WordPress 7.1 Release Candidate 1 Available for Testing

The first Release Candidate (RC1) of WordPress 7.1 is now available for download and testing. Developers are advised not to install it on production or mission‑critical sites, but to evaluate it on a test server using one of several methods: the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (Bleeding edge channel, Beta/RC Only stream), a direct zip download, the WP‑CLI command `wp core update --version=7.1‑RC1`, or the WordPress Playground in a browser.

WordPress 7.1 RC1 contains more than 145 updates and fixes since the Beta 4 release, including 57 editor changes and 88 core changes. New features include an Icons API for registering icon collections, configurable speculative loading defaults, email notifications for @mentions, and shareable revision links. The final stable release is scheduled for August 19, 2026.