Weekly update – 14 August 2026

[ryan]

I mentioned last week that I was dealing with an unexpected family situation. I wanted to give a little more context, as I don’t want you to think the worst. Though for me, it feels like the worst. 

My wife and I are going through an unexpected divorce/separation after the best 25 years of marriage I can imagine. She informed me of this for our 25th anniversary, after coming back from our Scandinavia trip, and I didn’t see it coming. Going from the happiest part of my life to the lowest in a week was tough. My life partner, best friend and the person I love most in this world is leaving, and it has shaken me to my core. I thought I had the best marriage in the world and was so looking forward to growing old with my wife. But now it’s like I don't know her, she's a different person. Thankfully my kids and cats aren’t going anywhere, so it won’t be too lonely around here. 

It has understandably taken a lot of my attention and energy over the last two weeks. It’s hard to eat or sleep when you are in hell. But I managed to get a little sleep last night, and woke up today feeling slightly better. I sat at the computer for the first time in awhile, got some issue reports covered, and it feels like it’ll keep getting better from here. I'm still moving slowly, but it feels like some momentum started today, and my hope is that things will be fully back on track in the next couple of weeks.

Our household’s financial stability also made it possible for me to spend a lot of time on open source work without ProcessWire itself needing to carry the full financial load. I was always satisfied for ProcessWire to remain a relatively small open source project and community. Now I need it to grow and flourish in order to survive. If you’ve been waiting for ProcessWire to grow, I think this change will be healthy for the project. But I'll need your help, ideas and collaboration. 

For the moment, I’m still taking things one day at a time, so development and communication may remain slower than usual for a little while, but the engine is at least started again. I appreciate everyone’s patience, understanding and continued support more than I can say. But also know that amid my bad family news, there will be bright spots for all of us in ProcessWire. That I'm sure of. 

Thank you for your support and for sticking around. So many of you have shown up for me with kindness and encouragement when I’ve needed it most. You are such good friends to me, and I’m deeply thankful to have you here.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

Ryan, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I just want to wish you the very best in the months and years ahead.  ProcessWire has had such an enormous impact on my career and life really and I deeply appreciate everything you've done.

[Krlos]

Ryan, I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Sending you a big hug and all my support. Take care of yourself my friend, one day at a time. Better days will come.

And sorry for my rough English, I just wanted to send you some support.

[maximus]

Ryan, this is an incredibly difficult period, but I believe things will gradually find their balance again. It will take time. Please take care of yourself.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity ProcessWire has given me - not only to create modules, but to think and build at the platform level.

Recently, I built a learning and examination platform on top of ProcessWire. It consists of two independent ProcessWire applications: a public website and commerce layer for course discovery, inquiries, checkout, orders, and digital access; and a separate Academy responsible for student accounts, course delivery, examinations, question banks, attempt evidence, results, and completion documents.

The two applications have separate responsibilities and exchange only signed, minimal events and one-time activation data. This is not simply a content website with a few additional fields. It is a real application platform with domain boundaries, controlled workflows, security requirements, and its own product interface - all built on ProcessWire.

This is currently a private implementation, not an open-source release or a product announcement. Its future distribution model is intentionally undecided. I mention it only as a practical example of what ProcessWire makes possible.

Since you asked for help, ideas, and collaboration, I also want to respond with something concrete. Today I released Relay, an MIT-licensed scheduled publishing and visual editorial calendar module for ProcessWire.

Relay provides publication windows, recurring schedules, month, week, quarter, timeline and Kanban views, drag-and-drop rescheduling, iCalendar feeds, notifications, JSON import and export, and 48 bundled translations. Its production jobs are handled by a bounded, lease-protected CLI worker with retries, safe parallel execution, and automatic stale-lock recovery. It is another example of how a real application requirement can become a focused ProcessWire module without adding unnecessary fields or machinery to page templates.

PW ≠ WP — and that difference is its strength.

ProcessWire gives us a clean API, a flexible data model, and the freedom to install or build only the modules that solve actual requirements - without accumulating layers of unnecessary machinery. Every serious system I build with PW further dismantles the assumption that WP must always be the default choice.

