WordPress 7.0 was supposed to ship on April 9. The team paused the release to redesign how real-time collaboration stores its data, and a new schedule is expected by April 22. But 7.0 is still coming, and some of the changes will affect your day-to-day work.
I’ve been going through my own client projects this week to see what needs work before it drops.
Metaboxes and real-time collaboration
7.0 introduces real-time collaboration in the block editor. Two people, one post, same time. It’s opt-in, powered by Yjs with HTTP polling.
If your plugin uses metaboxes, RTC gets disabled for that post. Metaboxes run through Gutenberg’s compatibility mode and bypass wordpress/data, which RTC needs for change detection. The RTC dev note explains the mechanics, and the Meta Boxes guide covers migration paths.
I found two client plugins that still rely on metaboxes. I’m migrating them now, because once 7.0 ships and users try to enable collaboration, those plugins will be the reason it doesn’t work. That’s a support conversation I’d rather skip.
PHP 7.2 and 7.3
Gone. WordPress 7.0 drops both. Minimum is 7.4, recommended is 8.3+. MySQL minimum goes to 8.0.
Most of us run 8.x already. But I still see agency setups where staging runs a different PHP version than production. One of my legacy clients is on 7.4 and I had to double-check that nothing would break on the jump. The update from 7.3 to 7.4 is usually smooth, but old dependencies can surface things.
Block API versions and the iframe
This one gets misunderstood a lot. The iframed post editor is not being enforced in 7.0. Ella Van Durpe’s dev note describes what actually changes: instead of checking all registered blocks for v3+, the editor now only checks the blocks inserted in the post. If they’re all v3+, the editor loads iframed. If one isn’t, it switches out.
The Gutenberg plugin (from 22.6) does enforce the iframe, for feedback collection. If you have blocks on v2, test them there now. You’ll want to know what breaks before enforcement hits Core in a later release.
API keys in the Connectors screen
7.0 ships a Connectors API with a centralized admin screen for managing API keys. Three AI providers out of the box (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic), but any plugin that needs an external API key can use the framework.
Keys stored through the screen currently sit unencrypted in wp_options. Trac #64789 tracks the encryption work. Set your keys via environment variables or PHP constants. They take priority over the database value automatically. The dev note documents the priority order.
I wrote about Novamira recently. That takes the opposite approach: raw PHP access for AI agents via MCP, built for staging. The Connectors API is the production-safe counterpart. The AI Client dev note covers wp_ai_client_prompt() and the provider-agnostic architecture if you want to build on it.
Hosting and polling
Every open RTC session generates HTTP requests. Peter Wilson measured ~60 requests/min for one author, ~480/min with two collaborators. The polling intervals since Beta 6 (PR #76704) are conservative: 4s solo, 1s with a collaborator, 25s in background tabs. WordPress.com runs RTC at 100% of their shared infrastructure with those defaults and says the load is fine.
You can adjust intervals via JS filters or swap out HTTP polling entirely. The custom sync provider dev note has a full example using y-websocket. WordPress VIP already ships a WebSocket-based provider.
Everything else
There’s a lot more. PHP-only block registration without JavaScript or a build step, with sidebar controls generated automatically. Pattern overrides for custom blocks. Custom CSS per block instance. Viewport-based block visibility. Pseudo-styles in theme.json. A completely reworked visual revisions system. A Client-Side Abilities API that bridges WordPress to external AI tools via MCP. The full list of dev notes lives here.
On the security side: 6.9.2 through 6.9.4 shipped mid-March in rapid succession, patching 10 vulnerabilities including a blind SSRF and stored XSS. 7.0 includes all those fixes.
What I’m doing
Testing against the 7.0 nightlies. Migrating two plugins off metaboxes. Checking block API versions in the Gutenberg plugin. My clients are on PHP 8.2+, so that’s sorted. If you still have sites on 7.3, that’s your most urgent item.
New schedule comes April 22.
