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What?

Closes WordPress/gutenberg#55359

Adds support for pseudo elements on the core/button block for ( ':hover', ':focus', ':focus-visible', ':active' ) at the theme.json level. This is also allowing the block's variations to control the same pseudo elements, so now we can style hover for the outline variation too.

Why?

This is needed ahead of WordPress/gutenberg#38277 since right now we are only supporting pseudo elements on links and button elements, we also want to support them at the block level. This PR brings them in alignment and opens the door to support things like :hover for other blocks that don't have an element (like group for example)

How?

By allowing the pseudo elements for the specific blocks in VALID_BLOCK_PSEUDO_SELECTORS, in a similar way we do for elements.

Testing Instructions

Add the following to your theme and check that it behaves as expected on the frontend:

"styles": {
	"blocks": {
		"core/button": {
			"color": {
				"background": "blue"
			},
			":hover": {
				"color": {
					"background": "green"
				}
			},
			":focus": {
				"color": {
					"background": "purple"
				}
			},
			"variations": {
				"outline": {
					":hover": {
						"color": {
							"background": "pink"
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Screenshots or screencast

Screen Capture on 2025-09-05 at 11-51-00

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/64263#ticket


This Pull Request is for code review only. Please keep all other discussion in the Trac ticket. Do not merge this Pull Request. See GitHub Pull Requests for Code Review in the Core Handbook for more details.

@scruffian scruffian self-assigned this Nov 17, 2025
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The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

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The following contributors have not linked their GitHub and WordPress.org accounts: @pablost88, @WinsleyJ.

Contributors, please read how to link your accounts to ensure your work is properly credited in WordPress releases.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props scruffian, masteradhoc, philhoyt, elrae, joemcgill, poena, onemaggie, richtabor.

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.

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Test using WordPress Playground

The changes in this pull request can previewed and tested using a WordPress Playground instance.

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Some things to be aware of

  • The Plugin and Theme Directories cannot be accessed within Playground.
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  • Every time this pull request is updated, a new ZIP file containing all changes is created. If changes are not reflected in the Playground instance,
    it's possible that the most recent build failed, or has not completed. Check the list of workflow runs to be sure.

For more details about these limitations and more, check out the Limitations page in the WordPress Playground documentation.

Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

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Button: Add support for :hover in variation theme.json

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