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Remove client-side media processing feature#11309

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adamsilverstein wants to merge 7 commits intoWordPress:trunkfrom
adamsilverstein:remove-client-side-media
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Remove client-side media processing feature#11309
adamsilverstein wants to merge 7 commits intoWordPress:trunkfrom
adamsilverstein:remove-client-side-media

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@adamsilverstein adamsilverstein commented Mar 19, 2026 •
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Summary

  • Removes the wasm-vips client-side media processing feature from WordPress 7.0, punting it to 7.1
  • The VIPS WASM worker alone adds ~16MB to the build output (~36% of script-modules/), which is too much build size overhead for the current value provided
  • Removes all PHP functions, REST API endpoints (sideload/finalize), cross-origin isolation infrastructure, VIPS script module handling, build configuration, and associated tests (1,507 lines deleted across 12 files)

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/64906

What's removed

  • 7 PHP functions in media.php (client-side media processing, cross-origin isolation, DIP headers)
  • REST API /sideload and /finalize endpoints and generate_sub_sizes/convert_format params
  • REST index image processing settings block
  • Cross-origin isolation output buffering in media-template.php
  • VIPS script module registration and minified filename handling
  • VIPS-related build exclusion rules in Gruntfile.js and tools/gutenberg/copy.js
  • Test file wpCrossOriginIsolation.php and 9 sideload/finalize/generate_sub_sizes tests

What's preserved (independent features)

  • wp_prevent_unsupported_mime_type_uploads filter (#64836)
  • X-WP-Upload-Attachment-ID header (error recovery)
  • Pre-existing post-process and edit endpoints
  • exif_orientation, filename, filesize, missing_image_sizes schema properties

Test plan

  • Run phpunit tests/phpunit/tests/media/ — verify no failures
  • Run phpunit tests/phpunit/tests/rest-api/rest-attachments-controller.php — verify no failures
  • Run phpunit tests/phpunit/tests/rest-api/rest-schema-setup.php — verify route list is correct
  • Verify standard image upload via REST API still works with server-side sub-size generation
  • Run npx grunt build --dev — verify build succeeds
  • Confirm build/wp-includes/js/dist/script-modules/vips/ no longer exists after build

AI use

I created this PR with careful prompting and planning in Claude Code. I will review the code and test the result.

@adamsilverstein
Remove client-side media processing feature
7749c07 
Punt the wasm-vips client-side media processing feature to
7.1 as it adds ~16MB of WASM to the build without sufficient
value for 7.0. Removes all PHP functions, REST API endpoints
(sideload/finalize), cross-origin isolation, VIPS script
module handling, and associated tests.
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The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props adamsilverstein, jorbin.

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@adamsilverstein
Fix coding standards errors
028a8de 
Remove extra blank lines before closing braces in
register_routes() and wp_print_media_templates().
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github-actions bot commented Mar 19, 2026

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@adamsilverstein
Remove wp_get_chromium_major_version() test file
72f10f5 
Missed in the initial removal of the client-side media
processing feature.
@adamsilverstein
Update wp-api-generated.js fixtures
3647d81 
Remove image_sizes, image_size_threshold,
image_output_formats, interlaced settings from REST
index, and generate_sub_sizes/convert_format params
from media create endpoint.
@adamsilverstein adamsilverstein mentioned this pull request Mar 19, 2026
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@aaronjorbin
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aaronjorbin commented Mar 19, 2026

I tried to check all of the commits. For the most part, this looks good however I noticed that test_vips_script_modules_always_use_minified_paths wasn't removed. Should that also be removed?

@adamsilverstein @claude
Exclude vips entirely from Core build instead of just non-minified fi…
7878e82 
…les.

The previous build config only excluded non-minified vips files, but with client-side media processing removed from Core, vips should not be copied or registered at all. This adds:

- `!vips/**` exclusion to the Gruntfile copy task
- Skip `vips` directory in `generateScriptModulesPackages()` so vips modules are not auto-registered
- Update test to assert vips modules are not registered in Core

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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adamsilverstein commented Mar 19, 2026

I tried to check all of the commits. For the most part, this looks good however I noticed that test_vips_script_modules_always_use_minified_paths wasn't removed. Should that also be removed?

it should be removed now, I left a "test_vips_script_modules_not_registered_in_core"

@adamsilverstein @claude
Fix test to use available API instead of non-existent get_registered().
58edd51 
WP_Script_Modules::$registered is private with no public getter.
Use the same enqueue-and-check-output pattern as the original test
to verify vips modules are not registered.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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adamsilverstein commented Mar 19, 2026 •
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Build Size Comparison: vips exclusion

Release zip impact

Zip Size Difference from 6.9.1
WordPress 6.9.1 (latest stable) 27 MB —
Nightly (with vips) 61 MB +34 MB (+126%)
Nightly without vips 57 MB +30 MB (+111%)
vips savings in zip 4 MB

The nightly zip is currently 61 MB vs 27 MB for 6.9.1. Removing vips saves 4 MB in the compressed zip (61 MB -> 57 MB). The remaining ~30 MB increase over 6.9.1 comes from other new packages and features in 7.0.

Note: vips is 13 MB uncompressed but compresses to ~4 MB in the zip since the inlined wasm binary is base64-encoded data that still compresses reasonably well.

Full build directory (uncompressed)

Directory Trunk (before) PR branch (after) Savings
src/ (total) 156 MB 143 MB 13 MB (8%)
wp-includes/ 87 MB 74 MB 13 MB (15%)
js/dist/ 41 MB 28 MB 13 MB (32%)

script-modules/ breakdown

Metric Trunk (before) PR branch (after) Savings
script-modules/ total 15 MB 2.2 MB 12.8 MB (85%)
script-modules/vips/ 13 MB gone 13 MB

@adamsilverstein @claude
Strip vips module dependencies from script-loader-packages.
68c4e9a 
The upload-media package in the Gutenberg build artifact declares
@wordpress/vips/worker as a dynamic module dependency. Since vips
is excluded from Core, this unregistered dependency causes a
_doing_it_wrong notice on every admin page load.

Filter out @wordpress/vips/* module dependencies during the
script-loader-packages.php generation step.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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@adamsilverstein @aaronjorbin