WordPress 7.2 is set to be released in early December 2026. Notes leads the way with the ability to add suggestions and emoji reactions, offering more direct and interactive collaboration. Dedicated security efforts revolve around a “sudo mode” that gates sensitive actions behind re-authentication, a Secrets APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. that offers a first-class way to store credentials safely, and a round of hardening for Application Passwords. Styling becomes more robust and predictable, with the ability to style form elements in Global Styles, expanded responsive styling and custom state support, and individual blocks that properly reflect global settings. Additions to the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. library expand what’s possible with a new Description List block and the long-awaited Table of Contents block. The everyday experience improves with fixes for writing annoyances, clearer error messages with a copy button, and refinements to the media inserter and modal. The adminadmin (and super admin) bar and menu get a fresh set of icons, swapping dashicons for SVGs that render more reliably and behave predictably for assistive tech. An extensibleExtensible This is the ability to add additional functionality to the code. Plugins extend the WordPress core software. Site Editor lets pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. authors register their own screens and settings for the first time. Responsive styling gains support for third-party blocks with custom controls, and DataViews and DataForms let third parties control which fields appear and which layouts are available for any entity. A new default theme called Ipsum ships with the release, offering an intentionally minimal blank canvas built for making your own.

As always, what’s shared here is being actively pursued, but doesn’t necessarily mean each will make it into the final release of WordPress 7.2.

For a more detailed look at the work related to the block editor, please refer to the 7.2 board and review the currently open Iteration issues.

Table of Contents

• Accessibility
• AI
• Admin
  • DataViews, DataForms iteration
  • Error state overhaul 
  • Evolve Navigation editing in Site Editor sidebar 
  • Extensible Site Editor
  • Omnibar iteration
  • “On This Day” widget
• Blocks & APIs
  • Description list block
  • Keyword search for Icon Block
  • Interactivity API iteration
  • React 19 upgrade
  • Table of Contents block
• Collaboration
  • Notes iteration: suggestions, emojis, and more
• Default Ipsum theme
• Design & Editor
  • Block Editor paper cuts
  • Customize form elements in Global Styles
  • Expanded and consolidated block supports
  • Responsive style states for blocks iteration 
  • Set custom states for blocks
  • View inherited styles
• Media
  • Client Side Media iteration
  • Dynamic galleries and media inserter
  • Media Editor Modal iteration
• Performance 
• Revisions
• Security
  • Application passwords improvements:
  • Improved HTML processing
  • Secrets API
  • Sudo mode: reauthentication for specific tasks
• Open to contributors

AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)

While accessibility efforts run through nearly every area of this release as a matter of course, a few pieces of dedicated, high-effort work stand out for 7.2:

• Improve admin notices accessibility to ensure they’re announced properly to assistive technologyAssistive technology Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology and easier to dismiss and navigate by keyboard.
• Introduce axe-core automated testing to prevent regressions and ensure more consistency. 
• Make it possible to turn off metabox rearranging, solving some long-standing problems with visual complexity and accidental changes on mobile. 
• Remove widget accessibility mode to reduce the number of management modes. 

AI

The 7.1 cycle gave clear guidance that AI features must first demonstrate clear adoption and practical value before being considered for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. As a result, the work below is being pursued in the AI plugin without a guarantee of landing in 7.2. If you’re keen to see these features graduate into Core, the best way to help is to use and test the AI plugin and share feedback.

• More WordPress abilities: Continue refining the existing experimental abilities, explore write abilities, and expand read-only coverage to resources such as media, taxonomies, and comments. 
• A current MCP implementation: Update the MCP Adapter for the latest MCP specification while keeping WordPress Ability definitions independent of protocol revisions. 
• Standard MCP Adapter distribution: Publish the adapter in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory so it can be installed and updated like any other plugin. 
• Seamless MCP access: Let administrators enable MCP through the AI plugin with minimal setup, including installing the adapter and controlling which abilities are exposed. 
• WebMCP experimentation: Explore abilities in browser-based agent workflows tied to the current WordPress interface and page state. 
• Agent identity and delegation: Develop a model for agents to have auditable identities, appropriate permissions, and access that can be managed independently of human accounts. 
• Knowledge and Guidelines: Test reusable site context and editorial guidance across multiple AI features and abilities. 
• Embeddings and semantic search: Build shared embedding support in the AI plugin, including generation, storage, and background synchronization, to power meaning-based search and responses grounded in site content.
• Streaming AI responses: Add streaming support to the PHP AI Client so applications can display generated content as it arrives, while laying the groundwork for broader WordPress and hosting support. 

