The WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:
Found a bugbugA bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority.?Create a ticket in our bug tracker.
The WordPress project is run by a core leadership team and led by co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg. The team governs all aspects of the project, including core development, WordPress.org, and community initiatives.
Trusted contributors and core developers earn their stripes on more than their abilities and actions. Leadership roles are earned on the basis of professionalism, personality, attitude, and respect among peers.
The best contributors naturally respect and subscribe to the project’s core philosophies. A lack of a personal agenda is paramount: we’re all a part of the same community and we all share common goals. This doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion – far from it. The best contributors can balance their opinions with the goals of the project and the perspectives of both users and developers. Offering consistently good suggestions, demonstrating a strong ability to collaborate with others, and being able to accept (and provide) feedback are all important.
You can identify these standards in some of our best core contributors, and that’s why they have strong influence over the project. Final decisions are made by the core team, which has evolved over the life of the project based on merit.
The WordPress community is led via two main avenues: the Internal Leads and the Community Volunteers. In many areas, such as UI and Support, the Community Leads are the driving force.
The WordPress project is led by the core leadership team, which consists of WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, five lead developers, and a number of core developers.
The lead developers are Helen Hou-Sandi, Dion Hulse, Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin, and Andrew Ozz. These developers have final authority on technical decisions, and lead architecture discussions and implementation efforts.
Robert Anderson, Michael Arestad, Joen Asmussen, Felix Arntz, Rachel Baker, Ian Belanger, Riad Benguella, Pascal Birchler, Sergey Biryukov, John Blackbourn, Anthony Burchell, Aaron D. Campbell, Allan Cole, Mel Choyce-Dwan, Kelly Choyce-Dwan, Jorge Costa, Jonathan Desrosiers, Joe Dolson, Ian Dunn, Andrew Duthie, Jeremy Felt, Andrea Fercia, Miguel Fonseca, Laurel Fulford, Boone B. Gorges, Herre Groen, Joe Hoyle, Timothy Jacobs, John James Jacoby, Drew Jaynes, Aaron Jorbin, David A. Kennedy, Konstantin Kovshenin, Eric Lewis, Tammie Lister, Matthew Riley MacPherson, Ryan McCue, Joe McGill, James Nylen, Konstantin Obenland, Gary Pendergast, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Brandon Payton, Omar Reiss, Daniel Richards, Weston Ruter, Dominik Schilling, Mike Schroder, Alex Shiels, Adam Silverstein, Allen Snook, Jake Spurlock, Ian Stewart, Scott Taylor, Anton Timmermans, Ella Van Durpe, Matias Ventura, K. Adam White, Peter Wilson, and Grzegorz Ziółkowski.
Other contributing developers include Michael Adams, Nikolay Bachiyski, Jon Cave, Daryl Koopersmith, Matt Miklic, Joseph Scott, Andy Skelton, Peter Westwood, Lance Willett, and Samuel Wood.
The core and contributing developers serve as guides for WordPress development. With every version, hundreds of developers contribute code to WordPress. These core contributors are volunteers who contribute to the core codebase in some way. All it takes is a single patch to make a difference.
Since anyone who is an active contributor on a team can be elected as team rep, team reps will often have different levels of familiarity with other areas of the project, communication protocols, and general processes. To get everyone’s expectations in the same place, the “job description” for team reps is located on Make/Updates.
@francina and @audrasjb are the current Core Team Reps. Team Rep elections happen every 1-2 years and follow a specific process that includes nominations, voting, and announcing the new reps.
The support forums are run by a team of volunteer moderators who remove spam, handle disputes, and generally keep the peace. They are led primarily by a self-appointed team leader and everyone is encouraged to jump in.
The Documentation team is responsible for all things documentation, including the Codex, handbooks, developer.wordpress.org, admin help, inline docs, and other general wordsmithing across the WordPress project.
This handbook and the Codex are the primary sources of information for learning how to develop, improve, and troubleshoot WordPress. The handbook is curated by a small group of volunteers, while the Codex is open for anyone with a wordpress.org user account to edit.
The WordPress mobile applications are open source software, just like the project. There are two applications currently for iOS and Android. Both apps are hosted on GitHub where anyone can contribute.
Themes submitted to the WordPress Themes Directory are reviewed by a team of volunteers to ensure compliance with the WordPress.org theme guidelines. The team is made up of community leaders and contributors who work together on developing standards and reviewing themes.
Plugins submitted to the WordPress Plugins Directory are reviewed by a team of volunteers to ensure they meet WordPress.org guidelines before being included in the plugin directory. The team rep is Boone Gorges, with volunteers Pippin Williamson, Scott Reilly, Samuel Wood, Mika Epstein, Kailey Lampert, Daniel Bachhuber, and Mark Riley (Reviewer Emeritus) reviewing plugins and developing standards.
WordPress core development updates and discussion from the teams above happen on the Make WordPress blogs. You can also follow core development by joining the #core channel on the project’s Slack team, which is open for anyone to join. Dedicated channels are set up for various WordPress core components and community initiatives. A more specific breakdown of the WordPress project’s communication channels is available in the Communication section of the Core Handbook.