WP MCP Abilities

Administrator-level MCP abilities for WordPress, built on the official mcp-adapter plugin.

Every ability becomes a first-class MCP tool with its full input schema, so an agent calls it once instead of walking the adapter's discover → info → execute meta-tool chain. No third-party bridge, no relay service, no call limits: the AI client talks straight to your site over HTTPS.

AI client  ──MCP over HTTPS──>  mcp-adapter  ──>  WP MCP Abilities  ──>  WordPress

What it adds

Requirements

• WordPress 6.9+ (the Abilities API is in core)
• PHP 8.0+
• mcp-adapter 0.7+, active
• HTTPS and an Application Password for an administrator account
• WP-CLI is optional and off by default; enable it with WPMCP_ENABLE_WPCLI

Installation

1. Install and activate mcp-adapter.
2. Upload wp-mcp-abilities.zip under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or copy the wp-mcp-abilities/ folder to wp-content/plugins/.
3. Activate WP MCP Abilities.
4. Optional: enable WP-CLI by adding define( 'WPMCP_ENABLE_WPCLI', true ); to wp-config.php (needed only for wpmcp/wpcli).
5. Create an application password under Users → Profile → Application Passwords.
6. Point your MCP client at:

https://example.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server

With plain permalinks, use:

https://example.com/index.php?rest_route=/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server/

A minimal client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wordpress": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://example.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Basic BASE64_OF_USERNAME_COLON_APPLICATION_PASSWORD"
      }
    }
  }
}

Generate the header value with:

printf '%s' 'admin:xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx' | base64

Tools

All abilities require manage_options. Names map to MCP tools by replacing / with -. Thirteen are always registered; wpmcp/wpcli only when the site opts in.

Elementor super-ability

Instead of 200+ per-widget tools, wpmcp/elementor exposes 16 actions:

get-structure, get-widget, add-widget, update-widget, move-widget, duplicate-widget, delete-widget, create-page, set-page-settings, get-globals, set-globals, list-templates, apply-template, regenerate-css, snapshots, rollback.

Every write snapshots the previous _elementor_data, encodes with wp_slash, reads the layout back and invalidates only that post's CSS. A failed read-back restores the previous layout automatically. Kit globals are the exception: they affect every page, so set-globals flushes the whole Elementor cache.

Third-party namespaces

Sites that run Elementor's own MCP plugin (formerly Angie) get 22 elementor/* abilities and 3 core/* info abilities on the same endpoint. Add or remove namespaces with a filter:

add_filter( 'wpmcp_extra_tool_namespaces', function ( $namespaces ) {
    $namespaces[] = 'woocommerce/';
    return $namespaces;
} );

Abilities annotated mcp.type: resource (kit classes, global variables, dynamic tags, interaction schema) are exposed in resources/list, not tools/list, as the adapter expects.

Skills

The plugin ships 46 markdown playbooks: Core (9), Operations (8), Growth (10), WooCommerce (11), Elementor (8). They cover the traps that generic model knowledge misses: HPOS tables, Elementor's _elementor_data format, block checkout, cache purge matrices, search-replace safe ordering, and more.

Typical agent loop:

wpmcp-agent-context
wpmcp-search-skills   { "query": "stock status" }
wpmcp-get-skill       { "slug": "woocommerce-products" }
... do the work ...
wpmcp-fetch-page      { "url": "https://example.com/product/x/" }

New playbooks can be written by the agent itself with wpmcp/skill-write. They land in wp-content/wpmcp-skills/, survive plugin updates, and are available to every future client immediately. A site playbook with the same slug as a bundled one shadows it, so an agent can override a shipped playbook without losing the original. list-skills reports source as bundled or site.

An existing install that edited playbooks inside the plugin folder has them moved to wp-content/wpmcp-skills/ once, on the first request after upgrading. The move uses skills/manifest.json checksums to tell a shipped file from an edited one.

Search has a relevance floor. A hit must match at least half of the query terms, and results are ranked by a term-weighted score rather than by any single word. If the query names something no playbook mentions — LearnPress, SeedProd, a plugin this library does not cover — search-skills returns no results, lists the uncovered term, and tells the agent to continue with the core abilities and save what it learns with skill-write. It no longer offers loosely related playbooks that look like an answer.

Safety model

Configuration

Read-only mode for a live site:

define( 'WPMCP_READONLY', true );

Enable WP-CLI on a site where the agent is expected to do real work:

define( 'WPMCP_ENABLE_WPCLI', true );

Security warning

This plugin is administrator-level by design. An application password for an administrator can already do almost anything through WordPress; this plugin makes that power explicit and scriptable:

• wpmcp/wpcli, when enabled, runs the real wp binary through a shell. wp eval is PHP execution. It is off by default for exactly this reason.
• wpmcp/files can write PHP files under wp-content.
• wpmcp/rest-request can install and activate plugins.

Treat the application password like an SSH key:

1. Use a dedicated administrator account, not your personal one.
2. HTTPS only; never expose the endpoint over plain HTTP.
3. Restrict /wp-json/mcp/* by IP or basic auth at the edge where possible.
4. Use WPMCP_READONLY for agents that only inspect.
5. Revoke the application password when a client is retired.
6. Review wpmcp_audit_log after agent sessions.

This is not a sandbox and it is not malware-safe. Only connect clients you trust.

Troubleshooting

Development

composer install
composer lint     # php -l on every PHP file
composer phpcs    # WordPress coding standards

The plugin is a single bootstrap file plus skills/. Contributions are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.