Proof of concept: Remove the requirement to check out the `gutenberg` repository and running the full build script by desrosj · Pull Request #11019 · WordPress/wordpress-develop

desrosj · 2026-02-23T20:26:52Z

This is a work in progress.

This PR attempts to remove the need to checkout the WordPress/gutenberg Git repository locally by instead downloading a copy of the built plugin from the GitHub Container Registry for the respective pinned hash value (see WordPress/gutenberg#75844 for that part of this approach).

This PR also changes usage of ref to sha to avoid confusion. Ref is typically a human-readable branch path. A commit hash or SHA value is the full length, unique hash for a commit.

Trac ticket: Core-64393.

Use of AI Tools

I used Claude Code to make some of the adjustments to the Gruntfile.js file and tools/gutenberg folder.

This Pull Request is for code review only. Please keep all other discussion in the Trac ticket. Do not merge this Pull Request. See GitHub Pull Requests for Code Review in the Core Handbook for more details.

With this new approach, a pre-built zip will be downloaded instead.

This is no longer necessary because a Git repository is no longer used.

This switches to downloading a prebuilt zip file uploaded to the GitHub Container Registry for a given commit instead. This eliminates the need to run any Gutenberg build scripts within `wordpress-develop`.

A REF is typically a human-readable path to a branch where as a SHA is a hash representing an individual commit. Since the latter is what's being used here, this aims to avoid confusion.

desrosj · 2026-02-24T02:41:07Z

There is one remaining issue to figure out: how to map the icons package correctly from the built plugin.

I've removed the chunk of code responsible for mapping those files to their respective locations within wordpress-develop and the build process succeeds.

desrosj · 2026-02-24T04:23:44Z

It seems that the icons are not currently included in the Gutenberg plugin, only in wordpress-develop.

@mcsf I see you introduced this in 5b7a3ad. Could you share a bit more context as to why these are not yet included in the Gutenberg plugin? I don't see them in the latest plugin version, but I may be missing them.

dmsnell

this is a step up @desrosj and should avoid a lot of the delay when checking out the repo. 🙇‍♂️

does the zip contain the proper built versions of the artifacts or does it contain source copies? that is, are there any build steps that are occurring on the Gutenberg side that occur before that ZIP is available?

it would definitely be helpful to know in the docs, at least in download-gutenberg.js because I think it’s really not clear if we are downloading the Gutenberg source or some output. if output, I would love to know on the wordpress-develop side what our expectations are of that artifact and why .layers[0].digest is special.

Perhaps there is a command we could include which comparably would generate the right files were we given the Gutenberg source.

is it right that this still leaves the icon disparity in place?

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

dmsnell · 2026-02-24T04:23:57Z

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

+			fs.readFileSync( packageJsonPath, 'utf8' )
+		);
+		sha = packageJson.gutenberg?.sha;
+		ghcrRepo = packageJson.gutenberg?.ghcrRepo;


are we short on bytes? the gh part is obvious to me as a reader, but I cannot figure out what cr means, and since this only appears to be documented inside this file, I’m not sure it would be clear from the package.json file, especially since it looks like a standard GitHub repo name.

perhaps something githubRepo would suffice? it doesn’t seem like the package.json value has anything specific to do with the Github Container Registry

I am new to this as well, so I found that GHCR stands for the GitHub Container Registry

I've added a note within the inlind docblock to explain this at the first occurrence of ghcrRepo. Does that address your concerns here @dmsnell?

I also changed the name of the package to gutenberg-wp-develop-build, making the full reference WordPress/gutenberg/gutenberg-wp-develop-build. It's more specific to the purpose, and hopefully won't lead to any confusion.

Within the GHCR, packages are published to a specific repository. While they are listed on a separate screen, you need to use the Org/Repository/package path to reference them.

dmsnell · 2026-02-24T04:28:41Z

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

+		const installedHash = fs.readFileSync( hashFilePath, 'utf8' ).trim();
+		if ( installedHash !== sha ) {
+			throw new Error(
+				`SHA mismatch: expected ${ sha } but found ${ installedHash }. Run \`npm run grunt gutenberg-download -- --force\` to download the correct version.`


at first I was going to ask about making this check before downloading, but I see it exists after downloading.

this is probably better because it informs someone that their files are out of date without eagerly downloading a new copy and replacing the old ones.

I think I also want to create a file in the root of the repository to store a hash of the entire gutenberg directory immediately after unzipping. Then the user can also be made aware of instances where the files in the gutenberg directory were modified, which may be unexpected.

westonruter · 2026-02-24T06:11:50Z

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

+const packageJsonPath = path.join( rootDir, 'package.json' );
+
+/**
+ * Execute a command, streaming stdio directly so progress is visible.


Is this really streaming? It seems the stdout variable is populated with streaming, but the promise only resolves with the captured stdout when the child process is closed?

Updated, how does that look?

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

mcsf · 2026-02-24T13:03:09Z

It seems that the icons are not currently included in the Gutenberg plugin, only in wordpress-develop.

@mcsf I see you introduced this in 5b7a3ad. Could you share a bit more context as to why these are not yet included in the Gutenberg plugin? I don't see them in the latest plugin version, but I may be missing them.

Oof, I'm so glad you pinged me! Fix at WordPress/gutenberg#75866

The Gutenberg repository has been updated to include the icon assets in the plugin build. See github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/75866.

