Description
Presence API gives WordPress a system-wide awareness layer. It tracks which users are logged in, which admin screen they are on, and which posts they are editing.
Data flows through the Heartbeat API and is stored in a dedicated wp_presence table with a 150-second TTL. No writes to wp_postmeta means no post-cache invalidation on every heartbeat.
On a multisite network, Network Admin gets its own view of the same data: a Who’s Online dashboard widget listing the busiest sites and who is on each, an Online column in the Sites list, and an Online view, filter, and column in the Users list. These require the manage_network capability.
Features
- Admin bar indicator showing who’s online and who’s on this page
- Active Posts dashboard widget grouped by post
- Editors column in the post list
- A notice on synced patterns in the block editor while someone else is editing them
- Online filter in the Users list
- AI agents labelled in the admin bar, the Active Posts widget, and the Editors column, once a plugin such as Agent Users marks them
For Developers
PHP functions, REST endpoints, WP-CLI commands, filters, and room conventions are documented in the GitHub repository.
Background
A feature plugin sponsored by the WordPress Core team, exploring what system-wide presence could look like for a future WordPress release. Follow development on make.wordpress.org/core with the tag #presence-api.
Screenshots
Installation
- In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins Add New Plugin and search for “Presence API”, then click Install Now.
- Activate through the Plugins menu.
Or install manually:
- Download the zip and upload the
presence-apifolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate through the Plugins menu.
FAQ
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Does it work on multisite?
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Yes. Network-activate it and Network Admin gains a Who’s Online dashboard widget listing the busiest sites and who is on each, an Online column in the Sites list, and an Online view, filter, and column in the Users list. Every site keeps its own widgets and lists, counting only the people on that site.
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Who can see network-wide presence?
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Anyone with the
manage_networkcapability, which on a default network means super admins. Thewp_presence_network_capabilityfilter changes what is required. -
Can a site stop recording presence?
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Yes. Clear the Presence checkbox on Settings > General, or run
wp presence recording set off. Every screen empties as the rows already stored expire. On multisite, Network Admin > Settings has the same checkbox for every site at once; whichever switch is off decides.For code, the
wp_presence_recording_enabledandwp_presence_network_recording_enabledfilters take the checkboxes as their defaults, so a filter always has the last word.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Presence API” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Presence API” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
Only the most recent releases are listed here. For the full history, see https://github.com/WordPress/presence-api/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
0.17.0
- Let a network switch off the network admin screens (#788).
- Let a site switch off the Active Posts dashboard widget (#774).
- Show who else is editing a synced pattern on its block (#779).
- Take an $args array in the presence functions (#789).
0.16.1
- Show identicons in the WordPress.org live preview (#782).
0.16.0
- Add npm run check for every check that works without wp-env (#758).
- Let a site switch off the admin bar faces (#773).
- Make the room prefix read and the room parser public (#766).
- Register usePresenceUsers as the wp-presence script (#767).
- Keep the Editors column’s faces inside the column on a busy post (#780).
0.15.0
- Fire an action when a presence row is set or removed (#756).
- Let a site switch off the pieces it does not want, starting with post locks (#724).
- Move the feature switches to the plugin’s own page under Settings (#755).
- Write reserved rows with recording off, so post locks use wp_set_presence() (#752).
0.14.0
- REST presence entries no longer include
color, and wp_presence_get_user_color() returns the block editor’s color for the user ID instead of a stored one. - Stop saving and serving presence colors (#707).