WordPress 7.2 Release Squad: Mullenweg Back as Lead
Jeffrey Paul announced a 12-person WordPress 7.2 release squad on Make WordPress Core, with Matt Mullenweg back as release lead and the Twenty Twenty-Seven theme leads on board. Final release is pencilled in for 8-10 December, alongside State of the Word.
WordPress Agency Retainer Pricing: Why Page-Based Builds Fail
Page-based pricing rewards scope creep and punishes maintenance. A two-person shop shows the 12-month math on switching to WordPress agency retainer pricing.
WebMCP WordPress Playground: Abilities as Browser Tools
Playground now supports WebMCP, the draft browser API that lets an AI agent call actions as tools. Registering an ability is not enough: a plugin has to wrap it in a WebMCP tool, and a proxy carries calls through the nested iframe.
Gutenberg 23.9 Adds Parent-Selector Inserter and Site Editor v2 Groundwork
Gutenberg 23.9 adds a plus icon to the block toolbar's parent selector and a custom-style indicator in Global Styles, while about twenty pull requests quietly lay the groundwork for Site Editor v2.
Jetpack 16.1.3 Security Update Patches Import Flaw
Jetpack 16.1.3 fixes a critical deserialisation flaw in the Import feature that has been present since Jetpack 12.0. Patched versions exist for every branch, and most sites are auto-updating.
WooCommerce 11.1 Ships Order Withdrawal and Faster Store API
WooCommerce 11.1.0 landed on 1 September 2026 with a self-serve order withdrawal form for EU shoppers, native variation galleries for every store, and Store API requests up to 42% faster. Here is what actually shipped, and what it does not do.
Rank Math Support Agent Paused Four Days After Launch
Rank Math shipped an AI Support Agent in 1.0.277, then paused it in 1.0.277.2 on 31 August while it adds transparency to how the agent requests site access. The changelog is short. The questions it raises are not.
LiteSpeed Cache Vulnerability CVE-2026-18978 Patched in 7.9
Sucuri's August roundup flags an unauthenticated stored XSS in LiteSpeed Cache, patched in 7.9 after affecting 7.8.1 and earlier. ElementsKit and MC4WP shipped fixes too.
The tools a two-person WordPress agency actually needs (and what they cost per month)
Hosting, a theme and builder, forms, SEO, email, project management and research, priced out for two people running five, ten and twenty client sites.
WordPress Core Security Initiative Promises Zero Backlog
WordPress has committed to clearing its security backlog to zero and scaling triage against an AI-driven surge of vulnerability reports. Plugin and theme authors should expect a compressed CVE lifecycle.