The WordPress 7.0 Release parties are on the calendar. If you have been following the Phase 3 collaboration work or the isolated editor features, you already know this is a bigger version than the number suggests. Release day is April 9, 2026, and the release parties are where the coordination, the last-minute bug squashing and the mission control happen.
I have sat through enough release cycles to say that the Slack sessions in #core are the best place to watch how the sausage gets made. Veteran committer or site owner curious about the roadmap, it does not matter much: being around during Beta and RC is how you avoid a surprise the day the update lands on your production server.
The WordPress 7.0 release roadmap
The schedule starts in February and runs into a live General Release at WordCamp Asia 2026. I covered what is coming in the WordPress 7.0 Roadmap and in my notes from the latest dev chat agenda.
| Date (UTC) | Milestone | Lead / Emcee |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 19, 2026 | Beta 1 | @amykamala |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Beta 2 | @amykamala |
| Mar 5, 2026 | Beta 3 | @4thhubbard / @amykamala |
| Mar 12, 2026 | Beta 4 | @chaion07 / @amykamala |
| Mar 19, 2026 | RC 1 | @amykamala |
| Mar 26, 2026 | RC 2 | @4thhubbard |
| Apr 2, 2026 | RC 3 | @chaion07 |
| Apr 8, 2026 | Dry Run | Code Freeze (24hr) |
| Apr 9, 2026 | General Release | Live @ WordCamp Asia |
How to join a release party
Everything happens in the #core channel on Making WordPress Slack, and you do not need to be a core contributor to show up. If you run a complex WooCommerce stack or custom enterprise builds, the RC (Release Candidate) phase is the one to sit in on. It is your early warning for breaking changes in the official 7.0 milestone.
- The beta phase is for finishing features and early bug hunting.
- The RC phase covers regressions only. No new features go in, the point is stability.
- The dry run is the final 24-hour code freeze before the big push.
The release itself goes out live during the WordCamp Asia 2026 Contributor Day. If you are not in Bangkok, the Slack channel is still the canonical record of the release process.
If the 7.0 upgrade work is eating your dev hours, I can take it on. I have been wrestling with WordPress since the 4.x days.
Before April 9
WordPress 7.0 is where Phase 3 (Workflows) gets real. Moving from a single-user editor to a collaborative one brings technical debt and race conditions that Core has not had to handle before. April 10 is a bad time to find out whether your site survived, so test the RCs while the parties are still running.