Sometimes it feels as though we are quietly building something capable of genuinely challenging WordPress - not by copying its ecosystem, but by demonstrating a cleaner and more focused way to build.

ProcessWire may still be relatively small because it has never had the same marketing reach, but its technical foundation is remarkably strong. With better visibility, real-world examples, and collaboration from the community, I believe it can grow far beyond its current position.

I would be glad to help - not only through modules, but also through products, architecture, documentation, ideas, and real implementations. You have created something truly special, and you are not alone in taking it forward.

[Peter Knight]

Hi Ryan 

I was sorry to read this. New beginning are always tough. Especially the unexpected ones. I’m glad you’re feeling a little better though. Mind yourself and take your time figuring it out. Thinking of you, mate. 💚

[cb2004]

16 hours ago, ryan said:

I mentioned last week that I was dealing with an unexpected family situation. I wanted to give a little more context, as I don’t want you to think the worst. Though for me, it feels like the worst. 

My wife and I are going through an unexpected divorce/separation after the best 25 years of marriage I can imagine. She informed me of this for our 25th anniversary, after coming back from our Scandinavia trip, and I didn’t see it coming. Going from the happiest part of my life to the lowest in a week was tough. My life partner, best friend and the person I love most in this world is leaving, and it has shaken me to my core. I thought I had the best marriage in the world and was so looking forward to growing old with my wife. But now it’s like I don't know her, she's a different person. Thankfully my kids and cats aren’t going anywhere, so it won’t be too lonely around here. 

It has understandably taken a lot of my attention and energy over the last two weeks. It’s hard to eat or sleep when you are in hell. But I managed to get a little sleep last night, and woke up today feeling slightly better. I sat at the computer for the first time in awhile, got some issue reports covered, and it feels like it’ll keep getting better from here. I'm still moving slowly, but it feels like some momentum started today, and my hope is that things will be fully back on track in the next couple of weeks.

Our household’s financial stability also made it possible for me to spend a lot of time on open source work without ProcessWire itself needing to carry the full financial load. I was always satisfied for ProcessWire to remain a relatively small open source project and community. Now I need it to grow and flourish in order to survive. If you’ve been waiting for ProcessWire to grow, I think this change will be healthy for the project. But I'll need your help, ideas and collaboration. 

For the moment, I’m still taking things one day at a time, so development and communication may remain slower than usual for a little while, but the engine is at least started again. I appreciate everyone’s patience, understanding and continued support more than I can say. But also know that amid my bad family news, there will be bright spots for all of us in ProcessWire. That I'm sure of. 

Thank you for your support and for sticking around. So many of you have shown up for me with kindness and encouragement when I’ve needed it most. You are such good friends to me, and I’m deeply thankful to have you here.

Nice to see some commits coming in.

If you need to talk to anybody I am always here, and I am going through exactly the same thing. 44 years old, been with my wife for 25 years, married 14 of those, 3 girls 9, 7 and 4, and we split up 4 weeks ago. Hopefully soon like me, you will realise that some things are for the best, and you cant force anything in life. I have a great support network and am starting to realise a lot of things with their help. Stay strong, but also if you need to fight your corner then dont be afraid to, that is what I have been very bad at throughout the 25 years.

I would be fully on board to help ProcessWire grow. We use it 95% exclusively at my agency for 11 years now I think.

[TomPich]

Ryan,

I feel so sorry for you… I can’t imagine experiencing the same situation. Nothing can make you feel better at this time, but I’m sure you will eventually overcome it. Thanks for showing that trust in us, Processwire dev, and thank you for all the wonderful work and commitment.
Sending you all my affection and admiration.

Edited Saturday at 06:37 PM by TomPich

[ryan]

Thanks for all the support, I appreciate it.

@cb2004 I'm so sorry to hear you've had to deal with a similar situation. I'd be great to talk with you sometime this week, if you are available?

