The last two weeks have been all about cleanup and improvements to existing Faust features. We started the sprint with 11 different issues in mind and managed to close 16 and release one new version of the Faust cli package. It was a very successful sprint.

Faust.js Scaffold

Our biggest release this past sprint was a new starter template to help you get started with any new Faust project. Our Faust Scaffold contains everything you need to get started successfully and quickly on a new project by giving you a JavaScript starting point with best practices and the project structure already in place. This scaffold actually replaces the old “blank” Faust Blueprint which users had quickly identified as simply being too opinionated.

Today we now have only two Blueprints, currently, the scaffold to get experienced developers started on a new project as quickly as possible and the Portfolio Blueprintwhich is more like a traditional WordPress theme in that you could install it and just go with your Atlas site. This new split will, we hope, continue to offer a fully-featured Blueprint for new users to learn with now complimented with a great starting point for your production projects.

In the future we’re also planning a new TypeScript version of the scaffold as well as more Blueprints to make sure everyone can easily build the headless site they need. For now you can download the scaffold from GitHub today and you’ll be able to see it in Local and the WP Engine Portal in the coming weeks.

Upgrade notices

Another big finish this past sprint was a new upgrade notice for users of old Faust. This isn’t a deprecation notice as we will continue to provide bug and security fixes to old Faust for the foreseeable future. Instead this is just a new way to let folks know that new Faust has been released and where they can find more information so that they can use it in future projects. If you’re still using old Faust you’ll see it shortly. Don’t worry, though, it won’t interrupt your work. It’s just a notice so you know where you can go to get the newer features and all that we’ve been working on all year.

Coming up next

This next sprint we’re doing something different. Normally WP Engine does a hackathon each fall but this year we skipped the company version so we’re doing our own with Faust. For the next two weeks each of our 5 developers will work on a project they’re passionate about to get it ready for us to include in our work next year. Projects include working with the data we have to get useful insights on Faust usage, building a marketplace for sharing Faust Blueprints and plugins, bringing wp_head to Faust to enable SEO and so many other plugins, improving CLI testing, testing the support of other frameworks starting with Astro and bringing the power of the WordPress admin bar to headless sites.

I’m super excited about the potential of all these projects to help grow the Faust community and to bring forward more of the power of WordPress to the front-end. I hope you are too!