Dezeen.com Documentation

Technical Debt & Roadmap ​

PM Summary: Updates and migration work are expected from the current team before handover. Known technical debt includes WordPress version, multiple Algolia plugins, and ACF performance. 2025Dezeen theme is under development.

Planned Work ​

By Current Team (Before Handover) ​

  • Updates and migration — The current team expects to perform updates and migration work before handover
  • WordPress upgrade — See WordPress Upgrade Overview for the upgrade plan

By New Agency / Future ​

  • 2025Dezeen theme — New Tailwind-based theme under development; consider migration timeline
  • Plugin consolidation — Rationalise overlapping plugins (see Algolia plugins below)

Known Technical Debt ​

WordPress 6.2.2 ​

  • Status: WordPress core is on 6.2.2
  • Risk: Security and compatibility
  • Recommendation: Plan upgrade to a supported WordPress version. Full upgrade plan in WordPress Upgrade Overview. Test in staging first. Verify plugin compatibility.

Multiple Algolia Plugins ​

  • Status: Three Algolia plugins present: algolia-custom-integration, algolia-custom-integration-php7 (active), algolia-custom-integration-php8 (inactive)
  • Risk: Confusion, maintenance overhead, overlap with search-by-algolia-instant-relevant-results
  • Recommendation: Consolidate to a single Algolia integration path. Clarify PHP 7 vs PHP 8 strategy.

ACF Performance ​

  • Status: Heavy use of Advanced Custom Fields; cold-start query times can be high
  • Risk: Admin and frontend performance
  • Recommendation: See optimisation-reports/ACF_OPTIMIZATION_IMPLEMENTATION_GUIDE.md for optimisation strategies. Consider database indexing (see setup/optimisations/db-indexes.txt).

PHP Version ​

  • Status: Production may run PHP 7.4; WordPress upgrade docs recommend PHP 8.1
  • Recommendation: Align PHP version with upgrade plan. Test plugin compatibility.

Plugin Updates ​

  • Status: Mix of premium and free plugins; some have updates available
  • Recommendation: Establish update schedule. Test in staging first. Premium plugins (Yoast, ACF, WP Rocket, Smush) may require manual updates or WPMU Dev.

Infrastructure ​

  • Object cache: Redis planned but not yet implemented; file-based caching in use
  • Database indexes: Missing critical indexes; see optimisation reports
  • Monitoring: Query Monitor available in admin; consider application-level monitoring

Upgrade Path Priority ​

  1. Security: WordPress core and plugin updates
  2. Algolia: Consolidate to single integration
  3. PHP: Align with supported versions (8.1+)
  4. Performance: ACF optimisation, database indexing
  5. Theme: 2025Dezeen rollout when ready

References ​

  • WordPress Upgrade Overview — Full upgrade plan
  • 2026-01-29-plugin-matrix.md — Plugin inventory (add when file exists)
  • critical-findings.md — Critical issues (add when file exists)
  • optimisation-reports/ — Performance analysis and recommendations