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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 developer who specialises in WordPress, based in Multan, Pakistan. I run SoftGlaze, my own small studio, and I still write the code myself.

    Seven 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, with DevTools traces, before and after screenshots, and PHPUnit runs.

    Six props on committed changesets so far, mostly from testing and verifying other people’s patches closely enough to catch what they missed. Alongside that I authored a regression test that shipped in core, reported a core defect (#65802), and have an open pull request with unit tests attached.

    Four plugins live on the directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, SoftGlaze Click to Chat, and SoftGlaze AI Crawler Monitor. 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
    4 badges
    Core Contributor '26 Pattern Author '26 Plugin Developer Theme Developer
    CONTENT
    1 badge
    Photo Contributor '26
    PRACTICE
    1 badge
    Test 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 four plugins in the WordPress.org directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, SoftGlaze Click to Chat, and SoftGlaze AI Crawler Monitor. All four 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
    70contributions
    high20
    medium50
    score110
    Last 90 days
    129contributions
    high65
    medium64
    score259
    Last 12 months
    129contributions
    high65
    medium64
    score259

    Team focus

    Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

    WordPress releases

    Contributed to 1 release
    • 7.1

    Time commitment

    10 hours per week
    • On my own time 10 hrs/wk

    Contributions

    Type
    September 2026
    Sep 05 Sat · 00:46
    GitHub high
    Pull request #186 merged into WordPress/test-handbook:
    Add guidance for when a reported code path can't run on the…
    Sep 01 Tue · 10:17
    GitHub med
    Submitted pull request #850 to WordPress/wordpress.org:
    Planet: Keep syndicated entry content inside the column
    Sep 01 Tue · 02:58
    GitHub med
    Submitted pull request #849 to WordPress/wordpress.org:
    Style: Stop link colours repainting block button labels
    Sep 01 Tue · 02:16
    Themes med
    Closed ticket #287716 on Themes Trac:
    THEME: Novaflow – 1.0.96
    Sep 01 Tue · 01:07
    Themes med
    Closed ticket #287676 on Themes Trac:
    THEME: FSE Computing – 1.0.0
    Sep 01 Tue · 00:31
    Themes med
    Closed ticket #287670 on Themes Trac:
    THEME: As Salam Fundraising – 1.0.4
    August 2026
    Aug 31 Mon · 19:22
    Plugins high
    Committed [3674856] to Plugins SVN:
    Publish version 0.1.0
    Aug 30 Sun · 15:15
    Themes med
    Closed ticket #287557 on Themes Trac:
    THEME: Meridian Lite – 1.0.1
    Aug 30 Sun · 12:57
    Plugins high
    Committed [3672537] to Plugins SVN:
    Publish version 0.4.0
    Aug 26 Wed · 20:13
    Plugins high
    Committed [3667757] to Plugins SVN:
    reflows the text itself rather than honouring the wrapping.

    Developer

    7 plugins

    Themes

    1 theme

    • Warqa

      Less than 10 active installs

    Photos

    1 contribution

    View all 1 photos in the Photo Directory

    Completed courses

    12 completed

    Browse courses on Learn WordPress

    Plugins

    6 favorites

    Themes

    1 favorite

    Translations

    1 locale
    ur اردو (Urdu) Plugins Translation Editor Translation Contributor

    Translation editor for 4 projects.

    Softglaze AI Crawler Monitor SoftGlaze Click to Chat SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce

    Contributed translations to 2 projects.

    SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce

    View all on translate.wordpress.org