[mehul0810]

Purpose

Prepare the exact combined Perform 1.8.0 release candidate for CI, packaged validation, and independent review. This integration branch contains the completed scopes from #242 and #244 plus version and release metadata only.

This pull request does not authorize or perform a tag, GitHub release, WordPress.org publication, deployment, protected-branch merge, or production change.

Included scope

• Settings and diagnostics UI polish from Polish settings navigation and Heroicon hierarchy #242
• WordPress 7.1 compatibility metadata from docs: confirm WordPress 7.1 compatibility #244
• Version consistency at 1.8.0 across plugin, constants, Composer analysis bootstrap, npm metadata, tests, and WordPress.org readme
• 1.8.0 changelog and upgrade notice limited to completed release-branch work

Explicitly excluded: #254–#257, #216, #144, dependency churn, and unrelated backlog work.

Candidate

• Commit: 3c660e37c453071ac1981439768b2ff1483e5cd3
• Base: release/1.8.0 at b0d2eaebb19f741fca1d96f7914cc5f1c49a23b9
• Production reference: 1.7.0 / 2e0863a712b1165cd32e35b76ed80273daf6dc90

Local validation

• composer lint: pass (91 files)
• composer test: pass (148 tests, 482 assertions)
• composer phpstan: pass
• npm run lint: pass
• npm run test:unit -- --runInBand: pass (12 suites, 41 tests)
• PHPCompatibilityWP for PHP 7.4+: pass
• git diff --check: pass
• Independent review findings fixed: ready-status contrast is 6.18:1; diagnostics strings are translatable; the visible select label supplies its accessible name

composer check-cs retains the repository-wide baseline findings already present outside this candidate. GitHub checks and exact packaged/browser validation remain required before readiness.

Required before integration

• All required GitHub checks green on the exact head
• Independent engineering review on the exact head
• Source-blind packaged runtime/browser proof, including 1.7.0 upgrade and settings persistence
• Package contents, metadata, and SHA-256 recorded
• No unresolved release-blocking findings

Exact packaged candidate

• Artifact: pr-258-3c660e37c453071ac1981439768b2ff1483e5cd3-perform.zip
• SHA-256: aaba15eada80c90fa1c7f54c29e555a6809b56b629448fa0ca0418dbac322391
• Archive integrity: pass (344 entries, 1.2 MB)
• Package hygiene: one perform/ root; production vendor and compiled assets present; source/tests/node_modules/Git metadata/development manifests excluded
• Independent exact-head engineering re-review: pass, no remaining findings
• The final test-only head changes no shipped source or assets; comparison with the browser-tested predecessor differs only in POT creation time and Composer's generated synthetic-ref metadata

Source-blind packaged runtime/browser validation and the final Playwright smoke result remain pending.

[github-actions]

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