Developer advisory: Deprecation notice for unsupported WooCommerce npm packages

As part of our ongoing maintenance of the WooCommerce monorepo, we’re formally deprecating several packages published to npmjs.com that have been unsupported for 3+ years. These packages have already been effectively abandoned in our development workflow, and some contain outdated dependencies that may surface security alerts.

Why are we making these changes?

• 🛠️ Modernization: These packages no longer reflect our current testing infrastructure
• 🔒 Security: Older dependencies in these packages may trigger vulnerability reports
• 🧹 Housekeeping: Removing unused packages simplifies our codebase

What packages are affected?

Testing related packages

These E2E testing tools are obsolete after our move to Playwright from Puppeteer (Issue #40117)

• @woocommerce/admin-e2e-tests : package, code removal PR
• @woocommerce/e2e-core-tests: package, code removal PR
• @woocommerce/e2e-utils: package, code removal PR  
• @woocommerce/e2e-environment: package, code removal PR
• @woocommerce/api-core-tests: package, code removal PR
• @woocommerce/api: package

Note: @woocommerce/api will be deprecated, but the code will remain available temporarily as we work to unwire it.

Settings Package Cleanup

• @woocommerce/settings : package, code removal PR 

When will this take effect?

• Today: Deprecation warnings in npm/pnpm installs.
• Future release: Physical package removal (except @woocommerce/api).

What action should I take?

⚠️ Impact: These changes will generate warnings during installation, although there is no functional breakage expected. If you are using any of these packages, we encourage you to remove them.

For e2e test packages (@woocommerce/admin-e2e-tests etc.)

1. Migrate to Playwright
Upgrade your testing stack with these modern tools:

• Test Environment: @wordpress/env
• Testing Helpers:
  • @wordpress/e2e-test-utils-playwright
  • @woocommerce/e2e-utils-playwright

2. Reference implementations
See WooCommerce’s official Playwright tests for examples:
👉 WooCommerce Playwright Test Suite

Check out the migration guide for details:
👉 Puppeteer to Playwright Migration Guide for e2e Testing

Questions?

If you have questions about this deprecation, feel free to drop a comment below or reach out on the WooCommerce Community Slack.