Alongside this work, there are efforts underway to land enhancements to Connectors to add support for activation/deactivation from the screen itself, improve performance, and accept keys when the provider is temporarily down. 

Admin

DataViews, DataForms iteration

Extensibility is the main priority with work underway to evolve the initial view config API work with view/form config registered on the server, plus registering fields and actions on the server. Real screens in the experience drive the direction of extensibility, from switching style revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. to data views to supporting the extensible site editor. As part of this, please help test DataForm editor inspector as the post inspector (featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts., excerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox., status, date, author, template, etc.) are in the process of being replaced by a DataForm. 

Outside of extensibility, two key UXUX User experience improvements are underway to properly reflect hierarchy and improve the discoverability of bulk actions.

Follow DataViews, DataViewsPicker, DataForm, Fields in WordPress 7.2 for more details.

Error state overhaul 

In line with defensive design best practices, this work aims to make error messages clearer and more diagnosable, and to add a copy button so an error is easier to search for or share.

Review the clearer error messages PR and the copy button PR for more details.

Evolve Navigation editing in Site Editor sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. 

Make the Extensible Site Editor Sidebar a more complete surface for common menu editing tasks, continuing the editing-experience improvements started in 7.1.

Follow Improve Navigation Editing in the Extensible Site Editor Sidebar for 7.2 for more details.

Extensible Site Editor

Work continues on a new, extensible foundation for the Site Editor, built on the wordpress/boot routing package and already nearing feature parity with today’s editor. Beyond a rebuild, it opens the Site Editor up to third parties for the first time, with a server-side view-config endpoint that lets plugin authors register their own screens and settings instead of shipping custom, one-off APIs. Other in-flight projects, including navigation editing, are already building on this foundation rather than duplicating it.

Follow Extensible Site Editor: 7.2 Iteration Issue for more details

Omnibar iteration

After landing the omnibar in 7.1 to provide more consistency across various editing interfaces, more iterations are planned for 7.2, including replacing dashicons with SVG Icons, improving the command palette, continued accessibility review, and continued design iterations. 

Follow Omnibar: WP 7.2 Iteration Issue for more details

“On This Day” widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.

After being punted from WordPress 7.1, another attempt is underway to land a new “On This Day” widget that resurfaces past content, a popular feature across many different platforms. 

Follow Feature request: On This Day dashboard widget for more details.

Blocks & APIs

Description list block

A new block adds native semantic description list support to the block library through three static blocks: core/description-list serializes to <dl>, core/description-term serializes to <dt>, and core/description-detail serializes to <dd>. This follows the same parent and innerblocks approach as other composite blocks like Tabs and List, and makes it much easier to build glossaries, metadata, specifications, and other term/description relationships.

Follow Block for description list for more details.

Keyword search for Icon Block

Complete the work of adding keyword search to the Icon Block. Currently, only the label is searched. Keyword search, for example, allows for the “menu” icon to be found by typing in “hamburger”, “navigation”, or “list”.

Follow the keyword-based search in the icons registry PR for more details.

Interactivity API iteration

The Interactivity API provides a standard way for developers to add interactions to the front end of their blocks and two main initiatives are underway to add to the power of the Interactivity API.

“The data-wp-htmlHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. directive will add a missing primitive: today there is no supported way to render markup from the store inside an interactive region and have the result reflected reactively. This initial version will ship a directive that renders only values explicitly trusted by application code through asDangerousHTML(), leaving sanitized plain strings for a later version. 

