WordPress 7.0 is officially hitting the alpha stage, and if you have been in the ecosystem as long as I have, you know exactly what that means: it is time for the WordPress 7.0 Bug Scrub. This is not just some community meetup; it is the high-stakes filter that prevents breaking changes from nuking your production sites. If we do not catch a hook regression or a transient race condition now, we will be the ones fixing it on a frantic Friday night after the release.
I have seen my fair share of releases where a minor oversight in a wp_head filter caused absolute chaos for thousands of users. That is why these scrubs are vital. They are technical triage sessions where contributors dissect tickets, verify patches, and move the needle on core stability. If you are tired of legacy code dragging down your projects, this is your chance to see how the sausage is made—and maybe even influence the outcome.
The WordPress 7.0 Bug Scrub Schedule
The core team, led by @audrasjb and @juanmaguitar, is running a tight ship this cycle. Scrubs are happening twice a week in the #core channel on Slack. Whether you are a veteran committer or just want to learn how to navigate Trac, your input is needed.
Alpha Bug Scrubs: Early Triage
- January 28, 2026: Focus on tickets marked
early. - February 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19: General alpha ticket processing (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 16:00 UTC).
Beta and Release Candidate Phases
Once we hit Beta, the focus shifts to regressions. We are looking for issues that were introduced by 7.0 itself. During the Beta WordPress 7.0 Bug Scrub sessions (starting February 24), we prioritize bug reports from the previous beta releases to ensure we are not shipping new problems.
- Beta Scrubs: February 24 through March 19 (Tuesdays and Thursdays).
- RC Scrubs: March 24 through April 8. These are the “if needed” sessions for critical, last-minute fixes.
If you want to dive deeper into what else is coming in this release, check out my breakdown of WordPress 7.0 Developer Features or get a look at the official roadmap squad.
How to Contribute Like a Pro
Don’t just sit on the sidelines. Leading a scrub is one of the fastest ways to understand the architecture of WordPress. You don’t need to be a core committer; you just need to be organized. If you want to jump in, use Report 5 to see all open 7.0 tickets.
Pro Tip: When testing core patches, I always recommend using WP-CLI to spin up a fresh trunk environment. It beats manual FTP uploads any day of the week.
# Download the latest WordPress trunk for testing
wp core download --version=trunk --force
# Check current version to ensure you're on the 7.0 alpha path
wp core versionWe also have recurring sessions for specific components. The Accessibility Scrub happens every Tuesday at 15:00 UTC in #accessibility, and the Performance Scrub follows every other Tuesday in #core-performance. If you care about Core Web Vitals, that is where the real optimization happens.
Look, if this WordPress 7.0 Bug Scrub stuff is eating up your dev hours, let me handle it. I’ve been wrestling with WordPress since the 4.x days.
The Pragmatic Takeaway
A stable release is the result of thousands of micro-decisions made during these scrubs. By participating, you aren’t just “helping out”; you are protecting your own technical interests. Use the reports, join Slack, and let’s make sure 7.0 ships without the usual launch-day headaches. If you’re planning to lead a session, ping the release leads on Slack to get added to the official schedule—you’ll get the props you deserve in Dev Chat.
