WordPress 6.0 Beta 2

WordPress 6.0 Beta 2 is now available for testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, and test this version of WordPress on a production or mission-critical website. Instead, it is recommended that you test Beta 2 on a test server and site. 

You can test the WordPress 6.0 Beta 2 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the beta version here (zip).

Option 3: Use WP-CLI to test: wp core update --version=6.0-beta2
Do not use this option if your filesystem is case-insensitive.

The current target for the final release is May 24, 2022, which is about five weeks away. 

Additional information on the full 6.0 release cycle is available.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.0-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will detail all upcoming changes.

What’s New In Beta 2

As a reminder, contributors have fixed 209 tickets in WordPress 6.0, including 110 new features and enhancements. Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes, and more are on the way with your help through testing. Here are a few of the changes you will find in Beta 2 specifically: 

• Block Editor: Prevent styles from being added to the site editor (#55567)
• Patterns REST API: Add ‘inserter’ to the schema  (#55567)
• Don’t load remote patterns twice in WP_REST_Block_Patterns_Controller::get_items (#55567)
• Add the ability to filter the whole notification email in retrieve_password (#54690)
• Avoid translating empty plugin headers (#54586)

Note on Webfonts API

Last week’s announcement for WordPress 6.0 Beta 1 includes a reference to “Webfonts API: Manage local fonts with PHP or theme.json,” as a feature that would be included in the release. This specific functionality was not included in Beta 2 but may be available at RC.

How to Help

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute to WordPress. If you are new to testing, check out this detailed guide that will walk you through how to get started.

If you think you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @dansoschin, @annezazu, @costdev, @priethor

And now a WordPress Haiku:

We code fervently

A breathless pause for the test

‘Collaborative community’ to the rescue

Key tapping resumes