The router work gives extenders a supported, reactive way to observe client-side navigations and know what initiated them, replacing the deprecated state.navigation.hasStarted/hasFinished pair.”

Follow Interactivity API for WordPress 7.2 for more details.

ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org 19 upgrade

Work continues to make GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ fully support React 19, with types, ecosystem dependencies, and rendering fixes largely landed. This is unlikely to fully land for WordPress 7.2 but is being noted here for broader awareness for when it does in a future release. 

Follow Upgrading to React 19 for more details.

Table of Contents block

Take the long-experimental Table of Contents block stable by moving it to server-side dynamic rendering, so the editor and front end share one source of truth for headings.

Follow stabilize the Table of Contents Block for more details.

Collaboration

Collaborative editing is intentionally not on the roadmap for 7.2, even as work continues alongside this release cycle. As in 7.1, it’s clear more time is needed for a number of architectural decisions, and rather than list it here only to pull it later, it’s being left off entirely. You can follow the work in this iteration issue, and everyone is encouraged to join the collaborative editing outreach effort helping stabilize the feature.

Notes iteration: suggestions, emojis, and more

Notes (aka block commenting) have a range of slated improvements that aim to make Notes more discoverable, more powerful, and easier to use. Suggestion mode, where one can leave suggested edits to be accepted or rejected as notes, is the centerpiece of this cycle as it marks a huge step forward in collaborating more directly with others. Other planned enhancements include emoji reaction support and a dedicated shortcut in the block toolbar for efficiently adding notes. 

Follow Notes iteration for WordPress 7.2 for more details.

Default Ipsum theme

Ipsum is the proposal for the next default theme, planned to be bundled in WordPress 7.2. It is an intentionally minimal blogblog (versus network, site) theme that centers on a blank canvas to make your own, with built-in room for creativity.

Read Introducing Ipsum, the new default theme for more details.

Design & Editor

Block Editor paper cuts

A broad quality-of-life sweep fixing dozens of small but persistent writing-flow, selection, paste, drag-and-drop, and mobile annoyances in the block editor. This is part of a continual focus to make writing great in WordPress.

Follow Block Editor Paper Cuts for more details.

Customize form elements in Global Styles

Forms and their elements, like buttons or text input fields, are a common use case for websites. The work for 7.2 aims to give users the ability to style common form elements consistently in Global Styles, without writing custom CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. or editing theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. by hand. Currently, the button, textInput, and select elements are already supported in theme.json so this release is focused on adding an interface for the supported items, adding the missing label element, and improving support for interactive input states.

Follow Form elements in Global Styles – iteration for WP 7.2 for more details.

Expanded and consolidated block supports

Work continues on new block supports and design tools (backgrounds, dimensions, position), including continuing the consolidation of ad hoc block controls in favor of more consistent supports. All of this work makes the foundation of block supports more robust and predictable to use. 

Follow Block Supports and design tools follow-up for more details. 

Responsive style states for blocks iteration 

After responsive styling was introduced in 7.1, this cycle focuses on expanding which controls support states, adding a public API for third party blocks with custom controls to work with responsive styling, and refining the experience when switching into and out of the responsive styling mode.

Follow Responsive style states for blocks — 7.2 tasks for more details.

Set custom states for blocks

Custom states work allows users to style the “active” item in interactive blocks, like the current page in a navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site., directly from the editor. The focus of this release is on adding a -current custom state for Navigation Link and the Tabs block, as well as adding color, border, and spacing support to the Navigation Link block. Adding these additional supports means extra control and options for styling.

Follow Custom states for blocks – iteration for WP 7.2 for more details.

View inherited styles

Currently, any block that has options set in Global Styles don’t reflect those values in their settings. Work is underway to change that so, if a paragraph block is set to red globally, when a user opens the block settings for a paragraph block the red color is clearly shown. Reflecting these global values helps clarify for users when they’ve overridden a global option and where/when to change options depending on what they want to do. Various design decisions need to be made beyond this including whether to show an indication that a global option has been overridden and how best to offer a clear way to reset a change to what’s set globally.

