2026-10-16 · Connected Free — Creator Publishing Hub backend policy
Prepare Hub-only Connected Free settings for a shared spare-capacity pool while keeping processing and enrollment inactive.
What changed
- Add a Connected Free administrator page with adjustable defaults of 5–10% of verified available processing capacity, after paid demand. This is one shared pool, not a percentage of each site’s jobs.
- Show the main status in plain language and keep raw diagnostic details collapsed. Missing or unverified scheduler capacity clearly reports that processing is not active.
- Hold the budget on busy systems, pending paid work, stale or unknown capacity, or missing explicit site participation. Existing free commitments reduce the shared pool; a future scheduler must enforce equal per-site limits and fair scheduling.
- Provide private read-only inspection and administrator-only settings writes protected by capability, nonce and revision checking. Actual processing and new enrollment remain disabled.
Verification
- 49 isolated policy checks and 9 WordPress boundary checks passed, along with PHP syntax and component standards checks.
- 22 checks passed in isolated native WordPress on 64-bit PHP 8.5.11, including real option persistence, editable default settings, plain-language status, collapsed technical details, nonce/capability checks, stale-edit rejection and private REST inspection.
- The isolated test preserved customer, paid/owner allowance and audio records and made no outbound HTTP or mail calls. The Hub installation retained the unsaved 5/10 defaults and unchanged protected settings.
- Verified the actual authenticated Hub administrator screen, its plain missing-scheduler status, editable default settings and collapsed technical details. Live native REST checks returned administrator 200 with private/no-store and anonymous 401; an independent external anonymous HTTP request was also denied with 401.
Rollout
Installed and verified on CreatorPublishingHub.com only. Connected Free settings are available; free processing and enrollment remain inactive because the job scheduler is not connected.
Updating
- Hub-only policy settings; no customer plugin installation, payment change, enrollment or data migration is required.
- This release does not connect a job scheduler. A separately verified scheduler, current capacity evidence and explicit site opt-in are required before any free processing can be enabled.
Scope and limitations
- No free-processing amount or delivery time is guaranteed. The shared capacity percentage is not an entitlement to a percentage of each site’s jobs.
- Existing paid plans, owned-site allowances, active jobs and reporting consent remain unchanged. No promotional countdown or signup notice is included.
- Requires 64-bit PHP 8.0 or later. No production policy save was needed; persistence was tested only in isolated native WordPress. External authenticated HTTP and simultaneous administrator saves were not exercised.
- Developer/copyright: Matthew X Murphy, https://MatthewxMurphy.com and https://builtnotbegged.com. Release owner: CreatorPublishingHub.com. GPL-2.0-or-later.