Columbia Games · WordPress / 3 June 2026
WordPress 7: the core update was only the surface
The major core upgrade had to be handled together with theme and plugin compatibility. The goal was not to make the admin show a new version number, but to prove that the same site still worked afterwards.
Situation
The Columbia Games WordPress stack carried years of legacy behaviour, so raising the core version could not be treated as an isolated operation. An old theme or rarely used plugin could block the upgrade just as effectively as the core itself. With the Docker environment in place by May, the larger change could finally be exercised under controlled conditions in early June.
Approach
I ran the upgrade locally first, then checked both visible and less visible functionality: admin, media, permalinks, theme templates, measurement plugins and cron. Theme and plugin versions were not upgraded blindly in one batch; changes were staged so a failure could still be traced back to a specific component.
Outcome
Core, theme and plugin upgrades became one coordinated release rather than a sequence of unrelated admin clicks. Before production rollout, it was already clear which component changed what, and rollback points remained identifiable.