Follow Display inherited Global Styles and local overrides (7.2) for more details.

Media

Client Side Media iteration

As a reminder, client-side media provides a progressive enhancement to the current server-based approach to media processing and delivers more consistent media processing across WordPress installs, regardless of where a site is hosted. For this cycle, the focus is on maturing browser-based media processing by hardening the upload pipeline, expanding format support, and completing performance work.

Follow Client Side Media iteration for WordPress 7.2 and beyond for more details.

Dynamic galleries and media inserter

This work focuses on a few pieces: a redesign of the media inserter with a focus on a more scalable experience for browsing and adding images for sites with large media libraries, expanding sources for the dynamic gallery block variation, and bringing sorting options to the static gallery block.

Follow WordPress 7.2: Dynamic galleries and media inserter for more details.

Media Editor Modal iteration

After landing in WordPress 7.1, for this iteration, the focus is on a better experience for attached media and tracking the relationship between originals and cropped derivatives. For the latter,  this work aims to establish a more formal lineage tracking between cropped image attachments and their originals, addressing a current gap where each crop spins up an untracked, standalone attachment that risks cluttering the media library over time. 

Follow WordPress 7.2 Iteration: Media Editor Modal for more details.

Performance 

For this cycle, the focus is on elimination of script/style concatenation in favor of prefetching and enhanced responsive images. If you’d like to help test the latter, please use the Enhanced Responsive Images plugin from the Performance team and give feedback.

Revisions

The focus of this cycle is on polishing the visual revisions experience that shipped in 7.0 so comparing and restoring changes feels effortless. 

Follow Visual Revisions: post-7.0 polish for more details.

Security

Application passwords improvements:

This work covers security hardening and UX refinements for Application Passwords, from better local/HTTPSHTTPS HTTPS is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data like banking information. environment detection to user notifications and safer default role handling. Below are a prioritized list of tasks:

• Application password UX improvements
• Send email notification when an application password is added
• For App Passwords in non-HTTPS websites, WordPress asks for development environment, but actually requires local
• Prevent default_role being set to dangerous values
• Support for the SameSite cookie attribute

Improved HTML processing

Work continues to harden how WordPress parses and processes HTML, building on the HTML API to make handling of markup safer and more reliable throughout Core.

Secrets API

WordPress has no first-class way to store a credential and a recent proposal outlines a Secrets API to solve this problem, along with WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ support, with a proper UIUI User interface planned for a future release. 

Read Proposal: A Secrets API for WordPress 7.2 for more details.

Sudo mode: reauthentication for specific tasks

Initial work is starting on the possible introduction of a “sudo mode” feature, which can gate highly privileged administrative actions behind a re-authentication prompt even when you’re already logged in. Further details, a proposal, and a call for collaboration will be published shortly and this post will be updated with the corresponding links.

Open to contributors

The above efforts have dedicated folks working on them for the release and folks are welcome to join efforts. The following items don’t have dedicated folks working on them, are high impact to work on, and are up for grabs. It’s not a comprehensive list and it’s meant to be a starting point as I’ve gotten feedback that it’s hard to always know where to begin. Please comment on the issues themselves and below if you plan to take one on:

• Join the PHPUnit test cleanup for 7.2.
• Add native date/time controls to the Publish box — PR #13050.
• Rework the Custom Fields editing flow — PR #12348.
• Add a toggle to control metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way. reordering — PR #12627.
• Fix the visuals/CSS on dashboard metabox controls — PR #12339.
• Close the remaining UX gaps in the gallery lightbox experience from earlier lightbox/carousel work — Issue #51132.
• Improve homepage setup (showing latest posts vs. a static page) to reduce a major source of user pain — Issue #63783.
• Introduce levels of block validation so the editor can recover content instead of showing a “this block is broken” dead-end — Issue #21703.
• Formalize how block attributes are organized and surfaced in the editor sidebar — Issue #73845.
• Add the ability for users to create their own named block style variations in Global Styles — Issue #49602.
• Show the Style Book for Typography, Colors and Blocks, including block states  — Issue #83065.

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