This week the team finished Sprint 19, our latest 2 weeks of work, which was focused on polishing the new version of Faust and preparing to release it to you. We’ve been focusing on what to call the project, how to make sure those of you using existing Faust can continue to do so while needed as well as preparing plans for post-launch features and work that we want to focus on all while taking some time off and dodging hurricanes (you’re reading this late as we’re a fully-remote team and I am based in Sarasota, FL which was just hit by Hurricane Ian this week).

What we accomplished

Most of our work was spent deciding how to best handle a new library that is vastly different than Faust has been built in the past. The syntax and other uses of moving from GQty to Apollo alone make things quite differently than it had been before. As a result we’re working on solutions to ensure the new version is a separate install than what you’ve used in the past. This ensures, with a 4th quarter launch before the holidays, that your existing projects are safe and supported going forward. If you have, for example, “*” in your package.json for Faust (not a solution we recommend but, we realize, something a lot of people do), if we weren’t careful that could break what you have. That won’t be the case with the new version. Instead we’re working on migration guides, package organization and more to ensure existing users are safe and supported and can migrate to the new library as needed.

What’s next

Sprint 20 is focused on preparing that new release. We want to have the new Faust into your hands in the next couple of weeks and that is what we’re currently working on. This includes setting up new packages, finishing testing, prepping documentation and more. We’ve also cleaned up our backlog and will be working on filling out future epics to ensure work on new features, such as full support for Gutenberg and the Block Editor that go beyond anything you’ve seen yet in headless WordPress, can kick off in the coming weeks.

Next week, on 1 October to be specific, we’re also happy to announce we have an official lead developer on the team that builds Faust. If you’re interacted with our support on Discord or elsewhere you’ve probably come across Blake Wilson. He’s one of the original Faust developers and was instrumental both in the current version and the new version we’re about to release. I’m happy to announce he’s been promoted to Senior Software Engineer here at WP Engine and will officially be taking over the team lead spot for Faust as well.

It’s an exciting time for Faust and the team building it. Personally it took me a long time to understand the value of headless WordPress. Once I came to Atlas I could see the value but the tools were still too immature to really unlock its full potential. With the new version of Faust the rocket has lifted off and I am super excited that we’re finally bringing you a full framework that can grow with your projects and with WordPress itself all while making headless WordPress development as easy and powerful as WordPress heavyweights like Genesis have done for the WordPress framework over the past decade.

Let’s do this!