Rafael Meneses

Our very own @ma.tt joined the TBPN crew to close out #StateOfTheWord yesterday. They talked about WordPress 6.9, open source, @beeper, and how AI is changing the web. Did you miss it? Check it out now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBQh...

WooCommerce 10.3 Introduces MCP Support for AI Integration The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI models securely connect to real tools and data, kind of like a universal USB-C for AI. Instead of every model needing a custom integration, MCP makes those connections reusable and interoperable. Industry adoption is growing fast: platforms like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are already aligning around MCP to make agents smarter and more useful in real-world apps.

WooCommerce 10.3 introduces MCP support in beta 🎉

MTG (Magic The Gathering) Card Block Just created this MTG Card View block using Telex. It took me a few rounds of polishing to get it right, but this is looking pretty decent now. I used ChatGPT to craft this prompt: Create a Gutenberg block called “Magic Card” that displays detailed information about a selected *Magic: The Gathering* card. **Requirements:** * The block should allow users to **search for or select** a card by name in the block settings sidebar.

I just made this MTG card preview block using Telex. Pretty fun :)

Arduino It's been a while since I stopped caring about Arduino. Ever since I discovered other boards like ESP32 and SMT32, I've never looked back. For personal projects and automation, those boards are my go-to. Today I saw on Techmeme that Qualcomm acquired Arduino. I doubt it's beneficial for Arduino and its users. I still use the Arduino IDE and hope they don't change licensing or anything else.

It's been a while since I stopped caring about Arduino. Ever since I discovered other boards like ESP32 and SMT32, I've never looked back.

WooCommerce at Scale Really solid write-up from the WooCommerce team on scaling performance (developer.woocommerce.com). The part that stands out for me is the edge-caching work — lowering TTFB by moving cache layers closer to the user is a big win for any store where latency is often the hidden bottleneck. The long-term challenge is always balancing cache hit rates with dynamic content, but this approach feels like a big step in the right direction for reducing TTFB at scale.

Really solid write-up from the WooCommerce team on scaling performance (developer.woocommerce.com).

What could go wrong? If I were to suggest an addition: perhaps a caveat/guidance for companies scaling from “office first” to “distributed first” — how to unlearn old habits (e.g. “everyone must be online from 9 to 5”), and how to coach managers who are uncomfortable giving up visibility and control. Because in many organizations, the hardest transformation is internal mindset. @mrfoxtalbot wrote a great post about the challenges a company can face when trying to move towards distributed work without the right lens.

What could go wrong?

If I were to suggest an addition: perhaps a caveat/guidance for companies scaling from “office first” to “distributed first” — how to unlearn old habits (e.g. “everyone must be online from 9 to 5”), and how to coach managers who are uncomfortable giving up visibility and…

My first MCP Server: WordPress Plugin Directory for LLMs A few days ago I started developing my own JWT authentication plugin for WordPress sites using my own approach and criteria for client-side workflows. The result has been jwt-auth-pro-wp-rest-api — a plugin I’m really happy with in terms of code quality and functionality. When considering publishing it to the WordPress.org directory, I wanted to understand […]

🚀 Just published: www.npmjs.com/package/wor...

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to query, compare, and analyze plugins (code included) in the WordPress.org plugins directory, directly from tools like Claude Code.

I wrote about it:
juanma.codes/2025/09/25/...

Communication is oxygen If you ever find yourself scheduling cross-border meetings, writing for a global audience, or trying not to confuse someone in “summer” when it’s freezing where they are, @jobthomas wrote a really good post about inclusive comunication that you’ve got to check out. It’s a short but sharp read that highlights how little “local” assumptions (time zones, dates, seasons, slang) can unintentionally alienate people. It’s full of simple tips to help your communication feel more welcoming everywhere. Highly recommended.

