Backport Jetpack 16.2 release changes

[chrisbliss18]

Proposed changes:

Backports the final Jetpack 16.2 release state to trunk.

• Preserves the published versions and generated changelogs for the 28 package releases included in the final candidate.
• Backports the late source fixes and their tests.
• Backports the Jetpack 16.2 version, changelog, and readme metadata.
• Leaves Jetpack dependency requirements and composer.lock aligned with trunk. The release-branch-only package pins are not included.

Other information:

• Have you written new tests for your changes, if applicable?
• Have you checked the E2E test CI results, and verified that your changes do not break them?
• Have you tested your changes on WordPress.com, if applicable?

Jetpack product discussion

N/a

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

No

Testing instructions:

1. Confirm the late runtime files match jetpack/branch-16.2.
2. Confirm Jetpack composer.lock and dependency requirements remain unchanged from trunk.
3. Confirm the current package versions, Jetpack changelog, and readme match the final 16.2 release state.

Local verification completed:

• tools/changelogger-validate-all.sh
• git diff --check origin/trunk...HEAD
• Exact comparison of the 17 late-fix runtime files against jetpack/branch-16.2
• Confirmed that no path changed by Jetpack notices: back SimpleNotice with the @wordpress/ui Notice #52015 is modified by this PR

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Note

Medium Risk
Touches REST upload permissions, public metadata/social tags, and widespread admin menu ordering, but as a release backport of already-shipped fixes rather than new experimental behavior.

Overview
Backports the Jetpack 16.2 release to trunk: plugin version moves from 16.2-beta to 16.2, readme/changelog are consolidated for the full release, and 28 packages get matching version bumps and published changelog entries (individual changelog fragment files are removed as part of that release process).

Jetpack admin sidebar items are now sorted alphabetically, with My Jetpack fixed at the top and external links plus Settings at the bottom, across the packages that register submenu entries.

Protected / paywalled content is handled more consistently via a new Content_Gate helper in the SEO package. Crawler-facing output (llms.txt summaries, FAQ JSON-LD, Open Graph descriptions and images, Twitter cards, Related Posts excerpts/thumbnails, AMP metadata, and legacy SEO Tools descriptions) withholds gated body content or uses the public paywall teaser where appropriate; Jetpack’s Open Graph pipeline is updated to match.

Forms and wp-build admin layouts on boot 0.21+ regain side-by-side sidebar panels, multi-page response printing, page-edge scrolling, and top-right toasts (base-styles flex-chain fix plus related Forms/SEO UI fixes).

Other notable backports: External Media copy/upload requires edit_post on the target post_id; Status treats the full 127.0.0.0/8 and 0.0.0.0 as local; My Jetpack refreshes product status when newer plan data arrives; Podcast deprecates Admin_Page::MENU_POSITION in favor of alphabetical ordering.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit e2e187a. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WoA dev site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin (Jetpack or WordPress.com Site Helper), and enable the release/16.2-backport-final branch.
• To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack release/16.2-backport-final

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack-mu-wpcom-plugin release/16.2-backport-final

Interested in more tips and information?

• In your local development environment, use the jetpack rsync command to sync your changes to a WoA dev blog.
• Read more about our development workflow here: PCYsg-eg0-p2
• Figure out when your changes will be shipped to customers here: PCYsg-eg5-p2

[github-actions]

Thank you for your PR!

When contributing to Jetpack, we have a few suggestions that can help us test and review your patch:

• ✅ Include a description of your PR changes.
  
• ✅ Add a "[Status]" label (In Progress, Needs Review, ...).
  
• ✅ Add testing instructions.
  
• ✅ Specify whether this PR includes any changes to data or privacy.
  
• ✅ Add changelog entries to affected projects
  

This comment will be updated as you work on your PR and make changes. If you think that some of those checks are not needed for your PR, please explain why you think so. Thanks for cooperation 🤖

---

Follow this PR Review Process:

1. Ensure all required checks appearing at the bottom of this PR are passing.
2. Make sure to test your changes on all platforms that it applies to. You're responsible for the quality of the code you ship.
3. You can use GitHub's Reviewers functionality to request a review.
4. When it's reviewed and merged, you will be pinged in Slack to deploy the changes to WordPress.com simple once the build is done.

If you have questions about anything, reach out in #jetpack-developers for guidance!

---

Jetpack plugin:

The Jetpack plugin has different release cadences depending on the platform:

• WordPress.com Simple releases happen as soon as you deploy your changes after merging this PR (PCYsg-Jjm-p2).
• WoA releases happen weekly.
• Releases to self-hosted sites happen monthly:
  • Scheduled release: October 6, 2026

If you have any questions about the release process, please ask in the #jetpack-releases channel on Slack.

[cursor]

Cursor Bugbot has reviewed your changes using high effort and found 1 potential issue.

^{❌ Bugbot Autofix is OFF. To automatically fix reported issues with cloud agents, enable autofix in the Cursor dashboard.}

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit e2e187a. Configure here.}

[jp-launch-control]

Code Coverage Summary

Coverage changed in 10 files. Only the first 5 are listed here.

File	Coverage	Δ%	Δ Uncovered
projects/plugins/jetpack/functions.opengraph.php	179/462 (38.74%)	-3.14%	43 💔
projects/plugins/jetpack/enhanced-open-graph.php	0/102 (0.00%)	0.00%	6 💔
projects/plugins/jetpack/3rd-party/class.jetpack-amp-support.php	14/180 (7.78%)	-0.22%	5 💔
projects/plugins/jetpack/_inc/lib/core-api/wpcom-endpoints/class-wpcom-rest-api-v2-endpoint-external-media.php	236/463 (50.97%)	0.75%	1 ❤️‍🩹
projects/packages/seo/src/class-post-schema-node.php	54/58 (93.10%)	0.25%	0 💚

1 file is newly checked for coverage.

File	Coverage
projects/packages/seo/src/class-content-gate.php	25/25 (100.00%) 💚

Full summary · PHP report · JS report

_{If appropriate, add one of these labels to override the failing coverage check: Covered by non-unit tests Use to ignore the Code coverage requirement check when E2Es or other non-unit tests cover the code Coverage tests to be added later Use to ignore the Code coverage requirement check when tests will be added in a follow-up PR I don't care about code coverage for this PR Use this label to ignore the check for insufficient code coveage.}