Keel Defaults

Changelog

Versions before 0.5.9 were not published to the directory. Their entries, the development history that led to the first release, are in changelog.txt in the plugin’s repository: https://github.com/dknauss/keel/blob/main/changelog.txt.

0.6.8

• Added: an Environment setting under Admin and Front-End UX. Automatic, the default, works as before. Choosing Production, Staging, Development or Local makes Keel use that instead, for the environment label and for holding back email on non-production sites. It applies only on the site where it was chosen, so a copy of the database on a laptop or staging site ignores it and never sends real email as the live site.
• Added: a warning when a live site says it is local. If WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE says local on a public address or on WordPress.com, Keel says so on every admin screen, because that label can hold back the site’s email and make other plugins switch features off. A local wp-config.php copied to a live server, as a WordPress Studio push can do, is the usual cause. The warning names where the label comes from, the wp-config.php file Keel found and the WP-CLI command that fixes it. Keel never edits wp-config.php itself.
• Added: if the Environment setting is covering for a wrong label, Keel keeps a warning on screen until wp-config.php is fixed, because WordPress, Jetpack and the host still see the wrong label. Keel’s settings screen also points out a setting that is no longer needed.
• Added: a Site Health check, Environment type, and the same warning in the Network Admin on multisite.
• Added: when Jetpack, not Keel, is setting the admin menu width (as on WordPress.com), the Admin Menu Width setting and Site Health now say so.
• Fixed: the block editor now follows the admin menu width. A wider menu covered the edge of the editor, and a narrower one left a blank strip beside it.
• Added: where Jetpack is active, the AI Connectors setting now says that Jetpack follows it. While it is on, which is the default, Jetpack’s AI Assistant and its other AI features are switched off too.
• Changed: the Site Health report on plugins sharing Keel’s settings now names must-use plugins and themes. On a managed host it used to say the code could not be traced to any plugin.
• Changed: the help for XML-RPC Multicall says to leave it off with Jetpack, because requests WordPress.com signs are still let through. The help for Frame Options says SAMEORIGIN can block previews embedded on WordPress.com.
• Changed: the line under Keel’s name on the settings screen is now “Balanced defaults for steady sites.”

0.6.7

• Fixed: with XML-RPC Multicall off, which is the default, a site connected to WordPress.com through Jetpack could be cut off from it. WordPress.com manages a connected site through multicall, so the plugin list and settings changes failed on WordPress.com while Jetpack still reported itself as connected. Keel now lets through the requests Jetpack verifies as signed by WordPress.com, and still refuses every other multicall.
• Fixed: a refused multicall went out as HTTP 405 instead of an XML-RPC fault, so clients reported a transport error. It is now an ordinary fault (code -32601) on HTTP 200.
• Added: on a site connected through Jetpack, Site Health now reports when Keel’s XML-RPC settings stop WordPress.com from reaching it.
• Changed: the Site Health check for plugins sharing Keel’s settings is rewritten in plain language. Each item now names the Keel setting involved and the other plugins by their names, not their folder names, and the report says outright that sharing a hook is not evidence of a conflict. Settings that are not taking effect are listed by name, with the hook shown for developers.
• Changed: the Site Health check on your WordPress version is titled “This version of WordPress core is not currently flagged as insecure”, and on an older release line it names the line that will eventually be retired, such as “the 7.0 line”.
• Fixed: in a right-to-left admin, dragging the admin menu width slider pushed the content from the wrong side, and the widened menu covered the start of every label. The preview now moves the content from the right.
• Fixed: on the network settings screen, the introduction was held to a narrow column while the settings below it used the full width. The cap is gone, so the introduction follows the Network Admin’s own width like the rest of the screen.

