Azhar Ali (@softglaze) – WordPress user profile

Azhar Ali

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing. at SoftGlaze LLC

@softglaze Multan, Punjab joined Jan 2026

softglaze.com github.com/softglazee Slack: @softglaze

Teams Community Core AI Core Core Performance Photos Test

Languages ur

Bio

I’m Azhar, a full stack web developer specialising in WordPress, based in Multan, Pakistan. I run SoftGlaze as a small studio.

7 years of client work. 150+ projects under my own name, more than 60 of them WordPress builds. I do the development myself and bring in specialists I have worked with for years when a project needs them, named before the work starts.

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing. I focus on patch testing, bug reproduction, and tracing regressions back to the changeset that caused them. I’ve filed eight detailed test reports across seven tickets covering Media, Toolbar, Query, the REST API, and admin UI. I show my work every time: DevTools traces, before-and-after screenshots, and PHPUnit runs.

Six props on committed changesets so far. The majority of these came from meticulously testing and verifying patches, which I think says something useful about how accessible core testing actually is. Alongside verifying other contributors’ patches, I have authored a regression test that shipped in core, reported a core defect (#65802), and currently have an open PR with unit tests.

Three plugins live on the directory: SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, and SoftGlaze Click to Chat. I’ve also shipped several private plugins and custom themes running on client sites today.

I also contribute to Polyglots, translating and reviewing Urdu strings, and I’m a translation editor for Urdu on both of my plugins.

I’m in #core and #core-test on Slack. Feedback on my tickets is always welcome.

Interests

Web development, SEO, wordpress plugin development, wordpress theme development, WooCommerce, Custom Website development, Ai Website Creation

WordPress Origin Story

I came to WordPress a skeptic. I wrote everything from scratch in PHP and Laravel and figured a CMS meant giving up control. Then a deadline landed that I couldn’t hit hand-coding. I gave WordPress an honest try. It shipped early. That was seven years ago. I never went back.

Since then it’s been plugins, WooCommerce builds and admin tooling for real businesses. Now I test core itself. After seven years of earning a living on this platform, that feels fair.

Badges

CODE

3 badges

Pattern Author '26 Plugin Developer Theme Developer

CONTENT

1 badge

Photo Contributor '26

POLYGLOTS

2 badges

Translation Contributor '26 Translation Editor '26

Current Job

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing.

Jan 2026 – Present

SoftGlaze LLC · Full-time

Job History

Founder & Full-Stack WordPress Developer

Mar 2022 – Present

SoftGlaze LLC · Full-time

I run SoftGlaze as a small studio: I do the development myself and bring in specialists I have worked with for years when a project needs them.

Custom WordPress and WooCommerce development, Shopify builds, and bespoke applications in PHP, Laravel and React. 150+ projects delivered under my own name, 60+ of them WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce or Shopify stores, mostly for small businesses in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Alongside client work I contribute to WordPress core testing, and I publish my plugins and a block theme to the directory with every premium feature free.

Key Accomplishments

Published the Warqa block theme in the WordPress.org theme directory. Nine templates, 36 patterns, light and dark style variations, fonts bundled locally so the theme makes no remote requests. The theme review team set it live with zero required changes and no revision round.

Discovered and reported a dormant core bug (#65802) where a media upload function had been assigning an error flag to an undeclared variable since WordPress 6.7.0. Found it by reading the source, proved it by forcing the environment condition and measuring the direct return value, and submitted the fix (PR 12830) along with two PHPUnit tests.

Delivered 150+ projects under my own name over seven years, including 60+ WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce and Shopify stores, for clients in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Translated 1,040 strings and reviewed 1,037 strings into Urdu on translate.wordpress.org, earning Translation Contributor and Translation Editor recognition.

Published and maintain three plugins in the WordPress.org directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, and SoftGlaze Click to Chat. All three ship every premium feature free, with no locked settings, dashboard ads or upgrade prompts.

Produced the first reproduction of a REST API failure that had gone unreproduced (#64921) by building an mu-plugin simulation, confirmed a hard 400 response, and demonstrated that the proposed patch did not resolve it. Another contributor later used the same technique and credited it.

Root-caused a WordPress 7.0 Media Library layout regression to the exact changeset that introduced it ([61757]), then posted the only test report on the fix a seven-case matrix that independently verified the patch author's stylesheet print-order argument. A core committer thanked me by name for the research.

The Filesystem API fix I verified ([62854]) shipped with a new PHPUnit regression test in the core test suite that I authored, so the behaviour I checked is now permanently guarded against reintroduction.

Six props on committed WordPress core changesets in the 7.1 cycle: [62854], [62865], [62967], [62968], [62976], and [63007]. The majority of these came from meticulously testing and verifying other contributors' patches rather than authoring the core fixes myself.

Recent impact

Score weights high-impact work (commits, releases, approved translations, props) at 3x routine activity.

Last 30 days

68contributions

high45

medium23

score158

Last 90 days

73contributions

high50

medium23

score173

Last 12 months

73contributions

high50

medium23

score173

Team focus

Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

Time commitment

10 hours per week

On my own time 10 hrs/wk

Contributions

Type

August 2026

Aug 17 Mon · 22:08

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post WordPress Contributor Toolkit 1.0: A smoother workflow for your first Core contribution, on the site Make WordPress Core:
Congratulations on 1.0, and thanks for the props. Having tested the release candidates on Windows,…

Aug 17 Mon · 17:35

Meta high

Received props from @krupajnanda in Slack:
Prop to @huzaifaalmesbah @jigar9998 @vishitshah @shailu25 @sonaliprajapati @softglaze @abduremon @nikunj8866 @khokansardar @mukesh27 @jsmansart @kausaralm for…

Aug 16 Sun · 18:34

Meta med

Completed the course How decisions are made in the WordPress project on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 16 Sun · 18:27

Meta med

Completed the course Getting Started With WordPress: Get Set Up on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 16 Sun · 18:21

Meta med

Completed the course Beginner WordPress Designer on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 14 Fri · 04:25

Meta high

Received props from @nikunj8866 in Slack:
Props to @softglaze for leading Patch Testing Scrub. Thank you! :raised_hands:

Aug 13 Thu · 20:47

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post WordPress 7.2 Call for Volunteers, on the site Make WordPress Core:
I would love to volunteer for the Test Lead role for the WordPress 7.2 release.…

Aug 13 Thu · 20:36

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post WordPress 7.2 Call for Volunteers, on the site Make WordPress Core:
He is the best, I vouch for him...

Aug 13 Thu · 07:40

GitHub med

Created issue #329 in the WordPress/contributor-toolkit repository:
Trac attachment scrape and ticket read get stuck on a spinner

Aug 13 Thu · 07:30

GitHub med

Created issue #328 in the WordPress/contributor-toolkit repository:
"Save" puts my username on a patch when I just applied someone…