# Release Notes Define Scope Not Runtime Compatibility ## Claim An official release guide tells me what was intended to change; only an executed test against a pinned build tells me what actually changed for my code. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds for any software release announcement — field guides, changelogs, migration guides — regardless of the project's size or process maturity. - Doesn't imply release notes are unreliable; it means they document intent and scope, which is a different evidentiary category from observed behavior. - Matters most when ticket/change volume is high and severity doesn't track volume — a single boundary change can outweigh hundreds of unrelated fixes for a specific integration. ## Evidence WordPress 7.1's Field Guide reports 310+ closed Core Trac tickets and roughly 600 Gutenberg enhancements, then separately and deliberately lists what was deferred (React 19, real-time collaboration) so those exclusions don't get misread into a compatibility claim. The guide itself frames this as routing to dev notes and Trac tickets for implementation detail — it's explicitly a map, not a test report. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Timed Review Window Trades Update Speed for Supply-Chain Safety]] — because applies-in: both notes treat "the vendor announced it" as a distinct evidence tier from "I verified it." - [[3. Resources/MOCs/WordPress Hosting Security Stack MOC]] — because applies-in: pre-upgrade compatibility testing should start from changed boundaries named in release notes, not from the notes themselves as proof. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/WordPress Platform Design MOC]] — applies-in: Joins WordPress release and compatibility testing notes. ## Tests / falsifiers - Track a sample of plugins/themes across several WordPress major releases: does ticket/change volume in the field guide predict reported incompatibility rate, or does it not correlate? - If a release with a small field guide produces more real-world breakage than a release with a large one, that would support (not falsify) this claim — volume isn't the risk signal, boundary changes are. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/WordPress 7.1 Field Guide]] — the shipped/deferred distinction and the guide's own framing as a routing document.