The companion to the seven things to check before a WordPress major upgrade is the question that comes right after: when do you actually apply it?
A new WordPress major drops today. Do you ship it to production tonight? Tomorrow? In a week? Hold for the next scheduled monthly maintenance? This call tends to live in tribal knowledge, but a few clear axes combined together give you a calibration framework you can apply every time without re-deciding from scratch. Here are five axes worth using.
Premise — majors are not security patches
The first thing to anchor: a major upgrade is not a security patch.
WordPress ships security fixes via minor releases (6.4.1 → 6.4.2, 6.5.0 → 6.5.1 — the second-digit bumps). Those are same-day apply by default. Major releases (6.4 → 6.5, eventually some 6.x → 7.0) carry new features and API changes; they aren't released to be applied immediately for security reasons.
