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Collaboration: Add dedicated presence table for awareness storage#11609

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josephfusco wants to merge 82 commits intoWordPress:trunkfrom
josephfusco:collaboration/presence-api
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Collaboration: Add dedicated presence table for awareness storage#11609
josephfusco wants to merge 82 commits intoWordPress:trunkfrom
josephfusco:collaboration/presence-api

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@josephfusco josephfusco commented Apr 20, 2026

This builds on #11599 by giving awareness its own table (wp_presence) with a UNIQUE KEY (room, client_id). This resolves the problems the cache layer was solving at the source.

What changes

  • Awareness writes become a single atomic INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE
  • The collaboration table becomes a clean append-only update log
  • Object cache branching and fallback logic no longer needed

What ships (API only — no admin UI)

Minimal presence functions used internally by the collaboration server:

  • wp_get_presence() / wp_set_presence() / wp_remove_presence()
  • wp_remove_user_presence() / wp_delete_expired_presence_data()

The schema and API design are informed by the Presence API feature plugin, which explores UI features for a future release.

Relationship to prior PRs

Forked from #11599#11256. Full commit history preserved. @peterwilsoncc's non-awareness improvements (test isolation, wp_recursive_ksort) are carried forward.

Props

peterwilsoncc, jorbin, czarate, desrosj, zieladam, joefusco, paulkevan, mindctrl, mukesh27, dmonad, westonruter

Trac Ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/64696

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Claude Code
Model(s): Claude Opus 4
Used for: Code review of #11599, architectural analysis comparing storage approaches, implementation of the presence table integration and test updates. All changes were reviewed and verified by me.

josephfusco and others added 30 commits March 16, 2026 13:02
Introduces the wp_collaboration table for storing real-time editing
data (document states, awareness info, undo history) and the
WP_Collaboration_Table_Storage class that implements all CRUD
operations against it. Bumps the database schema version to 61840.
Replaces WP_HTTP_Polling_Sync_Server with
WP_HTTP_Polling_Collaboration_Server using the wp-collaboration/v1
REST namespace. Switches to string-based client IDs, fixes the
compaction race condition, adds a backward-compatible wp-sync/v1
route alias, and uses UPDATE-then-INSERT for awareness data.
Deletes WP_Sync_Post_Meta_Storage and WP_Sync_Storage interface,
and removes the wp_sync_storage post type registration from post.php.
These are superseded by the dedicated collaboration table.
Adds wp_is_collaboration_enabled() gate, injects the collaboration
setting into the block editor, registers cron event for cleaning up
stale collaboration data, and updates require/include paths for the
new storage and server classes.
Adds 67 PHPUnit tests for WP_HTTP_Polling_Collaboration_Server covering
document sync, awareness, undo/redo, compaction, permissions, cursor
mechanics, race conditions, cron cleanup, and the backward-compatible
wp-sync/v1 route. Adds E2E tests for 3-user presence, sync, and
undo/redo. Removes the old sync server tests. Updates REST schema
setup and fixtures for the new collaboration endpoints.
Adds a cache-first read path to get_awareness_state() following the
transient pattern: check the persistent object cache, fall back to
the database on miss, and prime the cache with the result.

set_awareness_state() updates the cached entries in-place after the
DB write rather than invalidating, so the cache stays warm for the
next reader in the room. This is application-level deduplication:
the shared collaboration table cannot carry a UNIQUE KEY on
(room, client_id) because sync rows need multiple entries per
room+client pair.

Sites without a persistent cache see no behavior change — the
in-memory WP_Object_Cache provides no cross-request benefit but
keeps the code path identical.
Restore the `wp_client_side_media_processing_enabled` filter and the
`finalize` route that were accidentally removed from the REST schema
test. Add the `collaboration` table to the list of tables expected to
be empty after multisite site creation.
The connectors API key entries in wp-api-generated.js were
incorrectly carried over during the trunk merge. Trunk does not
include them in the generated fixtures since the settings are
dynamically registered and not present in the CI test context.
Rename the `update_value` column to `data` in the collaboration table
storage class and tests, and fix array arrow alignment to satisfy PHPCS.

The shorter name is consistent with WordPress meta tables and avoids
confusion with the `update_value()` method in `WP_REST_Meta_Fields`.
Add a composite index on (type, client_id) to the collaboration table
to speed up awareness upserts, which filter on both columns.

Bump $wp_db_version from 61840 to 61841 so existing installations
pick up the schema change via dbDelta on upgrade.
Introduce MAX_BODY_SIZE (16 MB), MAX_ROOMS_PER_REQUEST (50), and
MAX_UPDATE_DATA_SIZE (1 MB) constants to cap request payloads.

Wire a validate_callback on the route to reject oversized request
bodies with a 413, add maxItems to the rooms schema, and replace
the hardcoded maxLength with the new constant.
Reject non-numeric object IDs early in
can_user_collaborate_on_entity_type(). Verify that a post's actual
type matches the room's claimed entity name before granting access.

For taxonomy rooms, confirm the term exists in the specified taxonomy
and simplify the capability check to use assign_term with the
term's object ID.
Cover oversized request body (413), exceeding max rooms (400),
non-numeric object ID, post type mismatch, nonexistent taxonomy
term, and term in the wrong taxonomy.
…rage

Convert consecutive single-line comments to block comment style per
WordPress coding standards, replace forward slashes with colons in
cache keys to avoid ambiguity, hoist `global $wpdb` above the cache
check in `get_awareness_state()`, and clarify the `$cursor` param
docblock in `remove_updates_before_cursor()`.
When collaboration is disabled, run both DELETE queries (sync and
awareness rows) before unscheduling the cron hook so leftover data
is removed. Hoist `global $wpdb` to the top of the function so the
disabled branch can use it. Add a comment noting future persistent
types may also need exclusion from the sync cleanup query.
The wp-sync/v1 namespace was a transitional alias for the Gutenberg
plugin. Remove it so only wp-collaboration/v1 is registered.
The backward-compatible wp-sync/v1 route alias was removed in
24f4fdc, making this test invalid.
The rooms array schema includes a maxItems constraint of 50, but
the committed wp-api-generated.js fixture was missing it, causing
git diff --exit-code to fail on every PHPUnit CI job.
…hrough_cursor

The previous name was ambiguous — it suggested exclusive semantics,
but the query uses inclusive deletion (id <= %d). "through" clearly
communicates the inclusive behavior without needing to read the docblock.
josephfusco and others added 20 commits April 10, 2026 17:55
…table.

Introduce wp_presence table with UNIQUE KEY (room, client_id) for
atomic upserts via INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE. This eliminates
the read-modify-write race condition in the object cache approach and
removes all cache-backend branching from the awareness path.

The collaboration table becomes a clean append-only log for sync
updates only — the type column, type_client_id index, and
room_type_date index are removed.

New file: src/wp-includes/presence.php provides wp_get_presence(),
wp_set_presence(), wp_remove_presence(), wp_remove_user_presence(),
and wp_delete_expired_presence_data().
@josephfusco josephfusco changed the title Collaboration/presence api Collaboration: Add dedicated presence table for awareness storage Apr 20, 2026
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@josephfusco josephfusco marked this pull request as ready for review April 23, 2026 16:23
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