Polylang MCP Server

A WordPress plugin that lets AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) translate your entire Polylang-powered website — posts, pages, custom post types, categories, tags, and strings.

How it works

Your AI Assistant  ←→  MCP Protocol  ←→  This Plugin  ←→  Polylang
(Claude Desktop,                        (13 tools)      (languages,
 Cursor, etc.)                                           translations)

You connect your AI assistant to your WordPress site. The AI can then see all your content, understand what needs translating, and create translations directly — no manual copy-pasting or WP admin clicking required.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.9+
• Polylang 3.7+ (free or Pro)
• PHP 8.0+

Installation

1. Download or clone this repository into wp-content/plugins/polylang-mcp/
2. Run composer install in the plugin directory
3. Activate the plugin in WP Admin → Plugins
4. Create an Application Password (see below)
5. Connect your AI assistant (see below)

Setup

Step 1: Create an Application Password

1. Go to WP Admin → Users → Profile
2. Scroll to Application Passwords
3. Enter a name (e.g. "Claude Desktop") and click Add New Application Password
4. Copy the password — you'll need it in the next step

Step 2: Connect your AI assistant

Claude Desktop

Open the config file:

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add this to the mcpServers section:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polylang-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote@latest"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/polylang-mcp/mcp",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace yoursite.com, your-username, and the password with your actual values.

Restart Claude Desktop. You should see 13 Polylang tools available.

Cursor / VS Code

Create .cursor/mcp.json or .vscode/mcp.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polylang-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote@latest"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/polylang-mcp/mcp",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

Local development (WP-CLI / STDIO)

If you run WordPress locally, you can skip the HTTP transport entirely:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polylang-mcp": {
      "command": "wp",
      "args": [
        "--path=/path/to/wordpress",
        "mcp-adapter", "serve",
        "--server=polylang-mcp-server",
        "--user=admin"
      ]
    }
  }
}

What can it do?

Once connected, your AI assistant has 13 tools:

Understand the site

Tool	What it does
get-site-info	Full site overview — WordPress version, theme, plugins, languages, content types
get-translation-status	Translation progress per content type and language
list-languages	All configured languages with details
list-content-types	Translatable post types and taxonomies

Find content to translate

Tool	What it does
get-untranslated-content	Lists content missing translations for a target language
get-content	Full post content (title, body, excerpt, meta, categories)
get-term	Term details (name, description, taxonomy, parent)
get-string-groups	Registered string groups with translation status

Translate

Tool	What it does
translate-post	Create or update a translated post (idempotent)
translate-term	Create or update a translated term (idempotent)
translate-string	Set a string translation

Manage languages

Tool	What it does
create-language	Add a new language (only locale required)
delete-language	Remove a language

Example workflows

"Translate my site to French"

Just tell your AI assistant:

Translate all untranslated posts and pages to French

The AI will:

1. Call get-untranslated-content to find what's missing
2. Call get-content for each post to get the source text
3. Translate the content
4. Call translate-post to save each translation

"What's my translation progress?"

Show me the translation status for all languages

The AI calls get-translation-status and gives you a summary of translated vs untranslated content per language.

"Add Japanese to my site"

Add Japanese as a language and translate the 5 most recent posts

The AI calls create-language with locale ja, then translates the posts.

Technical details

Architecture

The plugin uses WordPress 6.9's Abilities API to register 13 abilities, and the WordPress MCP Adapter to expose them as MCP tools. The adapter is bundled — no extra installation needed.

Polylang API

Translations are created using Polylang's official API functions:

• pll_insert_post() / pll_update_post() for posts
• pll_insert_term() / pll_update_term() for terms
• PLL_MO for string translations

All write operations are idempotent — calling translate-post twice for the same source and target language updates the existing translation rather than creating a duplicate.

Permissions

• Read-only tools: require edit_posts or read capability
• Write tools: require manage_options capability (administrator)

Authentication uses WordPress Application Passwords over HTTPS.

Plugin structure

polylang-mcp/
├── polylang-mcp.php              # Plugin bootstrap
├── composer.json
├── src/
│   ├── Plugin.php                # Hook registration, MCP server setup
│   ├── Abilities/
│   │   ├── AbstractAbility.php   # Base class
│   │   ├── Environment/          # get-site-info, get-translation-status
│   │   ├── Languages/            # list, create, delete languages
│   │   ├── Content/              # list types, get content/terms, find untranslated
│   │   └── Translation/          # translate posts, terms, strings
│   └── Services/
│       ├── LanguageService.php   # Polylang language API wrapper
│       ├── ContentService.php    # Content queries
│       ├── TranslationService.php # Post/term translation
│       └── StringService.php     # String translation via PLL_MO
└── vendor/                       # Bundled dependencies (MCP adapter)

License

GPL-2.0-or-later