0.6.6

• Security: with comments disabled, the REST API went on serving a single comment by ID (/wp/v2/comments/123). The guard added in 0.6.1 to close that route checked for a function WordPress does not define, so it never ran. It now checks correctly, and the route answers 404.
• Added: the WordPress.org listing has a Live Preview button. The blueprint behind it was in the repository all along, but the deploy held it back from the upload, so the listing never had one.
• Fixed: on the day a security release ships, Site Health could go on reporting your version as the latest for up to a day. Keel cached WordPress.org’s release status for a day; it now fetches it again as soon as WordPress learns of a release the cached answer does not list.
• Fixed: a setting locked in wp-config.php showed the preference stored underneath the lock, not what the constant enforces. With WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE set to true, Core Auto-Updates read “Maintenance/security releases only” on a site installing every release. Locked controls now show what is in force, and when background updates are switched off entirely, the note names the constant that did it.
• Changed: a locked setting now looks locked. The note beneath it reads as a statement rather than a hint, the control itself is visibly inactive, and both are styled on the network settings screen too.
• Fixed: a folded admin menu stayed pinned open at a custom width. It now folds, and the width applies only above 960px, where WordPress does not fold the menu automatically. The live preview follows the same rules, so it no longer shows a width that saving would not apply.
• Changed: clearer wording throughout the core update and security patch messages, with constant, filter and file names shown as code.
• Fixed: with automatic updates switched off or held back by an earlier failed update, the Site Health patch panel said Keel would not offer a deliberate install directly above a working Install button. It now says the patch can still be installed deliberately, and keeps the refusal for the cases where Keel’s installer really does refuse.
• Fixed: the security patch panel on Dashboard › Updates said “the update offered above”, but WordPress lists its offers below the panel. It now says “below”.
• Fixed: on the network policy screen, the Admin Menu Width help told a Super Admin to drag a slider that screen does not have. The sentence is gone from both screens.
• Fixed: following a link to a setting highlights its row, and the highlight bar sat directly against the setting’s label. The label now clears it, and in right-to-left languages the bar and the lock note’s rule move to the right-hand side.
• Documentation: the WordPress.org listing showed the settings screen and the patch-status panel under each other’s captions. The screenshots are retaken and numbered to match.
• Documentation: the FAQ now says Keel does not manage plugin and theme auto-updates, and explains why subsite administrators on multisite do not see the auto-update column.

0.6.5

• Fixed: the admin menu width slider stopped previewing the change as you dragged it, on any site that had a width saved. The preview was still there; Keel’s own saved rule was overriding it, because that rule is marked important and the preview was not. The preview now outranks it, as it was always meant to.
• Documentation: the FAQ now states a limit that was unstated. Keel reports a setting that is not taking effect by watching WordPress filters. A plugin, theme or host that restyles the admin with CSS registers no filter, so there is nothing to observe – the admin menu width is the usual case, and a managed host styling the admin to its own design is not a conflict Keel can see or should fight.

0.6.4

• Fixed: the admin menu width slider offered “WordPress default (160px)” as its first stop, but that stop set no width at all – it only made Keel stand down. On a site where a theme, a host, or another plugin had widened the menu, it was the stop you would reach for and the one guaranteed to do nothing. There is now an explicit 160px stop that asserts core’s width, and the first stop says what it does: “Leave unchanged”.
• Fixed: the conflict notice reported settings shared with callbacks it could not trace and sent you to Site Health, where there were no open issues. The finding was there, but filed under a passing test – green, collapsed, and headed “No attributable policy overlap was found”. Untraceable overlaps are now reported as a recommendation, so the notice and Site Health describe the same site.
• Changed: the conflict notice names Keel, drops a sentence the link beneath it already made, and says settings “may be contested” rather than asserting a contest the Site Health test itself declines to assert.

0.6.3

• Added: the security release on your own version line is now offered on the Updates screen, where WordPress sends you to update. WordPress builds that screen with get_core_updates(), which discards every offer flagged for automatic installation — and a same-line security patch is only ever offered that way. So the screen has always listed the newest release and never mentioned the patch. Keel adds it back, directly below the automatic-update settings that decide which release the site would take.
• Fixed: an install started from the Updates screen finished, then sent you to Site Health to find out whether it had worked. Worse, it usually said nothing when you got there: a successful install leaves the site secure, so the panel carrying the result correctly stops rendering. The result now appears on the screen the button was pressed on, once.
• Fixed: the Updates screen offer named the newest release from the WordPress.org stable check, and called it “the update offered above”. That check and the update list WordPress renders refresh on their own schedules, so the two could disagree — or the screen could be offering nothing at all. It now reads the same list the screen does, and says nothing rather than inventing an update above.
• Fixed: the Site Health panel told you the Updates screen would not offer the patch, on sites where Keel had just added it there.
• Changed: the ladder markers are one symbol and one label per rung rather than several, and the plainer wording drops an explanation of release numbering nobody reading two version numbers needs.
• Screenshots retaken against the current wording.

