The Backdrop CMS core committers and Project Management Committee recently met to discuss priorities for core development. As a community, it’s helpful to pause and take a focused look at where to direct our core development energy over the next 6-12 months.. Here is a draft list of possible priorities that we hope to discuss in detail over the next 5 weeks, at which point we hope to narrow our focus on 2-3 of these items. 

The Candidate List

  1. Automatic Updates: much progress has been made here. Can we finally carry this one over the finish line? A clear path forward exists. The main challenge is integrating with backdropcms.org, which will require careful, methodical work. See Issue #2018 for the overall list of work.
  2. New Admin Theme: There is strong interest in a modern admin (back-end) theme and the availability of Gin makes this a realistic target. We would need to create a new ‘core ready’ branch of the Gin theme and work in contrib to bring it to a place where it can be brought directly into core. Gin comes with some more complicated development tooling than core would natively be able to support. We need to decide what is appropriate to keep and what is not. 
  3. Recipes: We need to decide on what core support for Recipes should look like and whether or not this is a realistic goal for implementation in the near future. A first step might include a written proposal or a working proof of concept to better help us gauge what is involved. 
  4. AI Readiness: Implementing changes to core to make Backdrop CMS AI ready. This may or may not mean AI features in core or it could be as simple as better and more secure handling of API credentials. Our first step is a discussion of what AI "readiness" looks like for Backdrop CMS, see this Zulip thread on AI Readiness for the initial start of this conversation. The leadership team is also drafting an AI Acceptable Use policy, which should guide how AI is used in contributing code to core and contrib projects.
  5. Front End Theme: The out-of-box experience looks a bit dated. Our front end theme is the first impression that we make when folks come to evaluate Backdrop. A new theme in core is a huge task and would likely need the leadership of an agency to make design decisions and lead the work. We first need to evaluate if we have the support and resources to make this happen? If so, what would the process look like?

How We'll Narrow the List

Between now and Backdrop LIVE (April 23-24), we have 4 weekly DEV meetings. We expect to spend time in those upcoming DEV meetings to discuss these ideas in detail, culminating with discussions at Backdrop LIVE. In the 2-3 weeks after Backdrop LIVE, the leadership team will meet again to narrow the list of possible priorities to the 2 or 3 priorities that we can commit to and make meaningful progress on together.

Meeting schedule

  • March 25 Dev Meeting: Automatic Upgrades & Back End Theme

  • April 2 Dev Meeting: Back End Theme (continued if needed) & Recipes 

  • April 9 Dev Meeting: AI Readiness

  • April 16 Dev Meeting: Front End Theme

  • April 23/24 Backdrop LIVE

All dev meetings are 8pm UTC.

We Want to Hear From You

We look forward to your input and feedback over the next five weeks. Please, feel free to chime in on Zulip, in the Backdrop CMS Forum, at our weekly DEV meetings, or at Backdrop LIVE.

Thanks to Tim Erickson, Olaf Grabienski, and Jen Lampton who helped draft this announcement.

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