This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on WordPress 7.1 release readiness, the PHP AI Client embeddings and streaming PRs, the near-term scope for the Abilities API, developer education, and WCUS AI team booth planning.
WordPress 7.1 release scope
With WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 approaching, the team discussed the need to be cautious about anything still targeted for the release. Because the 7.1 cycle is shorter than usual, contributors agreed that work should only proceed if there is strong confidence in the implementation, review status, and testing. This applies especially to embeddings, streaming, and abilities-related work.
DECISION: If work targeted for WordPress 7.1 is still not ready by next Tuesday, July 14th, then the team should go “pencils down” and defer it to WordPress 7.2 rather than forcing uncertain work into the 7.1 release.
PHP AI Client
The team reviewed current progress on the embeddings PR. The implementation is working from a code perspective, but needs additional review and testing before it can be considered ready for WordPress 7.1.
Testing remains difficult because embeddings require several pieces to work together:
- Embeddings support in the PHP AI Client
- A provider plugin with embedding support (e.g. OpenAI, Google, Ollama)
- A WordPress-side implementation that uses the client and provider together (e.g. native vector search)
A small proof of concept in the AI Plugin was suggested as the best next step to demonstrate that the client, provider branches, and storage layer can work together in practice.
The team also discussed the streaming PR, which is open and needs additional review. Contributors noted that a concise summary for @jason_the_adams would help focus review and reduce the chance that the request gets lost in GitHub notifications.
Abilities API
A significant portion of the meeting focused on the Abilities API and what is appropriate for WordPress 7.1. Contributors discussed whether core should include abilities for post, user, and settings management, and how to avoid repeating delays across release cycles. The group also discussed the current shape of create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) abilities, including whether create and update should remain grouped together or be represented as separate primitives.
One key point of agreement was that abilities should be treated as WordPress functional primitives, separate from the transport layers that may expose them. Transport layers such as REST, MCP, command palettes, or other interfaces may consume abilities, but the ability itself should not be designed as if it belongs to only one of those contexts.
The near-term WordPress 7.1 scope discussed in the meeting remains focused on read-oriented abilities rather than broader management capabilities. The group also clarified that there is no plan to quietly refactor the existing REST API to use abilities. Any future overlap between REST and abilities should be intentional, reviewed, and clearly communicated.
DECISION: Abilities should remain decoupled from transport layers such as REST or MCP.
DECISION: Share feedback about both the API design overall and potential 7.1 inclusion on the merge proposal.
AI Plugin
The AI plugin continues to serve as the primary place to test and demonstrate AI-related functionality before broader core consideration. Contributors discussed using the plugin as a model implementation for abilities, helping demonstrate how functional primitives can be used in real features and not only as abstract API design.
The group also noted that better examples are needed to help developers understand why abilities are useful. Suggested developer education work includes showing compelling implementations and highlighting how abilities can be orchestrated outside of AI-specific or REST-specific contexts.
WordPress Agent Skills and evaluation
The group briefly discussed the evolution of skills and the need to treat current implementations as iterative rather than final. The eval folder in the agent skills repository was noted as still being a stub. Additional work is needed to determine whether and how it should connect to WordPress benchmarking efforts.
WordCamp US AI Team booth
The team reviewed planning for the WCUS AI Team booth. Contributors discussed making the booth volunteer form more casual and approachable so more people feel comfortable signing up. The team also discussed signage, QR codes for documentation, and lightweight booth visuals. @gajendrasingh offered to help with booth visuals and coordination needs.
DECISION: The booth volunteer form should be adjusted to feel more casual and lower-friction for contributors who may be available to help.
Next Steps
- Review and test the embeddings PR.
- Identify a small AI Plugin proof of concept that demonstrates embeddings working across the PHP AI Client, provider plugins, and WordPress-side storage.
- Review and test the streaming PR.
- Prepare a concise streaming PR summary for @jason_the_adams.
- Review the Abilities API merge proposal and provide feedback on the discussion thread.
- Provide feedback on CRUD patterns and ability structure, especially around separating primitive ability definitions from transport-layer exposure.
- Create or share practical developer examples showing how abilities can be used.
- Update the WCUS booth signup form to feel more casual and approachable.
- Continue WCUS booth coordination and visual preparation.
- Have @webdevmattcrom and @gajendrasingh shadow the next AI Team Office Hours session.
Upcoming Meetings
- Contributors are welcome to join every Wednesday at 1700 UTC via Google Meet. In-meeting notes are captured live in a Slack Canvas and paired with aggregate transcription data to generate this meeting summary post. All team meeting schedules are published directly to the WordPress Meeting Calendar.
- AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 9 July 2026. @justlevine to lead, @webdevmattcrom @gajendrasingh to shadow.
- Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 8 July 2026.
Props to @nikskyverge @justlevine for pre-publish review.