[chrik]

Hey Ryan,

this was a tough read. Times like these are devastating, truly, and it's hard to say helpful things from such great distance besides that my heart goes out to you.

For your emotional needs, I am sure you will find open arms and ears among friends nearby as well as a lot of people in the ProcessWire community who care, as they have grown with you and thanks to you over the years. I know I have.

Regarding more immediate financial needs in the near future I think many of us can chip in by getting another ProFields module or two. And as for the direction ProcessWire will go in during the coming years, we'll be here and help with that, too.

Keep your head up as best you can and, most importantly, do take the time you need to get through this. Your health, mentally and physically, is the most precious thing you have.

[ryan]

@maximus Thank you, I love what you are building and all of your great ideas. We are so lucky to have you here. I also really appreciate what you said about PW != WP and the difference is a strength, I totally agree. Thank you for your offer to help too, looking forward to future collaboration! 

[ryan]

When I say I have to find ways to grow and make ProcessWIre more sustainable, that doesn't mean changing the model of ProcessWire itself, as an open source project. The ProcessWire core is not a business. Instead what I think is needed: 

1. Take all necessary steps grow ProcessWire's user base.

• The Skyscrapers demo site is ancient--it needs to be updated or replaced. I think it's so old right now that it turns people away. I have started working on this already. But I think we need more demos too. Is anyone willing to create demo sites that we can link to from ProcessWire.com? Ideally ones that people could see how it works both on the front-end and the back-end.  I remember that @bernhard had done a great job of this to showcase some of the modules that he has built, and I think we need more of that kind of thing. 

• The current blank site profile is great for most of us here, but for new users, it's just not enough to show what ProcessWire can do. We need more compelling site profile options available from the install screen. I'd like a lot more site profile options available. I'd like our installer to be able to pull a list directly from ProcessWire.com and download the site profile as part of the installation. Would anyone be interested in building more starter site profiles for ProcessWire? We need to find the right balance between functionality and keeping the template files simple enough to be easily understandable. Though with so many now using AI, maybe being compelling and showing a lot of functionality carries more weight than having the simplest possible template files. 

• Much of the recent changes in ProcessWire have been aimed at increasing AI accessibility and discoverability. ProcessWire has 16 years worth of content on the internet, making it especially well known by many LLMs. I think we need to keep directing towards ProcessWire as the ideal CMS to use with AI. We've been building in API.md documenting into all key classes and modules in ProcessWire, we've now got a built-in test suite, and the API has been evolving quite a bit towards making it even simpler for AI agents (and humans) to work with. I think we need to keep this going, but I'd also be interested in any other ideas that you have in this area?

• We need a stronger social media presence. We need a lot of help here. For example, there regularly CMS and framework discussions on Reddit's r/webdev and other boards, plus the "looking for alternatives to WordPress" type of threads that appear on Reddit and around the internet. Maybe more needs toe done from the processwire twitter. Can anyone help with the social media side of ProcessWire?

• Recent contributions from Konkat for our site and admin theme have helped out a lot recently. I think we'll soon be in in good spot to re-launch ProcessWire with version 4. 

• Ideally the forums and store should be updated for the new/current PW site design. 

• What other steps should we take?

2. Improve and expand the services available for ProcessWire that produce income 

I don't make enough from Pro modules to survive without also doing a lot client work. Compared to client work, they don't add financial stability, though I enjoy the work and think they are useful services. But I need to either: 1) reduce focus on them (perhaps avoiding building new ones) and focus more on client work; or 2) Expand the commercial support and service options (like Pro modules) for ProcessWire. My preference is of course to put my efforts towards expanding Pro stuff if at all possible, sticking to the original mission, but I'm looking for feedback. Pro modules will continue either way though. 

• If we're successful with #1 above, then this could solve itself over the long term. But I need to make steps for the short term too. 

• Another thought is to have a new option, a "ProcessWire Pro" yearly plan that includes all of the Pro modules plus commercial support, consulting, proactive monitoring, and more? Not to replace the current Pro modules options, but as an additional option for those that want to use ProcessWire AND have guaranteed support and services (like Pro modules) included. I'm leaning in this direction. What do you think?

