Yesterday the team working on Faust finished Sprint 15 and started work on our next Sprint, 16, which we will be in for the next two weeks. The theme of the sprint was to finish porting the post previews feature to the new version of Faust as well as to address as many GitHub issues as we could.

What we accomplished​

Unfortunately we haven't yet finished the new preview feature as complexities of integrating the feature with the new Apollo library slowed the work down more than we would have liked. We should be able to complete it in the coming days but it was not completed as part of the sprint as we would have liked.

We did, however, catch up on our backlog of issues as planned. This included reducing the client bundle size and upgrading to GQty 2.3.0. We hope this work will make life a bit easier for folks currently using Faust in production.

What's next​

Next up we're focusing solely on finishing out "plugin" system for Faust. This is a series of hooks that will allow folks to build on Faust for their own projects. Maybe you want to add in a feature or swap out something we're doing? No problem. Just like WordPress plugins you'll be able to extend Faust to fit your needs and, if you're so inclined, the needs of the community in general.

While the plugin system is our primary goal for these two weeks we're also still finishing up post previews and working to ensure we can get some basic telemetry data on how folks are using the framework. The latter is being done in GA4 but, due to changes in GA4, will require a bit more work for us to be able to implement it. On the positive side this will make analytics even more private due to a proxy that can mask IP address and other data. On the downside, building that proxy will mean more work for the team in the coming days. It will be worth it, however, as it can help us build the features you need in the future.

Yesterday, July 19th, the team completed Sprint 14, which is simply our 14th sprint of the year. This was one of more productive sprints, in terms of implementation, so far this year. We managed to release a new version of both the Faust.js library as well as the Faust WordPress plugin, we welcomed two new developers to the team and we worked hard to implement a way to help us better understand how folks are using the framework. Here's how it all breaks down:

Faust.js 0.15.7 and Faust WP 0.7.10​

The Faust WordPress plugin was updated to version 0.7.10 last week and all Faust JavaScript libraries were updated to version 0.15.7. These new versions didn't bring about any new features but they did solve some issues folks were seeing as well as updated some of the dependencies Faust relies on. You can see a full list of all the changes we made in our release notes.

Welcome new developers​

In addition to new releases, our team also welcomed two new developers to the team bringing our total to 5 full-time developers focused solely on Faust. You'll see their contributions in our GitHub repo and they will help us bring the next evolution of Faust into your hands as quickly as possible.

We're not done here, though. We still have one more position open on our team for a staff developer. If you're interested in helping take Faust to the next level, apply now and let's talk.

New telemetry in Faust.js​

The big goal of Faust.js was in implementing some basic telemetry into Faust so that our teams and stakeholders have some measure on how the product is actually being used. Note that this telemetry, while code complete, has not launched in a release yet.

To implement the telemetry we're using Google Analytics, a common analytics partner in WP Engine products, to collect data on version information and other build parameters solely from the JavaScript builds completed with Faust. All analytics are opt-in only so new users, once launched, will see a prompt asking you if you're willing to login. This can safely be bypassed, for those interested in doing so, without sending us any data. While we'd love to see you participate in helping us collect build data, and hope you'll do so, failing to opt-in means nothing at all will be transmitted to Google or elsewhere.

You can expect to see this in a new release in the coming months as we first finish a comprehensive privacy policy for the feature.

What's next​

In Sprint 15, which started yesterday, the team is focusing on implementing content previews in the next version of Faust as well as reducing some technical debt that has lead to issues on our GitHub repo. Expect to see a new, faster, release as a result at some point in the next two weeks.

We launched this blog 7 months ago with a goal of keeping you informed of what is going on in the development of Faust.js as well as to help you get started using the framework in your own projects. To date, we simply have not prioritized keeping up here on the blog and it is time for that to change.

The WP Engine Headless (or WPE Headless) plugin has been renamed to FaustWP starting with version 0.7.0.