Launchpad Roadmap

Launchpad objective

Launchpad framework aims to simplify the process of working with good practices to make it more accessible.

This framework is not meant to be applied to all WordPress plugins but rather to serve a ground base for plugins that expect to grow over time or that are complex.

For that Launchpad offers a base with good practices already setup but more importantly it tries to hide as much as possible its internal process to the developer to keep the framework as simple as possible.

2024 for Launchpad

In 2024 was a busy year for Launchpad on numerous fields.

Communication

I did 4 talks on the framework at WordPress events:

• WordCamp Bretagne: Launchpad: Transform WordPress plugin development
• Forum PHP: WordPress, une cause perdue?
• WordCamp Sofia: Launchpad: a bunch of good practices
• Lisbon day for developers: Launchpad: a bunch of good practices

I parallel I also engaged a discussion with the maintainers from the plugin handbook documentation to see if it is possible have Launchpad listed there.

Releases

This year was mostly focus on making the framework easier to use.

That’s there were two releases on that topic:

• The 3.0.0 that focused on centralizing all the logic inside the define method from the provider, adding wp-env for the local environment, etc.
• The 3.1.0 that focused on guiding the user by introducing the PHPStan rules, the beginner documentation, a common version number for all packages, etc.

Another important topic was stabilizing the framework that was complex to test and make sure everything was up to date.

For that Launchpad switched from a multi repository based development to a mono-repository approach using pmu which made it possible to track any regression introduce from an update on a package to another one.

Plugins

Launchpad core have been incorporated into two existing plugins on the WordPress.org repository with one of them having more than 100 000 installs:

• RocketCDN
• Lazyload

The roadmap for 2025

The roadmap for this year will focus on two things that came back often from the feedbacks.

Improving the documentation

The documentation today is just not enough there are example inside the documentation but they lack context makes it difficult to get the full picture.

Another point is that even if the beginner documentation is done, it not yet the case for the intermediate one and the advanced one.

Last but not the least, PHPStan rules are quite helpful to help finding documentation and so another objective will be to add more rules to the existing ones so help even more new developers take advantage of the framework.

During this year one of the objective will be to finish both of them.

Simply the framework

The second issue that came back from feedback is that the framework even it is more accessible than before is still complex to start with.

For that, the focus of that year will be reduce the noise inside the framework and find more ways to hide even more complexity from the developer and reworking the module system to make it easier to develop modules for Launchpad.

Outside Launchpad contribution

While Launchpad is important contributing to WordPress is too.

For that I would like to contribute on two places.

First, I would like to update the good practices page on the plugin developer handbook because it is seriously outdated with articles more than 10 years old referenced there. PHP has evolved a lot in 10 years and so did WordPress.

Second, I will continue to contribute to the learn classes from the developer learning pathway and that we will be able to finish the medium class this year and start with the advance one.