• What else?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Peter Knight]

Hey @ryan

This is music to many users' ears, I imagine. I think we've all felt that ProcessWire was suffering from a lack of exposure and marketing. Many of us are ready for lift-off and PW has never been stronger. Every time I open my social channels, I see people abandoning WordPress, but those people are not necessarily finding ProcessWire. More on this later.

I'd like to hold up my hand for strategies and ideas around marketing, SEO and social media help. Implementation too, obviously.

• identifying topic-clusters we can create content on to capture "WordPress alternative" searches and the myriad of CMS related queries. The whole SEO Hub and Spoke approach.
• Creating those blog posts not only on my own website but versions for the ProcessWire website
• Community oriented social posting - IE organising social posts we could ask people to publish
• Identifying website content gaps beyond technical readers

I've helped a few clients in exceptionally tough and competitive industries get cited in AI and achieve high 'traditional' rankings too with variations of the above.

I know there are many people here with many overlapping skills. We all have various amounts of time and commitment. 
We just need a shared collaborative space where we can get started. I'd suggest not using the forums as they can be indexed.

Regarding item 2
Processwire is a fundamental part of my working life and has enabled us to make a living, make profits and pay the bills. Lots of us support PW via Pro modules both when we need them and occasionally renew to keep the project going.

If you're not changing from Open Source to a small per-site license, I think there are a variety of opt-in avenues people might be amenable to that both keep the project open source and allow people to contribute back to the project.

• A sponsorship - Gold, Silver, Bronze
• A yearly 'Friends of' type voluntary contribution
• A small annual subscription for PRO modules. Maybe the entire bundle, as you mention
• A dedicated PRO support plan

Just lobbing these out there for consideration.

And my motivation is not simply because I have some of my own Modules. I've felt this way for years.

[maximus]

Ryan, thank you for the thoughtful reply and for laying out such a concrete direction, especially while you are going through such a difficult period. There is no need to respond quickly to any of this.

Your point about AI accessibility is exactly where I think ProcessWire has an unusual opportunity. I have been testing a private MCP gateway implemented as a ProcessWire module using the official PHP MCP SDK.

I realize that AgentTools now also includes a local MCP server, so I do not mean this as a replacement for it. I see the two at different layers. AgentTools gives a coding agent a broad ProcessWire-aware development toolkit: CLI access, migrations, the Engineer, API and schema context, and read-only local stdio MCP tools. My gateway is for bounded, module-defined operations over authenticated Streamable HTTP. It does not run an AI model and does not expose the full ProcessWire API.

This is deliberately not SSH, arbitrary PHP, SQL, filesystem or unrestricted admin access. Modules explicitly opt in as capability providers. The gateway handles authenticated clients, scopes, rate limits, namespaces and audit; each provider module owns its domain rules and exposes only bounded tools with JSON schemas.

In the current development proof, Codex can discover the environment, providers, available capabilities and their required scopes, while every other application operation remains unavailable. Read and write capabilities are separate, and mutations require idempotency and explicit confirmation.

To me, this suggests a broader direction for ProcessWire: an optional standard contract through which installed modules can describe safe, domain-specific capabilities to AI agents. ProcessWire is already easy for an LLM to write code against because of its API. This would make a ProcessWire application safely operable by agents without teaching them to click through the admin or giving them unrestricted server access.

In short, AgentTools helps an agent build and change a ProcessWire site; this pattern lets a remote agent operate only the bounded capabilities that each module explicitly publishes.

I am keeping the gateway private while I finish the write-path and security tests, but once the vertical proof is complete, I would be glad to document the architecture and show a controlled demo.

I also agree about replacing Skyscrapers and expanding site profiles. I think the strongest new demos should show application patterns, not only themes: a directory, editorial workflow, learning platform, or another small application where people can inspect both the front end and admin.

A sanitized version of one of my systems could become such a demo. I can prepare a scoped proposal for one rather than promising a large build before we agree on the smallest useful example.