0.6.2

• Fixed: the patch-status panel could promise a scheduled install the ladder directly beneath it contradicted. “Minor updates are permitted and the updater works” does not establish what WordPress would install: a site that also accepts major updates gets the highest release on offer, not the nearest, so the panel could say a patch was scheduled above a ladder marking a different release as the one WordPress would take. The claim is now made only when core’s own selection is that patch, and names the release core would take instead when it is not.
• Fixed: the persistent admin notice repeated the same promise with no ladder beneath it to correct it. It renders on every admin screen, so it cannot afford to ask WordPress which release it would install — it now says automatic updating appears available and sends you to Site Health, which can answer.
• Fixed: the panel offered a deliberate install in states where Keel refuses one, and then, once corrected, claimed no install was possible at all. Both were wrong. Keel refuses a blocked install; a deployment workflow or WP-CLI may still manage it, and the wording now says which of those it is speaking for.
• Fixed: an unexpected null from WordPress’s upgrader was reported as a successful install. Core documents a version string on success, so null establishes nothing.
• Added: two live matrix rows that leave the automatic updater operable — one where WordPress would take the same-line patch, one where major updates are permitted and it steps over. Every previous row switched the updater off, so no row had ever rendered the panel in the state these fixes are about.
• Screenshots retaken against a release WordPress.org flags, so the listing images show the current wording.

0.6.1

• Fixed: /?author=N still disclosed the author nicename, and attachment pages still rendered, on sites with those defaults enabled. Both redirects registered on template_redirect at the default priority, where core has already registered redirect_canonical during load — so they lost the tie on registration order every time. Both now run at priority 9.
• Fixed: a site with comments disabled still answered /wp/v2/comments/123. The filter covering every comment listing does not cover the single-item REST route, which reads its row without building a query.
• Fixed: the REST password policy resolved any user ID in the request before the route checked authorization, so the policy ran against another account’s login, email and nicename and returned the answer in the validation error. It now resolves only the caller’s own user, or one they may edit.
• Fixed: an empty or over-long password reached the breach-screening network call before anything cheap rejected it.
• Added: tests/hook-precedence.php and tests/route-coverage.php, which check that a registration wins its hook and covers its routes rather than merely existing. The first two fixes above were invisible to the previous suite.
• Thanks to Austin Ginder of Anchor Hosting for the security review these fixes come from.

0.6.0

• New: Site Health reports whether the installed version of WordPress has publicly known vulnerabilities. That is a different question from whether an update is available, and nothing in wp-admin answered it. WordPress.org publishes the answer at its core stable-check API, which core itself never queries.
• Where a patched release exists on your own release line, Keel names that release rather than the newest one. A 6.9.5 site is told about 6.9.7, not 7.1 — only the third number changes, so nothing is deprecated.
• New: the ladder of releases WordPress.org is currently offering this site, and which one WordPress would actually install. It takes the highest release your settings permit rather than the nearest, so a site accepting major updates skips the patch and jumps to the newest release.
• Fixed: the panel offered “Install this now from the Updates screen” when the patch appeared only as an automatic-update offer. get_core_updates() omits those offers, so following that button installed the newest release instead. Keel now asks core what that screen is showing, and distinguishes listed, hidden behind Show hidden updates, absent, and not yet known.
• Blockers name their own cause — the constant and the file it usually lives in, or the filter a plugin is using — instead of describing the situation in the abstract. Each one needs a different fix, and they now carry stable codes rather than being told apart by their translated text.
• New: install the patch from the Site Health panel, using WordPress’s own upgrader with rollback enabled. The target is recomputed on the server and can only ever be the patched tip of your own release line, so it cannot cross a release line or move a site backwards. It refuses when files are not writable, when the site is a version-control checkout, or when the release’s PHP or MySQL requirements are not met — that last check runs before anything is downloaded, because core otherwise reads those requirements out of the new version’s own files and only finds out after unpacking it.
• Being blocked from automatic updates does not block a deliberate install. A disabled updater, a filter, or an earlier failed update are all reasons a patch will not arrive by itself, and installing it deliberately is the remedy for each.
• The other remediation switches minor auto-updates back on, and only where the stored option is genuinely what decides.

0.5.10

• The network settings screen is now Network Policy rather than “Keel Defaults”. It decides settings for every site on a network and locks them, which is the opposite of what the per-site screen does, and the old name did not say so. The screen, its address and its behaviour are otherwise unchanged.
• Two links in Site Health pointed at “Settings → Keel”, a menu that has not existed since that screen was renamed to Site Defaults. They now name the screen you will actually find. The same correction has been made to the multisite password help text and to this readme.

0.5.9

• Breach-cache entries can no longer be reached again after the plugin is removed and reinstalled. On a site with Redis or Memcached, WordPress keeps transients in the object cache rather than the database, where the uninstaller’s queries cannot follow them. Each installation now has its own cache namespace, so anything left behind belongs to an installation that no longer exists.
• Rewrote the Help menu’s Environments and Overlapping plugins tabs, and corrected how the environment type is described: WordPress reads the WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE constant and wp_get_environment_type() reports the result, not the other way round.