A failed payment, a security update, a question from the team: Such messages often get lost in the WordPress dashboard today between reminders and promotional notices. Every plugin announces itself in its own way, and its notices push the page content down. The Feature Notifications project aims to create a shared place for them. What this place could look like is shown in a draft on the Core team's blog from October 29. The author tested the concept against all the messages that WooCommerce and WooPayments currently display.
The project does not name a date for WordPress itself, only one for the first test version as a plugin.
How are the notifications supposed to work?
All messages from the website, its plugins, and WordPress.com are collected under a bell icon. Unlike today's notices, which appear only on individual admin pages, the icon appears on every page of the admin area, in the editor, and on the website itself. When opened, each notification shows its trigger, such as an order or a post, along with the sender and what to do next.
How messages are meant to arrive in WordPress
Draft from the WordPress project dated October 29, 2026, not yet included in WordPress
Today
- Every plugin announces itself in its own way
- Notices push the page down
- Important items get lost between reminders and ads
In the draft
- One bell for website, plugins, and WordPress.com
- Visible in the admin area, in the editor, and on the website
- Critical messages stay at the top until someone has dealt with them
- Tips and offers can be turned off with a single switch
Second prototype; a first test version as a plugin is planned for December 1, 2026
Source: Make WordPress Core
Fixed rules ensure order. Plugins only supply data and choose one of four layouts: a simple standard message, a message with a card for the subject, such as an order, a conversation, or a group of several messages. WordPress defines the urgency levels, and plugins choose from them: critical, warning, or info. Critical messages stay at the top and turn the counter on the bell red until someone has dealt with the matter; merely reading them is not enough. Critical items and warnings are additionally collected in a separate tab with a counter.
What can you set yourself?
Individual channels can be muted, in the draft for example WooCommerce orders. You turn off tips and offers with a single switch. A compact view shows each message in just one line, so on websites with many messages twice as many fit at a glance.
Among other things, it is still open who gets to decide which messages count as critical. It is likewise unclear how the settings will remain manageable once many plugins send several types of messages.
When is the bell coming to WordPress?
First, version 0.3.0 will appear as a feature plugin, that is, as an extension that lets you test a planned WordPress core function in advance. According to the roadmap that Jonathan Bossenger published on October 10, 0.3.0 is due on December 1, 2026, in parallel with the last test version of WordPress 7.2. The plugin will come first to GitHub and then to the WordPress.org plugin directory; the requirements are WordPress 6.7 and PHP 8.1. Translations are supposed to be included in the package. 0.3.0 contains the draft with the bell only in part.
Existing plugins do not need to change anything. Admin notices continue to work, including self-built ones, and WordPress does not remove any interfaces. Plugins can only use the bell once the function is part of the WordPress core.
What this means for you
Nothing will change on your website's dashboard in the next few weeks. You can still have your say right now, while the draft is still open:
- It's best to watch the seven-minute video and the live demo linked in the draft. The team accepts feedback in the comments under the post and in GitHub issue 655.
- If you manage shops with WooCommerce, it is worth looking at the question of which messages should be allowed to count as critical. Only critical messages stay at the top until someone deals with them.
- Feel free to try out version 0.3.0 from December, but on a test copy of your website and not on your public website: The plugin is a pre-release version.
What plugins in WordPress can do in general is explained in the lesson on plugins in the WordPress beginner course.
The team has tied the date for 0.3.0 to WordPress 7.2, which is due to be released on December 8. The WordPress Core team published the draft on October 29, 2026.
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