Free/Core vs Pro
Corex can support commercial add-ons without weakening the free framework. The rule is simple: anything needed to adopt Corex safely or ship a basic company site stays in Free/Core. Advanced vertical workflows, automation, and agency operations can become Pro candidates.
wp corex readiness enforces the policy through the free-pro row. It passes only when all required Free/Core
capabilities are present and no security-critical capability is classified as pro-candidate.
Add-on tiers
Section titled “Add-on tiers”When you start a company site, you do not need to enable everything. CoreX groups its packages by how they relate to a normal company site — the same tiers the Corex → Add-ons screen badges each card with:
| Tier | Packages | When to enable |
|---|---|---|
| Required foundation (always active, not toggleable add-ons) | corex-core, corex-blocks, corex-config, corex-forms | Always — these are the framework runtime. They do not appear on the Add-ons screen. |
| Recommended for company sites | corex-ui, corex-kit-company, corex-media | For a typical company site: the block library, the starter company blueprint, and image optimization. |
| Optional by need | corex-email, corex-newsletter, corex-captcha, corex-careers, corex-bookings | Only when the site actually needs that capability. |
| Requires WooCommerce | corex-kit-woo | Only on a store, with WooCommerce active. It self-disables otherwise. |
| Site kit | corex-kit-portfolio (and corex-kit-company above) | A starter blueprint for a specific site type. |
Add-ons are never a hard dependency: each self-disables cleanly if its requirements are absent, so enabling or
disabling one is always safe. Kits depend on corex-ui (the Add-ons screen shows this and blocks a disable that
would break a dependent). Start with the recommended set, then add optional add-ons one at a time as a real need
appears.
Free/Core baseline
Section titled “Free/Core baseline”These capabilities are required in Free/Core:
| Capability | Reason |
|---|---|
| Core framework | The framework runtime is the adoption surface. |
| Basic blocks and DLS | Company sites need a native design vocabulary without a paid dependency. |
| Basic forms and contact form | Contact and lead capture are baseline website behavior. |
| Basic config and options | Safe setup cannot require a commercial layer. |
| Basic media fields | Company pages need native media and identity content. |
| Basic captcha and honeypot | Spam prevention is a security baseline. |
| Accessibility | WCAG-oriented output is part of trust and delivery quality. |
| RTL | Arabic and logical layouts are first-class requirements. |
| i18n | Translation-ready strings are required for shippable work. |
| Basic make:site | Client-site separation is required for safe adoption. |
| Basic docs and deployment docs | Operators need baseline documentation to run Corex safely. |
Security-critical basics cannot become Pro-only. The release boundary model rejects a security-critical item when
its classification is pro-candidate.
Pro candidates
Section titled “Pro candidates”These capabilities can be commercial because they are advanced, vertical, or operations-heavy:
| Candidate | Scope |
|---|---|
| Advanced newsletter | Segmentation, campaigns, automation, and advanced delivery. |
| Bookings | Scheduling workflows and appointment operations. |
| Careers and ATS | Applicant tracking, pipeline automation, and hiring workflows. |
| WooCommerce kit | Storefront integration behind the WooCommerce dependency gate. |
| Advanced email providers | Queues, logs, templates, provider routing, and operational delivery. |
| Advanced media CDN and optimization | CDN/offload and infrastructure-specific optimization. |
| Data Manager Pro | Advanced admin data-management tooling. |
| White-label admin | Agency and reseller branding. |
| Starter kits | Packaged vertical starters beyond the baseline scaffold. |
| Azure and DevOps automation | Cloud and release automation for specific infrastructure. |
| AI-agent governance dashboards | Advanced governance reporting and audit dashboards. |
| Multi-company identity kit | Managing multiple company identities and brands. |
| Client portal dashboard | Application-level client portal workflows. |
Deferred and out of scope
Section titled “Deferred and out of scope”Deferred items are not blockers for the first client sites. Out-of-scope items are not part of this readiness spec. Either category needs a new or updated Spec Kit feature before implementation.
Verify the boundary
Section titled “Verify the boundary”vendor\bin\pest tests\Unit\Release\FreeProBoundaryTest.phpwp --path=wp corex readiness 0.26.1Expected readiness evidence includes Free/Core rows such as free-core:accessibility and Pro candidate rows such as
pro-candidate:bookings.