WordPress 7.0 Updates: RC3 Scheduled, RTC Removed, Block Editor Handbook Docs Proposal

The WordPress dev chat on May 6th announced that WordPress 7.0 RC3, the new Beta 1, will ship on Friday, May 8th. The release will not include real‑time collaboration, a decision finalized in ticket #64696. A call for RTC performance testing from hosts such as Bluehost, Kinsta, XServer, GoDaddy, WordPress.com, and Ionos remains open, with submissions due by May 4th. The chat also highlighted a proposal to auto‑generate Block Editor Handbook documentation directly from block.json files, aiming to streamline editor documentation. Additionally, contributors were encouraged to help with the “Help us help others contribute to WordPress” initiative, part of a broader effort to lower entry barriers.

Discussion topics included 37 open tickets in the 7.0 milestone, with a plan for a dedicated 7.0 scrub after the chat and a separate Gutenberg scrub on Thursday. The Field Guide timeline is under review and should be published ASAP. A question about the systems team’s feedback on the RTC custom table was raised, noting that a formalized process for schema changes may not be necessary due to their rarity.