Prepare PL 3.8 Release

This issue is to track preparation of the upcoming 3.8.0 release up until publishing, which is due January 27, 2025.

Create release/3.8.0 branch closer to the release date
Finalize scope and punt unfinished pull requests to following release (Thursday, January 23, 2025)
Bump versions in milestones according to the scope (Thursday, January 23, 2025)
Smoke test (Friday, January 24, 2025)
Prepare the release (Monday, January 27, 2025)

Note: The release would normally happen on Monday January 20, but due to a US holiday several folks from the team that handle the releases are out, which is why the release is postponed to the day after.

Update: Due the holiday and the fact that several milestones are not yet cleared, the release has been postponed to the following Monday.

Release branch has been created: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/tree/release/3.8.0

Preparation PR: #1827

Performance Lab testing

Add Site Health check for Cache-Control: no-store page response header which disables bfcache. (1807)

See #1825 for an issue I found which I've submitted a fix for in #1826. With that fix present, when no Cache-Control: no-store is present, I get the following test:

But when I add a plugin that does:

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: No-Store
 */

add_action(
	'send_headers',
	function () {
		header( 'Cache-Control: no-store' );
	}
);

Then I get as expected:

Add Site Health test to verify that static assets are served with far-future expires. (1727)

Testing a site with LocalWP which does not have a far-future expires header results in the expected site health test:

Enqueue scripts using plugins_url() instead of plugin_dir_url(). (1761)

The includes/admin/plugin-activate-ajax.js script is added to the Performance screen as expected.

Modern Image Formats testing

Switch to wp_content_img_tag filter for improved image handling. (1772)

Upon uploading an image, I was able to see AVIF file served on the frontend:

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large">
  <img
    fetchpriority="high"
    decoding="async"
    width="1024"
    height="668"
    src="http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-1024x668.avif"
    alt=""
    class="wp-image-10"
    srcset="
      http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-1024x668.avif  1024w,
      http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-300x196.avif    300w,
      http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-768x501.avif    768w,
      http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-1536x1002.avif 1536w,
      http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/bison1-2048x1336.avif 2048w
    "
    sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"
  />
</figure>

Speculative Loading testing

Implement speculative loading considerations for safer behavior. (1784)

The speculationrules script is now omitted when logged-in. When logged-out, it is included and works as expected. When a link includes a query var, it is not speculatively loaded.

Embed Optimizer testing

Remove requirement for both mobile and desktop URL metrics to be collected for preconnect links to be added. (1764)

I added a YouTube video to the top of a post and visited the frontend on desktop to trigger collection of a URL Metric. Upon reloading, I then saw the page include the preconnect links just for desktop as expected:

<link data-od-added-tag rel="preconnect" href="https://i.ytimg.com/" media="(min-width: 783px)">
<link data-od-added-tag rel="preconnect" href="https://www.youtube.com/" media="(min-width: 783px)">

Image Prioritizer testing

Remove erroneous check for resource initiator type when considering whether to submit LCP background image. (1760)

I activated Twenty Thirteen and visited the homepage on desktop where the header (with a background-image) is the LCP element. This resulted in the expected lcpElementExternalBackgroundImage in the submitted URL Metric:

Optimization Detective testing

Omit element node index in XPaths up to children of BODY. (1790)

Disambiguate XPaths for children of BODY with id, class, or role attributes. (1797)

With existing URL Metrics already collected which reference a YouTube embed at:

/*[1][self::HTML]/*[2][self::BODY]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::ARTICLE]/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::FIGURE]/*[1][self::DIV]

The optimizations still apply to add the preconnect link from #1796 (comment), even though the FIGURE now has the XPath:

/HTML/BODY/DIV[@id='page']/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::ARTICLE]/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::FIGURE]/*[1][self::DIV]

Eliminate varying URL Metrics by logged-in state and discontinue disabling optimization by default for admins. (1788)

I visited a page while being logged-in as an administrator and a URL Metric was collected. Additionally, when looking at the collected URL Metrics there is now only one post type for a given URL whereas before there would be two, one for unauthenticated visitors and another for authenticated ones.

Add site health check to detect blocked REST API and short-circuit optimization when unavailable. (1762)

On a LocalWP site which has loopback request support, the Site Health test shows the expected result:

When I activate the Disable WP REST API plugin, I get:

And the expected warning appears in the plugin list table:

Optimizations are disabled on the frontend when this is the case and WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE is not local.

