WP MCP Connect Lite self-updates

Give your AI a WordPress backstage pass.

A headless WordPress plugin that opens 66 REST endpoints for MCP clients
to manage SEO, redirects, media, audits, analytics, and content — through plain conversation.

Pair with any MCP-compatible client — Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code — and talk to your site.

✨ What is this?

WP MCP Connect Lite is the WordPress half of an MCP integration. It runs quietly inside your site, exposing a dense REST surface that an MCP server can call to read content, edit metadata, audit health, map internal links, and far more.

🪶 Lite? This package is the plugin only — no React admin dashboard, no Node server bundled.
Bring your own MCP server (or use the companion repo) and point it at your site.

🧭 At a glance

🏗️ How it fits together

flowchart LR
    A["🤖 MCP Client"] -->|stdio| B["🟢 MCP Server"]
    B -->|"HTTPS + App Password"| C["🐘 WordPress + this plugin"]
    C --> D[("💾 Database")]

    style A fill:#0b0d12,stroke:#3858E9,color:#fff,stroke-width:2px
    style B fill:#22c55e,stroke:#15803d,color:#fff,stroke-width:2px
    style C fill:#3858E9,stroke:#1e3a8a,color:#fff,stroke-width:2px
    style D fill:#1e1b4b,stroke:#a78bfa,color:#e9d5ff,stroke-width:2px

Your MCP client talks to a thin Node server. That server hits *`/wp-json/mcp/v1/`** on your site, which this plugin registers and authenticates using a WordPress Application Password.

🚀 Quick start

# Drop the plugin into wp-content/plugins/
# Or upload the release zip via Plugins → Add New → Upload

WordPress Admin → Plugins → "WP MCP Connect Lite" → Activate

Users → Profile → Application Passwords → "MCP" → Add New

WP_URL=https://your-site.com
WP_USERNAME=admin
WP_APP_PASSWORD=xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

🧩 Endpoint surface

All routes live under /wp-json/mcp/v1/ and require an authenticated user with manage_options.

🔐 Authentication

Auth is handled exclusively through WordPress Application Passwords — no custom token store, no OAuth detour, no plaintext credentials in transit. Revoke in one click from the user profile screen.

GET /wp-json/mcp/v1/audit/summary HTTP/1.1
Host: your-site.com
Authorization: Basic <base64(username:app_password)>

🧪 Local development

composer install
bin/test-local.sh               # run the test suite (handles the setup below)
vendor/bin/phpcs                # lint to WordPress coding standards
vendor/bin/phpcbf               # auto-fix style issues
./build.sh                      # produce a distributable zip

Requires PHP 7.4+ and WordPress 5.0+. Tested up to WordPress 6.7.

Testing

The suite runs against the real WordPress test library, so it needs a throwaway database and a copy of WordPress core. bin/test-local.sh (or composer test:local) does the lot: it starts a MySQL container on port 33306, downloads the test library into ~/.cache/wp-mcp-connect-tests — outside the repo, because the generated config hard-codes an absolute path — runs php -l over every source file, then PHPUnit. Add --teardown to remove the container when you're finished, or --fresh to rebuild everything from scratch. To point PHPUnit at an existing install instead, set WP_TESTS_DIR and run vendor/bin/phpunit directly. The same steps run on every push through the test job in .github/workflows/release.yml, and a release cannot publish unless they pass on both PHP 7.4 and 8.2.

🗣️ What you can ask your MCP client

Once connected, the client speaks WordPress on your behalf:

"Find every post missing a meta description and draft one for each."
"Score my service pages for content health and show me the worst five."
"Create a redirect from /old-offer to /new-offer and resolve the 404."
"List orphaned posts and suggest internal links from cluster siblings."
"Add FAQ schema to the pricing page."
"Email me the weekly SEO health report."

📦 Releases & updates

Releases ship as zips under GitHub Releases. The plugin self-checks update-info.json so updates appear in the WordPress admin like any other plugin.

📝 License

Released under the GPL-2.0+ license. Use it, fork it, ship it.

Built by ftw.digital — give your AI a WordPress backstage pass.

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