Communication is oxygen

If you ever find yourself scheduling cross-border meetings, writing for a global audience, or trying not to confuse someone in “summer” when it’s freezing where they are, @jobthomas wrote a really good post about inclusive comunication that you’ve got to check out. It’s a…

Block commenting, fun with Telex, from classic to block theme—Weekend Edition 341 Read onlineIssue #341 | September 20, 2025 Hi there, A month before Beta, is the time I get excited about a major release. Many new features—I see it all coming together via GitHub and Trac. The Source of Truth is in the works, but it will take a few more weeks to be published, as only when Release candidate 2 comes out I can be sure about what actually made it into the release.

Block commenting, fun with Telex, from classic to block theme—Weekend Edition 341

Read onlineIssue #341 | September 20, 2025 Hi there, A month before Beta, is the time I get excited about a major release. Many new features—I see it all coming together via GitHub and Trac. The Source of Truth is in…

Typepad Shuts Down September 30, 2025 — Move Your Blog Now! Heads up, everyone! Typepad is officially shutting down September 30, 2025, and your blog—or whatever content you have there will be gone unless you move it away. Good news: WordPress.com is offering a free migration for Typepad sites with up to 1 GB of media/files/storage. If your site’s small or modest, this could save you a lot of hassle and cost.

Typepad Shuts Down September 30, 2025 — Move Your Blog Now!

Heads up, everyone! Typepad is officially shutting down September 30, 2025, and your blog—or whatever content you have there will be gone unless you move it away. Good news: WordPress.com is offering a free migration for Typepad sites…

Introducing iOS 26 Liquid Glass Updates, Apple Intelligence On-Device AI Features Experience a refreshed interface, on-device AI journaling tools, and new prompts for creativity in the latest version of Day One.

New in Day One: Liquid Glass UI elements + Apple Intelligence journaling tools. A cleaner look meets on-device AI, designed with your privacy in mind.

Update to Day One 2025.19 on iOS 26 to try it today.

dayoneapp.com/releases/ios...

The Automattic Trust & Safety team’s vision is to uphold safety while democratizing publishing. Earlier this year, we introduced five guiding pillars: user rights, safety by design, sustainability, empowerment, and transparency.

How Automattic Makes Remote Work Actually Work How does a distributed company with team members across the globe actually get things done? The secret is communicating with the right tools.

“This long-form, text-based platform is where ideas thrive, discussions flourish, and decisions get documented and reviewed—eliminating tedious meetings and the need to sift through endless chat histories, documents, or presentations.”

iamarino.com/how-automatt...

Licensing for AI, Patterns, Gutenberg 21.6, and future of WordPress—Weekend Edition #340 Read onlineIssue #326 | April 19, 2025 Hi there, 🔖 I wanted to take a moment to thank you for sticking with me as a subscriber. Your support genuinely makes a difference in keeping me motivated. Whether it's your emails, your comments, or simply seeing your friendly face at WordCamps, your encouragement brightens my day. Welcome to the WCUS Part 2.

Licensing for AI, Patterns, Gutenberg 21.6, and future of WordPress—Weekend Edition #340

Read onlineIssue #326 | April 19, 2025 Hi there, 🔖 I wanted to take a moment to thank you for sticking with me as a subscriber. Your support genuinely makes a difference in keeping me motivated. Whether it's…

WordPress, AI, and the generational shift: insights from #WCUS Creators Studio - Gutenberg Times Automattic’s Developer Advocates didn’t hold back at WordCamp US. Jonathan Bossenger, Brian Coords, Birgit Pauli-Haack, and Ryan Welcher sat down for a no-BS roundtable about WordPress’s future, AI’s ...

“WordPress isn’t dumbing down. It’s getting smarter about who can participate in the building process.”

gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-ai...

A Journey Back to Fun Internet Days

I woke up this Friday morning thinking about a few tasks I still had to finish before calling it a week. Got my coffee and sat in my chair, taking a few sips of the freshly brewed drink.

