Core-AI Contributor Check-in – July 23rd, 2025

Neill McShea welcomed new team members Tammie Lister, Adam Silverstein, and David Levine. Jason Adams shared updates on the project’s progress and discussed provider integrations, while James LePage emphasized defining contributions and pathways, and Tammie Lister proposed structuring GitHub projects. The main talking points included the roadmap, provider integrations, meeting structure, defining contributions, GitHub project structure, DTO work, strategic vision for providers and hosts, and weekly goals.

Details

• Welcome and Introductions Neill McShea welcomed new team members, Tammie Lister, Adam Silverstein, and David Levine, to the second meeting. Each new member briefly introduced themself, sharing their location and involvement with WordPress
• Roadmap and Progress Review Neill McShea shared updates on the project’s progress, including the publication of their roadmap and the merging of the first code PR for the PHP client . Jason Adams noted activity in the providers discussion and mentioned that the topic of which providers to support and who will build the integrations needs further discussion .
• Provider Integrations Discussion Jason Adams raised concerns about the timing and linear progression of provider integrations, suggesting that it might be better to invite contributions for these integrations rather than letting them hold up the experimental plugin. David Levine and Jason Adams agreed that the bi-weekly meeting would be a good venue to continue this discussion, as hosts are already listening in channels and seeking ways to contribute.
• Meeting Structure and Attendance The team discussed confirming a plan to open the meeting to more attendees using a “panelist idea” proposed by Jonathan. James LePage and Neill McShea are looking into tools for this, aiming to allow wider participation while keeping the meetings focused on concrete progress and avoiding large, unstructured discussions.
• Defining Contributions and Pathways James LePage emphasized the need for clear pathways and definitions of what constitutes a contribution beyond code, including design and thought, to better harness enthusiasm and guide contributors. Tammie Lister supported this, suggesting that scope should be defined per milestone or project, as different repositories will have different needs, such as documentation or design.
• GitHub Project Structure Tammie Lister proposed structuring GitHub projects by adapting the best practices from the Gutenberg repository, including labeling, documenting labels, and setting up milestones. This approach aims to guide contributions by clearly indicating where different types of help are needed and providing “good first contribution” areas, especially within the experiments project.
• DTO Work and Cloud Code Jason Adams updated the team on the Data Transfer Object (DTO) work, describing it as a critical foundational piece that is nearing completion, with the goal to finish all foundational pieces this week. Jason Adams also highlighted the efficiency of using Cloud Code for generating 98% of the code, noting its high cost but effectiveness.
• Strategic Vision for Providers and Hosts Jason Adams emphasized the need for a vision on how providers fit into the overall WordPress work, including how to involve hosts sooner rather than later to ensure broader adoption of the experimental plugin. James LePage stressed supporting state-of-the-art modalities and playing nicely with self-hosted and open-source solutions, expecting major hosts to adopt the new features immediately.
• Weekly Goals and Upcoming Meetings James LePage outlined goals for integrating Automatic’s resources into the MCP and Abilities API work, aiming to have usable versions or clear pathways for all three packages by WordCamp US in a month . David Levine offered his free time for contributions, particularly in the Abilities and MCP work and the experiments plugin.
• Agenda for Bi-Weekly Chat James LePage shared a draft agenda for the upcoming bi-weekly chat, inviting team members to review and suggest additions or restructuring for the discussion. Felix joined late and discussed the DTO pull request review process, with Jason Adams emphasizing the desire to complete foundational work this week.
• Meeting Notes Publication Neill McShea reminded the team about the idea of publishing meeting agendas and notes on a dedicated page to ensure continuity and accessibility, with James LePage volunteering to set this up .

Suggested next steps

David Levine and Matt Batchelder will help with the review of the DTOs.

James LePage will add the discussion about providers to the agenda for tomorrow’s bi-weekly meeting.

Jason Adams will follow up with Felix regarding the DTO work and finish all foundational pieces this week.

Jason Adams will schedule synchronous calls with Felix and ping each other on Slack to speed up the review process when Felix has capacity.

James LePage will chat with David Levine about the abilities in MCP and how to tie the experiments plug-in together.

James LePage will spin up a page to publish meeting agendas and notes.

Tammie Lister and Neill McShea will lead the implementation of the GitHub project structure, starting by sharing the plan tomorrow and then iterating in public.