The planning for the WordPress 7.0 Release Squad is officially in motion, and if you’ve been around the block, you know what that means for our production sites. WordPress 7.0 represents a major milestone, not just in versioning, but in the evolution of the “Workflows” phase of Gutenberg. Following the release pattern from 6.x, the core team is aiming for a leaner, more focused leadership group to navigate the complexities of a major version bump.
According to the WordPress 7.0 release squad roadmap, the target date for the final release is Thursday, April 9, 2026. This coincides with WordCamp Asia, though as Matt Mullenweg (the designated Release Lead) clarified, traveling to the event isn’t a requirement for squad members. Most of the heavy lifting happens in the trenches of the #core Slack channel anyway.
The WordPress 7.0 Release Squad Schedule
Stability is the name of the game when we hit a version 7.0. We’ve been in the Alpha stage since November 2025, and things are about to accelerate. Specifically, the team has outlined a clear path from Beta to General Availability (GA). Here is the proposed timeline for the WordPress 7.0 Release Squad to manage:
- Beta 1: Thursday, February 19
- Beta 4: Thursday, March 12
- Release Candidate 1: Thursday, March 19
- Dry Run: Wednesday, April 8
- Final Release: Thursday, April 9, 2026
Furthermore, this release will continue the “Small Squad” approach. Instead of a massive hierarchy, we are looking at focused leads for Coordination, Technical development, Triage, and Testing. This structure reduces the overhead and allows Make Team Reps to handle the heavy lifting within their respective domains.
Technical Leadership and Core Responsibilities
For those looking to step into a Tech Lead or Triage role, you’re not just “watching tickets.” You’re managing race conditions in the new Abilities API and ensuring that the deep integration of AI tools doesn’t break legacy hooks. Consequently, the triage process is where the most critical work happens to prevent regressions.
If you want to test the current state of 7.0-alpha, you can use WP-CLI to switch your environment. Just remember: do not run this on a production server unless you enjoy late-night emergency refactoring.
# Check out the latest development version
wp core update --version=trunk
# Verify current version and branch
wp core version --extraHow to Volunteer for the Squad
The project is looking for volunteers of all experience levels. However, if you are aiming for a lead role, you should have a solid grasp of the WordPress release handbook. The roles currently open for nominations include:
- Release Coordination: Managing the clock and cross-team status updates.
- Tech Leads: High-level oversight of core and Gutenberg development.
- Triage Lead: The gatekeeper of Trac. You decide what ships and what gets punted to 7.1.
- Test Lead: Coordinating community-wide testing reports and debugging sessions.
If you are interested, you must leave a comment on the official Make post by Friday, January 16th.
Look, if this WordPress 7.0 Release Squad stuff is eating up your dev hours, let me handle it. I’ve been wrestling with WordPress since the 4.x days.
The Takeaway for Developers
Don’t wait until the first Release Candidate to start testing your plugins and themes against 7.0. With the shift in how the WordPress 7.0 Release Squad is being structured, the communication will be faster but the windows for major changes will be tighter. April 9th will be here before you know it—get involved in the #7-0-release-leads Slack channel today if you want a seat at the table.
