With WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” shipped, the core team is now asking everyone who touched the release — or simply watched it unfold — to share what worked, what didn’t, and where the process can improve. This kind of post-release review is a standard part of how the WordPress project refines its development cycles between major versions.
Feedback can be submitted via a dedicated Google Form or by leaving a comment on the Make WordPress Core post. The form stays open until July 20, 2026, with an anonymized summary of responses to be published shortly after that date.
Participation isn’t limited to those who committed code or led a squad. The team is explicitly welcoming responses from anyone who followed along — including agency owners, freelancers, and site builders who observed the release from the outside. The reasoning is straightforward: someone watching the release from a distance often spots issues that those deep in the work overlook. A few specifics on how submissions are handled:
- Anonymization
- Submissions are not anonymous at the time of entry, but all responses will be anonymized in the published summary.
- Username requirement
- Your WordPress.org username is only collected if there are follow-up questions — it is not attached to your public feedback.
- Who can participate
- Any contributor or community observer is welcome, regardless of how directly they were involved in the 7.0 cycle.
- Deadline
- The form and comment thread remain open until July 20, 2026.
The WordPress release retrospective process exists to surface systemic issues — communication gaps, bottlenecks in the release squad structure, tooling friction — that wouldn’t otherwise make it into a formal bug report. Past retrospectives have informed adjustments to release coordination, beta testing, and contributor onboarding.
WordPress 7.0 is named “Armstrong”, continuing the project’s tradition of naming major releases after jazz musicians — a nod to Louis Armstrong. It arrives with the block editor and Site Editor improvements accumulated over preceding minor versions. How smoothly the cycle ran — and what the community felt along the way — will shape how the team approaches the next major release.
