WooCommerce core depends on thoughtful contributions from developers across the community. It’s a team effort across the board! External contributors help us fix bugs, improve reliability, and keep the project moving forward.
Recently, we have seen an increase in pull requests that require significant maintainer review but are not yet ready for the WooCommerce codebase. In some cases, these contributions appear to be AI-assisted or generated without enough human validation, testing, or understanding of the surrounding code.
A step we are taking
To give maintainers more room to review effectively, we have introduced a limit for contributors without write access to the WooCommerce core repository.
For now, contributors without write access may have up to 3 open pull requests at a time. Once a contributor reaches that limit, they will need to wait until one of their existing PRs is merged or closed before opening another.
This limit is adjustable, and we may change it as we learn from the results. We can also make exceptions for contributors who are consistent in the quality of their contributions.
Ultimately, this is a win-win for our reviewers and contributors, so we can actually spend more time reviewing contributions from the community.
A reminder of a good contribution
Make sure to check out our Community Contributions guide if you need a refresh.
Here is a quick overview of what a “good contribution” should do:
- Solve a clear and specific problem.
- Tie into a specific open issue.
- Explain why the change is needed.
- Stay focused in scope.
- Follow existing project patterns.
- Include tests when appropriate.
- Be manually reviewed and validated by the contributor.
- Respond constructively to maintainer feedback.
AI can both help and hinder
AI tools can be useful during development, but contributors are ultimately responsible for the code they submit. AI-generated code still needs the same level of review, testing, and understanding as any other contribution prior to submission.
A pull request should not be opened simply because a tool produced a plausible-looking patch.
WooCommerce is used by stores around the world, and changes to core need care. Maintainers need time to review meaningful contributions well, and contributors deserve clear expectations about what “ready for review” means.
We will continue producing helpful content to help encourage and refine how we can all best work with AI to create clean and efficient contributions overall.
Feel free to drop any feedback on the current process in the comments or in the community Slack!
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