Current Projects - April 2026
Welcome to Current Projects, a monthly newsletter about what we’re currently working on at Discourse.
Your questions and feedback are welcome!
Recently finished
Embed Discourse as a full comment system on your site
We’ve added full app mode to Discourse’s embedding system which can now load the complete Discourse application inside an iframe. Visitors can reply, like, quote, and interact with topics without ever leaving your blog or website. Learn more.
Improvements to the Solved plugin setup
We’ve finished up our improvements to support category setup, which makes it easy to create spaces for your members to ask and answer each other’s questions. Learn more.
Improvements to Topic Voting plugin setup
Similar to our work above with the Solved plugin, we’ve also made it easier to create ideas or feature request categories with the Topic Voting plugin. Learn more.
Easier access to bookmarks
When you have multiple bookmarks in a topic, they’re now nicely organized in the topic’s Edit Bookmarks menu so you can easily access and manage them. Learn more.
Chat integration plugin improvements
The Chat Integration plugin has been updated to make it much easier to configure, so you can more easily connect Discourse with your external chat platforms.
Display all likes / reactions on a post
We have restored the ability to see all likes and reactions on a post, so you and your members can enjoy all the (hopefully!) appreciation garnered by your content. Learn more.
New compiler for plugin JavaScript
The new plugin JavaScript compiler is now enabled by default. This makes use of modern browser technologies like native ES modules and import-maps for improved performance and developer experience. Learn more
Implementing a new versioning system
Our new versioning system has been live for a number of months. Last month was the first time we made use of the new mid-month critical-security-fix system (2026.3.0-latest.1). releases.discourse.org has seen a number of visual improvements to bring it in line with Discourse’s branding.
Wrapping up
Improvements to the Topic Voting plugin
The Topic Voting plugin got a few updates! When viewing an ideas category (i.e. a Topic Voting category), the Hot sorting now takes vote recency into account. We’ll now prompt members to change their notification level after voting so they can better follow the topic’s progress. The voting button design within topics got a makeover so that it’s accessible while members scroll. Finally, we’re working on adding badges for when a member’s topic is upvoted, but that’s not quite ready yet. Learn more.
In full swing
New layout and blocks system for theme customizations
We merged an initial experimental version of a new system for theme developers to define the layout for inserting custom blocks of content into any page. We are now using this for our own theme here on meta: Rebuilding the Meta Branded theme: New icons, a custom homepage, and a first look at the Blocks API
We’re continuing work on refining and documenting it before marking the API as ready for general use.
Reporting and analytics improvements
We’re continuing our work to improve site traffic reporting, the Data Explorer plugin, and designing an updated admin dashboard to make it easier to access and interpret data about your community’s health and value. At the moment, we’re focused on improving traffic reporting and updating the admin dashboard.
Improvements to officially hosted Discourse experience
We’re improving our website signup experience by unifying signup flows for all hosted plans to use Discourse ID. Also, you can now update your *.discourse.group domain right from your admin dashboard on sites hosted by us.
Kicking off
Improvements to Calendar and Events plugin setup
With easier discussion, support, and ideas category creation under our belts, we’re moving on to making it easy to create an events category via the Calendar and Events plugin. That effort is just getting started, but we hope to have more to share here soon!
Server API Improvements
We’re starting to plan improvements to the usability & consistency of our server APIs. This work is likely to result in a more streamlined API with clear versioning, documentation, and backwards-compatibility commitments. Watch this space for more information!