New QA Report Aims to Bridge the Gap Between WordPress Testing and Core Teams

<div>&NewLine;<p>WordPress Test Team contributor Manuel Camargo has published a first-of-its-kind report analyzing quality practices in WordPress Core — and raising important questions about how the project handles testing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;make&period;wordpress&period;org&sol;test&sol;2025&sol;07&sol;21&sol;first-wordpress-quality-analysis-report&sol;">First WordPress Quality Analysis Report<&sol;a>&comma; shared on the Make WordPress Test blog yesterday&comma; reviews all commits made during the WordPress 6&period;8 release cycle&comma; from 15 April 2025 to 15 July 2025&period; Of the 217 commits made during that period&comma; only 52 were classified as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;improvements” such as bug fixes or enhancements&period; Just 29 of those included any form of testing&comma; and none reached the highest &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;quality score” rating&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The quality score is calculated based on the presence of automated tests&comma; code reviews&comma; and the amount of manual testing submitted before a commit is merged&period; The average score across all improvement commits was 2&period;47 out of 5 — a modest result that reflects both the limited use of automated testing and the inconsistent application of manual test reports&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"yarpp yarpp-related yarpp-related-shortcode yarpp-template-list">&NewLine;<&excl;-- YARPP List --><&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr>&NewLine;<p><strong style&equals;"font-family&colon; Arial&comma; Helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;font-size&colon;14px&semi;color&colon;&num;42619a&semi;letter-spacing&colon;2px"><&sol;strong>RELATED NEWS<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li style&equals;"font-family&colon;Arial&comma; Helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;font-size&colon;15px&semi;line-height&colon;20px&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 10px 0"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;who-leads-wordpress-businesses-the-data-confirms-its-still-not-women" rel&equals;"bookmark" title&equals;"Who Leads WordPress Businesses&quest; The Data Confirms It’s &lpar;Still&rpar; Not Women">Who Leads WordPress Businesses&quest; The Data Confirms It’s &lpar;Still&rpar; Not Women<&sol;a>&NewLine;<li style&equals;"font-family&colon;Arial&comma; Helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;font-size&colon;15px&semi;line-height&colon;20px&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 10px 0"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;cloudfest-hackathon-2025-recap-what-the-teams-built-how-it-went-and-whats-next" rel&equals;"bookmark" title&equals;"CloudFest Hackathon 2025 Recap&colon; What the Teams Built&comma; How It Went&comma; and What’s Next">CloudFest Hackathon 2025 Recap&colon; What the Teams Built&comma; How It Went&comma; and What’s Next<&sol;a>&NewLine;<li style&equals;"font-family&colon;Arial&comma; Helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;font-size&colon;15px&semi;line-height&colon;20px&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 10px 0"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;core-committers-struggle-to-keep-wordpress-moving-as-automattic-steps-back-again" rel&equals;"bookmark" title&equals;"Core Committers Struggle to Keep WordPress Moving as Automattic Steps Back Again">Core Committers Struggle to Keep WordPress Moving as Automattic Steps Back Again<&sol;a>&NewLine;<li style&equals;"font-family&colon;Arial&comma; Helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;font-size&colon;15px&semi;line-height&colon;20px&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 10px 0"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;wordpress-sentiment-defies-x-drama-remains-strong-across-platforms" rel&equals;"bookmark" title&equals;"WordPress Sentiment Defies X Drama&comma; Remains Strong Across Platforms">WordPress Sentiment Defies X Drama&comma; Remains Strong Across Platforms<&sol;a>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<hr>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>Camargo&comma; who contributes under the username SirLouen&comma; is a graduate of the 2024 WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program&period; He has been leading the Testing Team’s efforts to take a more holistic approach to quality assurance this year&period; With more than 50 active members&comma; the team submitted 366 test reports over the three-month review period&comma; but only around 8&percnt; of those reports appear to be reflected in Core commits&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The data suggests there’s a massive chasm between the efforts of the Test team and the extent to which those efforts are being utilised by the Core team&comma;” Camargo writes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This gap highlights a significant underutilization of the Test team’s efforts&comma; and this is what intuitively brought the attention of the Test Team for several months until it was decided to generate such a report with real data to confirm the concerns&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The report also notes that only eight of the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;make&period;wordpress&period;org&sol;core&sol;handbook&sol;about&sol;organization&sol;">project’s 87 core committers<&sol;a> made more than three commits during the review period&comma; suggesting just 9&percnt; of the committer base is actively contributing to Core&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Camargo calls for clearer communication between the Test and Core teams and invites core contributors to share feedback to help align testing efforts with areas of real need&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"ad-aligncenter">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"ad-row">&NewLine;<div id&equals;"ad-3586" class&equals;"ad-300x250 adsanity-300x250 aligncenter adsanity-aligncenter">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"adsanity-inner">&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Without some sort of guidance it seems that all efforts are being misdirected and&comma; unfortunately&comma; are providing minimal to no value&comma;” he writes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;A poor communication line exists between Core and Test teams&comma; and this translates to this disconnection we have found in the present analysis&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Gutenberg&comma; where much of the project’s current development activity is happening&comma; was excluded from the analysis&comma; prompting a question in the comments from Automattic’s Anne McCarthy&period; Camargo responded that including Gutenberg&comma; the CLI&comma; or Performance Lab would have made the report difficult to manage&period; But he acknowledged the gap&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I started to become increasingly discouraged in Core&comma;” he wrote&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;But I hope that Gutenberg is not the sole priority and some attention returns to Core one day&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While the report focuses on Core&comma; it’s part of a broader effort by the Testing Team to improve quality across the project&comma; and to make sure their contributions are landing where they’re most needed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Camargo said other testing initiatives are already in the works and hinted that a similar analysis for Gutenberg may follow&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Image&colon; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;flickr&period;com&sol;photos&sol;wceu&sol;54569005871&sol;in&sol;album-72177720326409146&sol;">Chris Clarke<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"ad-aligncenter">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"ad-row">&NewLine;<div id&equals;"ad-3586" class&equals;"ad-300x250 adsanity-300x250 aligncenter adsanity-aligncenter">&NewLine;<div class&equals;"adsanity-inner">&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>The post <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;new-qa-report-aims-to-bridge-the-gap-between-wordpress-testing-and-core-teams">New QA Report Aims to Bridge the Gap Between WordPress Testing and Core Teams<&sol;a> appeared first on <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;therepository&period;email&sol;">The Repository<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;

Sponsored
Sponsored
A WordPress Commenter

Recent Posts

Fueled Layoffs Spark Tension After Former Employee Pre-Empts Announcement

Fueled has confirmed layoffs this week, cutting 4–5% of its workforce. But the news reached…

5 hours ago

Nick Hamze’s ‘Cool Kids’ Post Kicks Off Fresh Debate on WordPress’s Image Problem

After calling for “more weirdness” in WordPress theme design earlier this year, Nick Hamze has…

1 day ago

New FAIR 1.0 Release Brings Decentralized Package Management to WordPress

FAIR has reached its first major milestone with the release of version 1.0 this week,…

1 day ago

Performance Chat Summary: 23 September 2025

The full chat log is available beginning here on Slack. WordPress Performance Trac tickets @westonruter…

2 days ago

From RV Life to CEO: Jon Penland’s Unlikely Road to Leading Kinsta

Back in 2011, Jon Penland was selling centrifugal pumping units into the water and wastewater…

3 days ago

GoDaddy’s AI-Powered Airo Site Designer Creates WordPress Sites in Minutes

Heads up: This is sponsored content, created and paid for by one of our sponsors.…

3 days ago