Allow extensions to opt in to using the web-vitals attribution build via the od_use_web_vitals_attribution_build filter. (1759)

When loading the page I see the non-attribution build of web-vitals loaded by default:

"webVitalsLibrarySrc":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/wp-content\/plugins\/optimization-detective\/build\/web-vitals.js?ver=4.2.4"

When I activate a plugin that does this:

add_filter( 'od_use_web_vitals_attribution_build', '__return_true' );

Then the page output changes as expected:

"webVitalsLibrarySrc":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/wp-content\/plugins\/optimization-detective\/build\/web-vitals-attribution.js?ver=4.2.4"

And URL Metrics are collected as expected.

Skip visiting tags in the Admin Bar when optimizing a page. (1816)

While being logged-in and the Image Prioritizer plugin is active, I do not seen any items from the admin bar in the collected URL Metric:

{
    "url": "http://localhost:10043/modern-image/",
    "viewport": {
        "width": 3201,
        "height": 1632
    },
    "elements": [
        {
            "isLCP": false,
            "isLCPCandidate": false,
            "xpath": "/HTML/BODY/DIV[@id='page']/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::ARTICLE]/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::FIGURE]/*[1][self::IMG]",
            "intersectionRatio": 1,
            "intersectionRect": {
                "x": 1140.4166259765625,
                "y": 465.36456298828125,
                "width": 604.0103759765625,
                "height": 394.01040649414062,
                "top": 465.36456298828125,
                "right": 1744.427001953125,
                "bottom": 859.37496948242188,
                "left": 1140.4166259765625
            },
            "boundingClientRect": {
                "x": 1140.4166259765625,
                "y": 465.36456298828125,
                "width": 604.0103759765625,
                "height": 394.01040649414062,
                "top": 465.36456298828125,
                "right": 1744.427001953125,
                "bottom": 859.37496948242188,
                "left": 1140.4166259765625
            }
        }
    ],
    "lcpElementExternalBackgroundImage": {
        "url": "http://localhost:10043/wp-content/themes/twentythirteen/images/headers/circle.png",
        "tag": "HEADER",
        "id": "masthead",
        "class": "site-header"
    },
    "timestamp": 1737855427.484776,
    "uuid": "70296c9f-780a-4ba7-b7d7-f183def683a4",
    "etag": "461f62c29dd8c1b925a0ee5a2b14ce7b"
}

Ensure optimization is performed in the wp-env local environment and log debug messages to console when disabled. (1822)

When accessing a search results page and I have WP_DEBUG enabled, I see the console include the expected message:

[Optimization Detective] Page is not optimized because od_can_optimize_response() returned false. This can be overridden with the od_can_optimize_response filter.

Skip visiting any tags inside of NOSCRIPT elements. (1783)

I added a NOSCRIPT tag with a nested IMG tag to a Custom HTML block. This IMG did not get a data-od-xpath attribute added to it, while a previous IMG in an Image block did get the attribute as expected.

Introduce OD_Tag_Visitor_Context::track_tag() method as alternative for returning true in tag visitor callback. (1821)

I installed the Intrinsic Dimensions plugin with the westonruter/od-intrinsic-dimensions#1 PR checked out that leverages track_tag and it resulted in the expected data being added to the VIDEO tag in the submitted URL Metric:

It also resulted in the expected attributes being added to the VIDEO tag:

<video
  data-od-added-height
  data-od-added-style
  data-od-added-width
  data-od-intrinsic-dimensions-src-hash="4fb7e0d643f1bf97dd7ac7ac4772a7cc"
  data-od-xpath="/HTML/BODY/DIV[@id='page']/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::DIV]/*[1][self::ARTICLE]/*[2][self::DIV]/*[1][self::FIGURE]/*[1][self::VIDEO]"
  height="1920"
  style="height: auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 1080 / 1920"
  width="1080"
  controls
  src="http://localhost:10043/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/goat-18139442-hd_1080_1920_30fps.mp4"
></video>

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Prepare PL 3.8 Release #1796

Performance Lab testing

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Speculative Loading testing

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Prepare PL 3.8 Release #1796

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westonruter commented on Jan 24, 2025

westonruter commented on Jan 25, 2025

westonruter commented on Jan 25, 2025

Performance Lab testing

westonruter commented on Jan 25, 2025

Modern Image Formats testing

westonruter commented on Jan 25, 2025

Speculative Loading testing

westonruter commented on Jan 26, 2025

Embed Optimizer testing

westonruter commented on Jan 26, 2025

Image Prioritizer testing

westonruter commented on Jan 26, 2025

Optimization Detective testing

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