The WordPress REST API Is One Major Step Closer to Being Merged Into Core

After more than three years of development, the WordPress REST API is one major step closer to getting merged into core. Ryan McCue, a lead contributor to the project, published the first official proposal to merge the API into WordPress. The proposal explains what the REST API is, why it’s needed, an integration plan, and what happens after the merge. The plan is to integrate the API in two stages, infrastructure and endpoints.

Two Part Plan

The infrastructure is the code responsible for routing requests and handling the meta layer of the API, including JSON serialization/deserialization, linking, embedding, and REST best practices. Merging the infrastructure first allows developers to start building upon it and to migrate from existing custom code. The plan is to merge the infrastructure portion of the API in WordPress 4.4.

Endpoints are considered the more complex of the two as they’re responsible for mapping data from the external JSON format to the internal data structures and vice versa. In other words, endpoints are the bridges of communication between WordPress and external applications. To provide more time for core committers to review the code, endpoints will be merged in WordPress 4.5.

Development of the API takes place on GitHub but core WordPress development takes place on Subversion and Trac. When the API is merged into core, it will no longer be developed as a separate project. McCue proposes that the best of GitHub and Trac be integrated so developers comfortable with GitHub can continue to contribute to the project:

Given the team’s experience with GitHub as well as Trac, we can bring the best of both worlds by helping integrate the two. This would also improve contributions to WordPress as a whole, and benefit the whole community. This will be especially important as we encourage more contributions from the wider community (client authors, for example). We think we can make good progress here, and we’d love to try to help improve the process.

Although there’s a GitHub repository for WordPress that’s synced to its Subversion counterpart, it does not accept pull requests. If integrating GitHub and Trac proves to be successful, it could open the door for WordPress to accept pull requests or contributions through GitHub.

The plan to merge the API into core is not finalized and the team needs your comments, questions, and opinions. I encourage you to read the full proposal and the comments as McCue answers additional questions related to the merge. How happy are you to see this merge proposal?