There’s a phase right before a launch that feels like trying to fall asleep the night before something big. You lie awake. Not out of worry — your brain just won’t stop running through everything one more time.

That’s exactly where we are right now.

What we tested this week

The upload flow was first on the list. Image in, WebP out, AVIF out, srcset correct, lightbox link correct, alt text written. That goes quickly — because it works. Has been for weeks. Solidly.

Then bulk conversion. A hundred images into the queue, cron runs through them, ten images per batch, no timeout, no hanging process. This was the part we were still debugging three weeks ago. Today it just runs.

Then the AI alt text generator. Language set to German, upload a product photo, text appears — sensible, immediately usable. Language set to English, same photo, English alt text. Twelve languages, all tested. All clean.

The license server

The quiet hero of the whole system. Purchase via Digistore24, webhook arrives, license gets created, domain gets registered, validation works, auto-update works. All of that happens in the background without the user having to do anything except buy and activate.

We queried the license database one more time this week. Everything there, everything cleanly documented. A good feeling.

What’s still coming

The release process itself: SVN update, set the stable tag, go live on wordpress.org. That’s routine — but routine you do with focus. One typo and the wrong version ships.

After that the PRO version goes live. New ZIP, update the server, adjust version.json. All customers who already have a key will automatically see the update in WordPress.

Why we’re writing this

Because launch posts usually come after the launch — polished, clean, with numbers attached. But the phase before is more interesting. The final test run, clicking through every flow one more time, the quiet confidence in your own code.

Tomorrow or the day after, it happens.

We’re looking forward to it.