14 DAY TRIAL // The WordPress team has been working on a REST API for quite some time now, and despite rumors in September last year, the API has failed to make an appearance in the CMS' core.
Put together for the first time in 2012, and existing as a plugin for the past three and a half years, the WP REST API has been hailed by many as a simpler and more efficient method of interacting with content stored inside a WordPress installation.
Anticipated by developers, which hope to simplify the process of building professional themes and plugins, the API is also expected by regular users, the ones that benefit from the developers' creations.
The REST API was supposed to be included in WordPress 4.4
While the plugin was originally expected to be included in the WordPress 4.4 branch, it was pulled out of the core package at the last moment, and delayed for a release in 4.5.
With WordPress currently at version 4.4.2, the development team announced last February that they didn't anticipate the WP REST API being ready for a full or partial release in the upcoming 4.5 version.
In an announcement made today, the developers of the WP REST API plugin, the de-facto upcoming WordPress REST API, have announced that they don't intend to submit their creation for inclusion in the CMS' next major iteration, version 4.6.
REST API delayed for WordPress 4.7
"We believe endpoints for the main WordPress objects (posts, users, comments, terms, and taxonomies) are not enough to garner the support needed for the proposal to be accepted," Ryan McCue, WP REST API maintainer explained today.
"Our hope is that with a stable version 2.0 release [of the WP REST API plugin], we will attract our community members that have been waiting for the endpoints to be available in core, and submit a merge proposal for the WordPress 4.7 release cycle," Mr. McCue added, raising everyone's hope for a merger with the official core once again.
Until then, developers can still use the REST API in its current form, delivered as a plugin. Once the WP REST API is integrated with the WordPress core, they can uninstall the plugin, and all the custom theme and plugin functionality they've built on top will continue to work, but on top of the WordPress core files only.