The WordPress team presented Mētis on November 13, 2026, as a second new theme for WordPress 7.2. Mētis is intended as a flagship: The theme shows what the editor can do today, and does not have to suit every website.
The default theme of 7.2 remains Ipsum. We have already reported on Ipsum. Mētis began as the first design draft for a default theme and has continued to develop independently since the introduction of Ipsum.
What is in Mētis?
According to the core team, the theme comes with six starter pages for Business, News, Magazine, Portfolio, Writer, and Personal. Each can be used as a page template or as a ready-made sample page. The theme also contains templates for typical page types: single posts in three layouts, pages with or without a title, three headers, and five footers.
Mētis in numbers
The flagship theme for WordPress 7.2, presented on November 13, 2026
- 6Starter pages, from Business to Personal
- 50Section patterns by category
- 6Style variations for typeface and color
- 9open-source font families
Status of the design work, the official review is still pending
Source: Make WordPress Core
In addition, there are fifty section patterns, grouped by category. The team assigns the names so that people and AI agents can find their way around more easily, as stated in the post on the Make WordPress Core blog.
For typeface and color there are six style variations, including a dark variation of the default theme. Light and dark color pairs switch automatically with the device's dark mode. The nine font families are open source, including serif fonts, grotesque fonts, and a monospace font.
What about the schedule and availability?
Mētis is part of WordPress 7.2, which according to the announcement of Beta 5 will be released on December 8, 2026. The design work is done; next comes the official review by the development team, into which it wants to incorporate feedback from the community. The team does not name any further dates. A demo site is online.
Beta 5 was released on November 10, 2026, and according to the announcement it is only suitable for testing, not for live websites. Whether Mētis is already included in this beta, the team does not say. It also makes no statement on translations or on the consequences for existing sites.
What this means for you
On existing sites, nothing changes at first: WordPress does not swap out the active theme during an update. Your site will therefore look exactly the same after December 8 as before, until you activate a different theme yourself.
Take a look at the demo site and check whether one of the six starter pages fits your next project: Portfolio for photography and design, Magazine or News for editorial sites, Business for small companies. If you are planning a relaunch in December, you will know early on whether to wait for Mētis or stay with your theme.
To try out WordPress 7.2, use a copy of your site or WordPress Playground in the browser, never the live website. The Beta Tester plugin, a zip download, and WP-CLI are available for this.
The WordPress team presented Mētis on November 13, 2026.
Sources