For downloadable profiles, a registry in the installer sounds excellent. I would give each profile a screenshot, purpose, maintainer, ProcessWire/PHP compatibility, last update, documentation, live demo and package checksum. It may also help to distinguish educational demos from maintained starter profiles, so a newcomer understands what is safe to begin a real project with.

A yearly ProcessWire Pro plan also makes sense to me if individual Pro module purchases remain available. A bundle of all Pro modules, updates and a clearly defined support level would reduce purchasing friction and create recurring revenue.

Proactive monitoring and consulting may be better as a higher agency tier because they create a different operational commitment from software and support.

Longer term, I think the existing Store could also support a curated path for independent commercial module authors. It would not need to start as a large commerce rebuild: a modern unified catalogue for free and paid modules, ProcessWire/forum identity, external author checkout where needed, and a small partner pilot could validate demand before adding centralized licensing, payouts and updates.

That could create another revenue stream for ProcessWire while making continued module development more sustainable for contributors.

I agree with Peter that a private collaborative space would help. I would keep it very small and outcome-oriented at first: demos and site profiles, AI and documentation, marketing and content, and commercial sustainability—with one concrete owner and next deliverable for each lane.

I can contribute most directly on the MCP capability pattern, an application-style demo, product/admin UX, architecture and documentation, and the marketplace proposal.

I am glad that we are beginning this conversation.

@ryan

[Kiwi Chris]

Sometimes bad stuff happens, and the best way through it is often to keep doing stuff for other people, but it's ok and sometimes necessary to take time out. Four years ago I had to deal with dad's rapid decline and eventual death, while at the same time my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I had to give evidence at a really nasty trial of another family member, where nothing was what it seemed, and I didn't know who to trust.

I think a common issue open source projects face is how to keep them open source and pay the developers a decent income. 

I think AI has only further complicated things, as while it enables individual developers to be much more productive, it also makes it easier for people to do things without needing a developer at all, and can make it harder for content sites to pay their way, so I don't have any easy answers in that respect.

I know @bernhard was extremely active in the ProcessWire community and developed some incredibly useful modules like RockMigrations, but he's gone quiet, and I saw a post noting that he hadn't been able to make his ProcessWire efforts pay.

Clearly all of us have a stake in ProcessWire being financially sustainable both for Ryan, but also for all of us in our own use of it.

I think getting more sites using ProcessWire is important. A large price increase in the pro modules might not help Ryan if fewer people pay for them due to cost, but an increase in the number of people purchasing them would keep them affordable while still generating more revenue.

One of the things that makes ProcessWire so much better than WordPress, but may also put WordPress users off, is it doesn't assume how you want to structure your data.

That means you can't really do an instant install.

I've been thinking for a while about how OO programming itself works with extensible classes, and now that the likes of RocMigrations exists, I wondered about the idea of a base site profile that gives you essentially a brochure site, but then modules that do nothing more than install additional fields and templates, that extend the base profile with additional functionality as required.

That might need some naming conventions around field and templates, however if you know that a given module is just going to install some specific fields and templates, it's already baked into ProcessWire the ability to have module dependencies, so rather than checking each and every field and template, you can just check whether a given module that installs them is installed, which might allow building ProcessWire websites almost as quickly as WordPress ones, but still with the ability to keep everything readily customisable and with a consistent UI.

I like this in some ways more than site profiles, as with a site profile, you get a fixed set of functionality at install time rather than packs of fields and templates that you can install on top of a base model if you need different functionality.

eg, if you know that a given set of modules (that are just wrappers for making certain sets of fields and templates available) are installed, it would make it easier for people to 'theme' them.

Once you get a known set of field names that will exist if certain modules are installed, it's easier for people to build themes around them.

I already found a snippet that I've used when I wanted to update the appearance of a site to allow testing a new look that I could put in init.php

if ($user->isLoggedIn() && $user->hasRole('tester')) {
	$config->urls->templates = "/site/bootstrap5/";
	$config->paths->templates = dirname(__DIR__) . $config->urls->templates;
}

This could quite easily be modified to allow 'themes' ie different versions of templates while leaving official ones untouched, and could include 'pro' themes.