…/github.com/desrosj/wordpress-develop into try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build

- Add missing hard stop at the end of inline comment. - Make use if `fetch()` instead of `exec( 'curl' )`. Co-authored-by: Weston Ruter <westonruter@gmail.com>

github-actions · 2026-02-24T14:58:47Z

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Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

dmsnell · 2026-02-24T17:14:29Z

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

+				throw new Error( `Failed to download blob: ${ response.status } ${ response.statusText }` );
+			}
+			const buffer = await response.arrayBuffer();
+			fs.writeFileSync( zipPath, Buffer.from( buffer ) );


at this point it’s probably possible to remove all of the _Sync versions and stream the output directly into the file.

not essential, but it does feel like we’re possibly going out of our way to do more work to avoid a simpler default.

await fs.writeFile( zipPath, response.body );

I'm not deeply knowledgeable here, but Claude told me that this wouldn't work as you've written "since fs.promises.writeFile doesn't accept a ReadableStream — stream.pipeline is the correct API for this." Does this seem right now?

dmsnell · 2026-02-24T17:18:43Z

tools/gutenberg/download-gutenberg.js

+		// Extract the zip into ./gutenberg.
+		console.log( `\n📦 Extracting ${ zipName } into ./gutenberg...` );
+		try {
+			await exec( 'unzip', [ '-q', zipPath, '-d', gutenbergDir ] );


if we use zlib.Unzip we should be able to eliminate the exec() wrapper altogether and not depend on the runtime system having unzip in the PATH

of course, if we have a .gz file available from the container registry (which seems like it would exist) then we also have zlib.gunzipSync()

as an additional bit of polish, which is not quite as impactful as removing the exec() abstraction and runtime-dependence, we can also pipe directly from the fetch() into zlib. this would eliminate the temporary files and reduce the memory load. I hesitate to leave this comment because it truly is polish and not part of the basic requirements of this proof-of-concept.

The file only exists as a zip currently. If we want that format to be available, we would have to change the workflow generating and pushing the compressed file to the registry.

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

desrosj · 2026-02-28T06:08:55Z

I still need to go through and polish this, but the PR for the Gutenberg repository is ready. That should be merged first anyway, and these changes can't be committed until after the first hash update following that PR being merged. So I'm hoping to clean this up on Monday.

desrosj self-assigned this Feb 23, 2026

desrosj added 9 commits February 23, 2026 15:43

Remove the Gutenberg build script.

2cc4934

With this new approach, a pre-built zip will be downloaded instead.

Remove Sync Gutenberg script

956f1e2

This is no longer necessary because a Git repository is no longer used.

Remove the need to clone the Gutenberg repository.

26f36c6

This switches to downloading a prebuilt zip file uploaded to the GitHub Container Registry for a given commit instead. This eliminates the need to run any Gutenberg build scripts within `wordpress-develop`.

Rename checkout related scripts to download.

a696ca7

Rename ref to sha.

b66772e

A REF is typically a human-readable path to a branch where as a SHA is a hash representing an individual commit. Since the latter is what's being used here, this aims to avoid confusion.

Move the container registry reference out of code.

1b63326

Don't redownload without --force

aed9824

Add verification of the SHA value in hash file.

f120d19

Use the most recent hash from test packages.

2e3f506

desrosj force-pushed the try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build branch from edf4224 to 2e3f506 Compare February 23, 2026 20:47

desrosj mentioned this pull request Feb 24, 2026

Publish built Gutenberg plugin to the GitHub Container Registry WordPress/gutenberg#75844

Open

Switch to using the GHCR package from gutenberg.

6dba1aa

desrosj changed the title ~~Proof of concept: Stop checking out gutenberg repository and running two build scripts~~ Proof of concept: Remove the requirement to check out the gutenberg repository and running the full build script Feb 24, 2026

Merge branch 'trunk' into try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build

afdc71b

dmsnell reviewed Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

westonruter reviewed Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

mcsf mentioned this pull request Feb 24, 2026

Plugin: Include Icons assets in ZIP WordPress/gutenberg#75866

Merged

desrosj and others added 4 commits February 24, 2026 09:11

Update hash value.

de7eb2d

The Gutenberg repository has been updated to include the icon assets in the plugin build. See github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/75866.

Merge branch 'try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build' of https:/…

6ed7de6

…/github.com/desrosj/wordpress-develop into try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build

Apply suggestions from code review.

d21381f

- Add missing hard stop at the end of inline comment. - Make use if `fetch()` instead of `exec( 'curl' )`. Co-authored-by: Weston Ruter <westonruter@gmail.com>

Replace remaining instances of exec( 'curl' ).

6b06b35

dmsnell reviewed Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

desrosj added 3 commits February 24, 2026 19:37

Merge branch 'trunk' into try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build

af95bac

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/trunk' into try/remove-gutenbe…

a8b88fc

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/trunk' into try/remove-gutenbe…

9f7604a

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

desrosj added 16 commits February 25, 2026 13:49

Correctly include block PHP files.

1589ee0

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/trunk' into try/remove-gutenbe…

63f97bd

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

Update upstream package details.

8ffc312

Change package name.

1df2afb

Update pinned hash.

cf25013

Merge branch 'trunk' into try/remove-gutenberg-git-checkout-and-build

bc11a38

Update commit hash.

adad173

Revert changes no longer necessary.

9849e91

A few more reverts.

13946e5

Built block files are different.

59e3cb2

Correctly point to the nested block directories.

218d38d

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/trunk' into try/remove-gutenbe…

2741dbd

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

Correct the destination path for blocks.

15cc9bc

Bug fixes.

0702c40

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/trunk' into try/remove-gutenbe…

ab96de1

…rg-git-checkout-and-build

Update Gutenberg hash.

346e4df

desrosj mentioned this pull request Feb 28, 2026

Add caching for the /gutenberg directory #10971

Open

Address some review feedback.

fdd1bc3

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mcsf commented Feb 24, 2026

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Test using WordPress Playground

Some things to be aware of

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