WordPress is Past, Present and Future — and GENERATIVE AI only reinforces this I wrote this post a few days ago on my Brazilian blog and wanted to share it here as well. You can read the original here. Today I asked ChatGPT which programming languages it masters the most. The response was a short and direct list: Python JavaScript/TypeScript PHP Go (Golang) C/C++ I'll admit this made me think: in my view, PHP, JavaScript, and Python will continue dominating, and maybe even expanding their space, because of AI code generation.

WordPress is Past, Present and Future — and GENERATIVE AI only reinforces this

I wrote this post a few days ago on my Brazilian blog and wanted to share it here as well. You can read the original here. Today I asked ChatGPT which programming languages it masters the most. The response was a short…

What does the future of AI and @wordpress.org look like?

Our CEO, @ma.tt, joins a special WP Product Talk livestream to share his insights.

🕛 Live at 12PM ET today. Tune in at the link below 👇

Vi um post (mais um) hoje sobre PHP estar morrendo ai resolvi escrever um pouco sobre o meu pensamento contrário a essa ideia linguagens de programação morrendo.

The Power of Asynchronous Communication One of the most valuable tools I've worked with in recent years isn't flashy, it's not "AI-driven" and it doesn't even try to solve all problems at once. It's simply asynchronous communication. At Automattic, we use P2 as the heart of that async culture. It is a long-form text-based tool, integrated with several other internal tools, P2 is where ideas live, where discussions grow, and where decisions are documented instead of disappearing into chat history.

The Power of Asynchronous Communication

One of the most valuable tools I've worked with in recent years isn't flashy, it's not "AI-driven" and it doesn't even try to solve all problems at once. It's simply asynchronous communication. At Automattic, we use P2 as the heart of that async culture. It…

Almoço de domingo

Família é uma coisa curiosa. Existe essa ideia de que precisamos estar sempre lá uns pelos outros e, em boa parte do tempo, isso acontece mesmo. Mas isso não significa que cada momento seja agradável. Reuniões de família podem ser constrangedoras, entediantes ou até dolorosas.…

Arc, Dia, and Now Atlassian I've been using Arc for about a year, and honestly, it's been one of those rare tools that just sticks. I usually pick a browser and don't look back for years. So when The Browser Company announced Dia, their AI-first browser, and said they'd shift focus to it… yeah, it already felt like a breakup was brewing. And then came the final punch: …

Arc, Dia, and Now Atlassian

I've been using Arc for about a year, and honestly, it's been one of those rare tools that just sticks. I usually pick a browser and don't look back for years. So when The Browser Company announced Dia, their AI-first browser, and said they'd shift focus to it… yeah, it…

I made a new blog! I've just created a new blog in Portuguese the The idea is simple: to separate concerns, pun intended. Over the years I've been strugling when I wanted to post Portuguese content on this blog so I made this decision to help me post more frequently in both idioms. This English blog will continue to be my main space for technical writing and broader reflections, while the new one will give me the freedom to write in my native language. If you read Portuguese, feel free to check it out. Otherwise, stay here, stay close.

I made a new blog!

I've just created a new blog in Portuguese the The idea is simple: to separate concerns, pun intended. Over the years I've been strugling when I wanted to post Portuguese content on this blog so I made this decision to help me post more frequently in both idioms. This English…

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #72,662!

I have a lot of messaging apps and that is a pain in the b*. Since A8C acquired Texts I’ve been using it heavily for months and I have to say, this changed my life the macOS app is amazing, it has a lot of features and some automation, and the stealth mode is a […]... https://rtio.dev/b/1kU

🙏🏽

Social media is changing, not entirely but it’s changing. IMHO, this is a good thing. A few years ago I was feeling frustrated that so much power were in just a few hands.

Dropping support for PHP 5 Support for PHP 5 will be dropped in WordPress 6.3, scheduled for release on August 8th 2023. The new minimum supported version of PHP will be 7.0.0. The recommended version of PHP remains at 7.4 o…

Support for #PHP 5 will be dropped in #WordPress 6.3, scheduled for release on August 8th 2023. Be prepared!
https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/05/dropping-support-for-php-5/