[desrosj]

Backport of the runner update in #15518 to the 7.1 branch.

Changes

• Changes the GitHub-hosted Ubuntu runners used by this branch's workflows from ubuntu-24.04 to ubuntu-26.04. GitHub is moving ubuntu-latest to 26.04 between 2026-10-19 and 2026-11-19, and 26.04 is the newest GA image.
• Adds .github/actionlint.yaml registering the ubuntu-26.04 label. The pinned actionlint version (1.7.11) does not recognize it yet and would fail with label "ubuntu-26.04" is unknown. This can be removed once actionlint is updated.
• Updates @playwright/test from 1.61.1 to 1.64.1, matching trunk. 1.61.1 already supports Ubuntu 26.04, so on this branch this is only to stay consistent with trunk and the other branches. Playwright 1.50.0–1.60.x fail on 26.04 with ERROR: Playwright does not support chromium on ubuntu26.04-x64, which is why older branches need the update.

The Playwright changes are in their own commit so they can be reviewed or dropped separately.

Playwright 1.61.1 → 1.64.1 review

• Lockfile: only @playwright/test, playwright and playwright-core change, each to 1.64.1. There is a single playwright-core copy, and nothing else depends on an older Playwright.
• Requirements: 1.64.1 requires Node >=20, and this branch uses Node 20.
• Test discovery: playwright test --list finds the same tests before and after the update for every config, with no warnings: e2e 27, performance 720, visual-regression 22.
• API changes: none of the changes in the 1.62–1.64 release notes affect this branch. That covers removed APIs, the 1.64 screen forwarding from devices['Desktop Chrome'], hidden-iframe visibility, and JSX/tsconfig handling.

Trac ticket: Core-66499

Use of AI Tools

Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5) made these changes, reviewed the Playwright update, and drafted this description. Draft PRs should be considered unverified and unreviewed by a human.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

Test using WordPress Playground

The changes in this pull request can previewed and tested using a WordPress Playground instance.

WordPress Playground is an experimental project that creates a full WordPress instance entirely within the browser.

Some things to be aware of

• All changes will be lost when closing a tab with a Playground instance.
• All changes will be lost when refreshing the page.
• A fresh instance is created each time the link below is clicked.
• Every time this pull request is updated, a new ZIP file containing all changes is created. If changes are not reflected in the Playground instance,
  it's possible that the most recent build failed, or has not completed. Check the list of workflow runs to be sure.

For more details about these limitations and more, check out the Limitations page in the WordPress Playground documentation.

Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

[github-actions]

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props desrosj.

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.

---

Props Bot commands

You can trigger Props Bot actions by commenting on this PR:

• @propsbot add <username> to give props to a GitHub user. Requires write access.
• @propsbot remove <username> to leave a user out of the props. Requires write access.
• @propsbot refresh to refresh this list. Adding the props-bot label works too.

[lancewillett]

Checked against the branch's workflows: every ubuntu-24.04 label is now ubuntu-26.04, the actionlint label file is added, and the Playwright bump matches #15518. CI is green (189 passed, 28 skipped). Reusable workflows on this branch run from trunk, so the jobs that use them still ran on ubuntu-24.04 here. Please land #15518 first, then this.

_{AI review · claude-opus-5-5}