So -> get ProcessWire -> pick the components you want -> pick a theme, and done, with all of it still possible to be done manually, but the possibility to get a site up in a few clicks, and pay for premium components, with the modules functionality almost like an app store.

I think having the ability to purchase premium modules built in directly to the admin UI might be helpful too, although it should never be the only way, as people who're concerned about security may prefer the requirement to manually upload new modules, as is the option now.

I also wonder about official ProcessWire hosting (maybe combined with specific site profile/module packages that will be kept up to date)? 

Many other open source projects offer something like that with the option to either use the officially hosted plan or run your own, so there's no compulsion, but it's quick and easy for people to get started.

[Jim Bailie]

Wow! That's some seriously bad news. I saw exactly what you are describing happen to one of my college roommates and best friends, and it was really effing eerie to see his wife change so suddenly.

The good news is that you, like my friend, are a great guy and have a lot going for you, so hang in there.

As for Processwire, if given the correct product development and, possibly funding, it can rival any other popular CMS such as WP, Craft, Drupal or whatever.

[olafgleba]

@ryan, knowing what it feels like, just a quick cheer up. Even though right know it feels like drowning and leave you confused and hurt,- this terrible state your are in will change and you will be able to look at it differently and feel more calm again at the end. You cannot force it, it just happens in the course of time. Even though it seems a faint and plain statement, i know.

All the best and take care of yourself! 

 

[WireCodex]

Hi @ryan,

I’ve recently been in that situation myself, so I understand what you’re going through; it’s tough, and the process can be long or short, but it depends entirely on you—and no one else. You need to reconnect with yourself: who you’ve been, who you are today, and, above all, who you want to be. Ultimately, these things happen because of someone else’s decision, and while it’s not what you would have chosen, it’s something you cannot control. Look at it this way: you have a golden opportunity to show your children that adversity is a part of life and that it can be overcome with the right mindset and personal effort—to show them that the strength to face these situations comes from within and doesn’t depend on anything external.

Regarding ProcessWire, the work I do at my company focuses primarily on application development rather than website creation. Consequently, our needs have differed somewhat, requiring features that I implemented in my own way—mostly within the framework's internals. While the code or implementation might not be optimal (I'm a graphic designer), the underlying concepts are sound, and the approach has worked very well for us so far. You might find the documentation more useful than the source code itself, but you may also discover elements that could benefit the framework, helping to expand ProcessWire's capabilities.

There are other things I haven't published, but you can check out some ideas here: https://github.com/wirecodex 

Edited Monday at 02:53 PM by WireCodex

[ryan]

Thanks for all the support! I actually started feeling quite a bit better over the weekend. My wife moved out of our house, and into her new apartment, and rather than hitting me hard, it actually made me feel a little better. This situation was so much pain over the last couple of weeks that I reached a point of associating that pain with her, which made me see her differently, rather than my idealized version of her. At least for the last couple of days, I feel better without her here, and a sense of nothing, no feeling at all about the situation... neither bad nor good. Though there is some sense of relief that the worst seems to have past, my appetite has returned, and I'm left with a lot of ambition and real enthusiasm for growing ProcessWire. 

Quote

I'd like to hold up my hand for strategies and ideas around marketing, SEO and social media help. Implementation too, obviously.

@Peter Knight Thank you! Great suggestions. I'm such a marketing neophyte, I wouldn't even know how to start. But it sounds like you are on to some really good things here. 

Something that I can say is that ProcessWire does quite well from the SEO side, thanks to all the content we have here. Though we aren't targeting any specific search terms well, at least from the homepage, I think people are searching for different terms than what we mention. Though I don't know for sure what people are searching for. Any ideas? We probably do need to better target ProcessWire as an AI friendly CMS, but I don't know what searches folks use there. 

Quote

If you're not changing from Open Source to a small per-site license, I think there are a variety of opt-in avenues people might be amenable to, which both keep the project open source but also allow people to contribute back into the project.

