More aggressive default php updates?

[yosifkit]

We currently set the default PHP (latest and plain tags) to be one that is supported upstream, but at the same time, we could be a catalyst for pushing a PHP version out of "beta support" in WordPress. Unfortunately, I don't know of a good non-subjective line for when to swap the default PHP to one of the "beta support" PHP releases in order to help push it out of beta.

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/04/09/php-8-support-clarification/

Usage of PHP 8.3 and higher is at 8.9% of all WordPress sites as of April 2025. Once this surpasses 10% and assuming no further compatibility issues are reported then it’s expected that the beta label for PHP 8.3 support will be removed in the subsequent major release of WordPress

[tianon]

IMO given that we're still actively maintaining the older PHP version tags, it's trivial for users to get more specific if/when they discover that they have a version constraint they weren't aware of, so we could very reasonably just go directly to "latest (beta or not) PHP supported"

That would also mean it's one less bit of information for us to hand-maintain because the script could automatically choose the first one, and then we're only maintaining the list of versions that are "supported" (and no longer caring about which ones are "beta").

The only thing I think we should be careful about in this scenario is PHP pre-releases. 🤔 I don't remember off-hand if they're ever supported by WordPress before they hit GA.