[rcrdortiz]

Related to DOTCOM-18664

Proposed changes

• wpcom_enable_rtc() in jetpack-mu-wpcom returns false before any of the plan, Gutenberg version and rollout checks, unless the new wpcom_rtc_rollout_enabled filter returns true. The gating is left intact so the rollout can be restored by flipping the filter.
• No other code changes are needed. When a site is not allowed, the rtc package already hides the "Enable real-time collaboration" field on Settings > Writing, forces wp_collaboration_enabled to 0, and switches the gutenberg-real-time-collaboration experiment off with it.
• P2 and WP for Teams sites are not affected. The wpcom layer (wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-gutenberg-rtc.php) allows them at priority 20 on HTTP polling, which does not use wp.sync.
• Tests updated for the new default, with a test that the filter restores the original gating. The feature guide (AGENTS.md) records the switched-off state.

Why

• Gutenberg is removing the global wp.sync package (Sync: Remove exposed wp.sync package WordPress/gutenberg#81999). The PingHub transport in the rtc package is built against wp.sync and wp.sync.Y, so once that merges the provider script stops loading and Simple sites silently fall back to HTTP polling.
• Product decided on 23 September to disable RTC on WordPress.com and post a heads-up: it has no Product prioritization and is not on the Dotcom roadmap. It can come back when it does, and core's server-driven RTC rearchitecture will change the transport requirements anyway.

Related product discussion/links

• Linear: DOTCOM-18664
• Slack: p1790094673350329 in #collaborative-editing (Alec, Chris, Griffith)
• Sync: Remove exposed wp.sync package WordPress/gutenberg#81999 and Sync: Add backwards-compatible Y option to provider creator WordPress/gutenberg#82621
• DOTCOM-18214 for the current defaults (experiment on, setting off)

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

No. The jetpack_rtc_* events stop firing on WordPress.com sites because the feature is off, but no event definitions change.

Testing instructions

On a WordPress.com Simple or Atomic site with a Personal plan or higher, with this branch's jetpack-mu-wpcom loaded:

• Go to Settings > Writing. The "Enable real-time collaboration" field is gone, including on a site that had it switched on before.
• Open a post in two browser windows. No presence avatars, no live sync, and window.jetpackRTC is undefined in the console.
• In the console, wp.data.select( 'core/editor' ) and the network tab show no requests to the PingHub token endpoint (/wp-json/jetpack/v4/rtc/pinghub-token) or the sync storage.
• On a P2 site, real-time collaboration keeps working on HTTP polling as before.
• Unit tests: cd projects/packages/jetpack-mu-wpcom && vendor/bin/phpunit-select-config phpunit.#.xml.dist --filter Gutenberg_RTC_Test (14 tests pass).

[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WoA dev site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin (WordPress.com Site Helper), and enable the dotcom-18664-disable-real-time-collaboration-on-wordpresscom branch.
• To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack-mu-wpcom-plugin dotcom-18664-disable-real-time-collaboration-on-wordpresscom

Interested in more tips and information?

• In your local development environment, use the jetpack rsync command to sync your changes to a WoA dev blog.
• Read more about our development workflow here: PCYsg-eg0-p2
• Figure out when your changes will be shipped to customers here: PCYsg-eg5-p2

[github-actions]

Thank you for your PR!

When contributing to Jetpack, we have a few suggestions that can help us test and review your patch:

• ✅ Include a description of your PR changes.
  
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Follow this PR Review Process:

1. Ensure all required checks appearing at the bottom of this PR are passing.
2. Make sure to test your changes on all platforms that it applies to. You're responsible for the quality of the code you ship.
3. You can use GitHub's Reviewers functionality to request a review.
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[jp-launch-control]

Code Coverage Summary

Coverage changed in 1 file.

File	Coverage	Δ%	Δ Uncovered
projects/packages/jetpack-mu-wpcom/src/features/gutenberg-rtc/gutenberg-rtc.php	28/42 (66.67%)	-5.83%	3 ❤️‍🩹

Full summary · PHP report · JS report