I could be wrong, but currently think being open source is key. I don't think we can really complete with the commercial options (at least on marketing) unless we have an actual business with employees and multiple developers. I think we're better off being the best "open source" option, something that people can use for free. But I can see having a site-licensed "ProcessWire Pro" version that has a broader inclusion of modules (Pro modules), and support built right into the admin. 

Quote

A sponsorship - Gold, Silver, Bronze
A yearly 'Friends of' type voluntary contribution

Would this be the sort of thing where there's a set donation amount and by maintaining that amount they get their logo and link in a public-radio style "Made possible with support by..." section on the homepage, footer throughout the site, or similar? I'd be open to it. 

@maximus So many great ideas! 

Quote

To me, this suggests a broader direction for ProcessWire: an optional standard contract through which installed modules can describe safe, domain-specific capabilities to AI agents. ProcessWire is already easy for an LLM to write code against because of its API. This would make a ProcessWire application safely operable by agents without teaching them to click through the admin or giving them unrestricted server access.

 I'm interested in learning more about the "optional standard contract" you mention?

Quote

 

A sanitized version of one of my systems could become such a demo. I can prepare a scoped proposal for one rather than promising a large build before we agree on the smallest useful example.

 

Sounds great! Thank you. I think it would be ideal if our Demo page was more of a "Demos" page with multiple examples people could dig into. So there would be an upgraded Skyscrapers example, but there would be others, like what you've mentioned. 

Quote

Longer term, I think the existing Store could also support a curated path for independent commercial module authors. It would not need to start as a large commerce rebuild: a modern unified catalogue for free and paid modules, ProcessWire/forum identity, external author checkout where needed, and a small partner pilot could validate demand before adding centralized licensing, payouts and updates.

I'd like to preferably get the store out of IP.Board and into a dedicated service that can handle all the tax rules for different locations around the world. This has been one of the main things holding me back from setting up a ProcessWire store with support for other authors. Between sales, taxes and payouts to authors, it's fairly complicated. If there's an existing service we could use that already has this ability, I think it would be worth spending money on. I do still like the forums, so would use webhooks to handle the management of user roles and access in the forums. 

Quote

I agree with Peter that a private collaborative space would help. I would keep it very small and outcome-oriented at first: demos and site profiles, AI and documentation, marketing and content, and commercial sustainability—with one concrete owner and next deliverable for each lane.

I can get a board setup for that here. Or maybe something like a Slack channel would be even better?

Quote

I can contribute most directly on the MCP capability pattern, an application-style demo, product/admin UX, architecture and documentation, and the marketplace proposal.

Thank you, that sounds great! 

 

[Peter Knight]

Slack might be more versatile, but I imagine not everyone has Slack. 
Maybe it's more important to get started, and a private forum is a good and quick starting point? Open to ideas.

Regarding the Sponsorship stuff, I'll pop you a DM.

[maximus]

Ryan, thank you. I’m glad to hear that you are feeling better and that your appetite and enthusiasm have returned.

By an “optional standard contract,” I mean a small, consistent interface that any ProcessWire module could optionally implement to expose a limited set of safe capabilities to AI agents.

It would not expose the full ProcessWire API. Instead, each participating module would explicitly declare:

- its provider namespace and contract version;
- the capabilities or tools it exposes;
- JSON schemas for input and output;
- whether each capability is read-only or mutating;
- the scopes required to call it;
- whether confirmation and an idempotency key are required;
- and the audit information that should be recorded.

The MCP gateway would provide discovery, authentication, scopes, rate limits, confirmations and audit logging. The provider module would remain responsible for its own domain validation and execution.

Relay provides a simple example. It might expose relay.listScheduled as a read capability and relay.schedulePublication as a write capability. The second operation could require a specific write scope, explicit confirmation and an idempotency key. An agent could schedule a publication, but it could not execute arbitrary PHP, query the database directly, access the filesystem or modify unrelated ProcessWire content.

