Speculative Loading Is Now Configurable by Environment
WordPress 7.1 lets speculative loading defaults be set through environment variables or constants, so staging and production can finally prefetch differently.
performance
Script Concatenation Is Being Removed From WordPress
The WordPress 7.2 roadmap names script and style concatenation for removal in favour of prefetching. What it affects, and what to check before December.
AVIF, HEIC and In-Browser Compression Landed in Core
WordPress 7.1 moved image compression into the browser and added AVIF, HEIC and HDR gain map support. What changes for uploads, delivery and file size.
WordPress 7.1 Mary Lou: What Matters for Speed and Search
WordPress 7.1 shipped on 19 August 2026. Filtered down to the changes that affect page weight, layout stability and what your templates emit to the page.
CLS Is the Core Web Vital Nobody Profiles
LCP and INP get profiled; CLS gets a lazy-load plugin and a shrug. What the session window actually measures, and which fixes survive a real visit.