is a good snapshot of what’s actually moving. neillmcshea reports work on markdown feeds for the AI plugin, so AI clients can request a markdown version of a post. PHP AI Client 1.5.0 is close. There are still open gaps in web search support. For example, message parts can’t represent source annotations, and citation URLs are hard to retrieve.

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Finally, a piece for the conversations you have with clients rather than with a terminal. Will Davis writes about how WordPress agencies use AI, and what clients should ask about it, arguing that the honest uses are the boring ones—code generation, QA, content migration, documentation—while architecture and governance stay human. His five questions for clients would work just as well on a sales call, starting with “What does a person review before it reaches me?” As he puts it, AI “genuinely reduces repetitive work, but it doesn’t replace judgment.”

	Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch? Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

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Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

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For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

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