Modules that do not implement the contract would remain completely unaffected. This could begin as an experimental specification and a minimal provider example rather than requiring any commitment from the core.

Once I finish the write path and security tests, I can prepare a short architecture note, the proposed contract schema and a controlled example provider. That would make it easier to evaluate the idea based on a working vertical proof rather than only a description.

I agree about making the Demo page a Demos page. Multiple small, inspectable application examples would demonstrate much more of ProcessWire’s range than a single showcase. I can prepare a scoped proposal for an application-style demo separately.

Moving the Store to a dedicated commerce service also makes sense. International tax collection, author payouts, licensing and refunds are substantial responsibilities. I can research services that support merchant-of-record or marketplace workflows, author payouts, webhooks and external licensing, and prepare a comparison before we assume that a custom implementation is necessary.

A small board here on the forum would work well for durable proposals, decisions and deliverables. Slack could be useful later for faster discussion, but I think keeping the initial work visible and organized here may make it easier for the community to contribute without fragmenting the conversation.

Thank you for being open to these ideas. I’ll start by turning the capability contract into a concise technical proposal and working example.

[zilli]

My two cents @ryan

I think there is a deeper structural change that ProcessWire needs if it really wants to grow.

The actions you listed are all good, but for me the bigger issue is making the project less dependent on one person. An open source project really starts to grow when the community can take a more active role in the project itself, not just around it.

We’ve seen a few times now that there can be weeks without a single commit to GitHub. Whatever the reason, I don't think the core should depend so much on one person being available. More trusted people should be able to help manage the core, review and merge changes, and keep things moving.

I know this is probably one of the biggest decisions you could make for ProcessWire, and I understand why. You’ve built the project and have been guiding it for years. But I really think this is the direction to go. You would still be in charge and set the direction, but there would be other people who could keep things moving and continue your work when you're not able to.

To me, that's one of the biggest steps ProcessWire could take toward becoming a stronger and more sustainable open source project.

[Macrura]

Hey @ryan - just wanted to chime in and pledge my support to you and PW.... Sending vibes.

I'm probably also one of the people here who "live" PW. I mean right now it's like 30 hrs a week (probably underestimated) in PW - concurrently 10 sites?
... and in peak seasons, it's like i'm conceptualizing site structures, modules while walking around with a voice recorder. Looks a bit crazy.

Anytime you need help it's a zoom call away!

On a positive note i see a bright future for the project and from my side, have a some very nice and useful modules cooking, which could only attract more interest in the project (hopefully)

[Kiwi Chris]

9 hours ago, zilli said:

You would still be in charge and set the direction, but there would be other people who could keep things moving and continue your work when you're not able to.

The most popular open source software in the world follows this model, and Linus still gets to have (a highly opinionated) say.

[cb2004]

On 8/15/2026 at 8:02 PM, ryan said:

Thanks for all the support, I appreciate it.

@cb2004 I'm so sorry to hear you've had to deal with a similar situation. I'd be great to talk with you sometime this week, if you are available?

I am available for a chat whenever we can schedule one. School holidays at the moment, a mountain of work and I am having therapy twice a week so I am busy busy but lets get something scheduled in soon. Shoot me a message and we can arrange.

20 hours ago, Kiwi Chris said:

The most popular open source software in the world follows this model, and Linus still gets to have (a highly opinionated) say.

I will quote this smaller part of the post. People may not realise how many other people have had a hand in ProcessWire and the Git commits over the years. Whilst Ryan may have the final say there has been lots of collaboration and that has been a good model. I personally dont need commits every week to know that a project is moving forward. Ryan is active on the forums and support forums enough that people should be aware this project is alive and well throughout the year.

[Kiwi Chris]

3 hours ago, cb2004 said:

I personally dont need commits every week to know that a project is moving forward.

Agreed. I'd rather have quality over quantity. ProcessWire already works very well, and new features are always nice, but I'm quite happy if they take time to get right before releasing. There was a cheese ad in my country where the catchphrase was 'good things take time', and I think that can apply to anything.