Fix WP auto-updates not being enforced when enabled in Studio

[wojtekn]

Related issues

• Fixes STU-1139

Proposed Changes

Studio only disabled auto-updates when the setting was off, but didn't actively enable them when on. This meant WordPress sites with auto-updates already disabled in their database wouldn't respect Studio's enable setting.

This PR ensures Studio's auto-update setting is the source of truth by explicitly enabling auto-updates when isWpAutoUpdating is true.

Testing Instructions

1. Create a site using WordPress 6.8
2. Open WP Admin
3. Confirm the site uses 6.8.3
4. Navigate to Updates and confirm that auto updates are disabled:

This site will not receive automatic updates for new versions of WordPress

5. Open Studio site in Terminal
6. Disable auto-updates in WP using option:

wp option set auto_update_core_major unset

8. Stop Studio
9. Update site in appdata-v1.json file and set isWpAutoUpdating to true
10. Start Studio
11. Open WP Admin
12. Navigate to Updates and confirm that auto updates are enabled

Pre-merge Checklist

• Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

[github-actions]

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing 017fecf vs trunk

site-editor

Metric	trunk	017fecf	Diff	Change
load	11435.00 ms	8307.00 ms	-3128.00 ms	🟢 -27.4%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	017fecf	Diff	Change
siteCreation	22475.00 ms	20584.00 ms	-1891.00 ms	🟢 -8.4%
siteStartup	10008.00 ms	9986.00 ms	-22.00 ms	🟢 -0.2%

---

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change

[sejas]

I confirm it works as expected and after running wp option set auto_update_core_major unset I see the updates are still updated and the source of truth is Studio isWpAutoUpdating value.

[sejas]

I don't think this will make sites with a stable version automatically update to betas, but we should double-check.

[gavande1]

I think this filter will only run when you are on dev version. So it won't be automatically update stable versions to dev versions.
https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/3a5da6c220aa50e1d928ec77257189ed353e4d0b/src/wp-admin/includes/class-core-upgrader.php#L346-L361

[gavande1]

I tested this and works as described. LGTM 👍