Current Projects - August 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
Dashboard improvements
We’ve completed our work to update the admin dashboard to include more useful information about your community’s health and value. Feedback is always welcome as you get more acquainted with the new dashboard! Learn more.
Improvements to the Events plugin
We’ve wrapped up our updates to the Events plugin by continuing to improve the livestream feature by integrating with Zoom for webinar streaming in Discourse. Learn more.
AI Image Captions v2
We’ve now reworked image captioning so captions can be generated in the background for post images, stored separately from the raw post (the actual content that the author wrote stays as-is), and show up in where they’re useful: for screen readers, search, and image lightboxes. Learn more.
Wrapping up
Improved crawler detection
We’ve improved our system for detecting crawlers, even when they don’t properly register themselves, so that we can separate this activity from anonymous (i.e. not logged in) human visitors and improve site traffic reporting in general. Learn more.
Improved invites and admin onboarding
Following the launch of our new invite flow on Meta, we’ve made further improvements to streamline common invite-related actions. You can now use invite links for staff invites as well as copy links for any invites that have already been sent; all directly from the invites page. Learn more.
In full swing
Workflows
Our new Workflows system, which supports powerful and complex automations, is now available for testing and feedback as we continue to improve and expand its capabilities. Learn more.
New Kanban plugin
We are working on a new plugin for Kanban to replace the existing theme component. Making a plugin allows us to incorporate richer features expected of a kanban board, like ordering cards within columns, enforcing tag or category requirements, and providing more granular access control and integrations. Kanban boards should be helpful for sharing public roadmaps, and collaborating on projects. More details coming soon.
Discourse Helper Bot improvements
We have now expanded the capabilities of the Discourse Helper Bot available to admins on our hosting by shifting from a read-only Q&A assistant to a more capable local agent that runs directly on your site and can read and update site settings, inspect your categories and tags, assist with moderation tasks, and search Meta for documentation; all from a single chat interface. Every change the bot makes requires your explicit approval with a simple approve/cancel button, and it’s now aware of your plan, so it can tell you what’s included in your subscription. Stay tuned for a detailed announcement as we continue to test these new possibilities!
Help us test the composer redesign
We’re modernising the composer by updating the look and feel and improving the mobile experience. Try it now by enabling the Composer redesign upcoming change at /admin/config/upcoming-changes and share your feedback with us. Learn more.
Easier account signup using email codes
After making it easier to create a Discourse account by replacing the traditional email confirmation link with a short one-time verification code, we are now working to address your feedback related to username generation in this flow and further streamline account creation. Learn more.
Server API Improvements
We’re continuing our exploration and prototyping around improvements to the usability & consistency of our server APIs. We are beginning to align on a plan for an API that is consistent with the JSON:API spec and uses date-based versioning in the header of requests. Watch this space for more soon!
Migrating to WarpDrive for frontend data models
We’re planning to start migrating our frontend data models from our custom RestModel to WarpDrive. This will give us a consistent and well-documented pattern for managing data on the frontend, and communicating with the server with first-class support for Ember’s autotracking. While related to our work on the new server API, they are not tightly coupled and we’ll be working on this independently in parallel.
Improved AI Discoveries
Let your users ask a question in natural language, then follow up with the results through a conversational interface or better still, act directly by replying to an existing topic or starting a new one. With this, we’re also aiming to help community owners understand what users might be looking for and not finding.
Kicking off
Trial upgrades
We want to make it possible for our customers to trial the next plan tier for free so they can see if it’s a good fit for their community before committing to the upgrade. We’re starting with supporting Pro → Business trials and hope to expand to more trials soon.
Salesforce integration improvements
We’re planning to improve our Salesforce integration so that you can better support your customers in your community and better analyze and understand the value of your community to your organization.