Lax Abilities Toolkit

Connect your WordPress site to AI assistants — Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and any MCP-compatible client — so they can read and manage your content through natural conversation.

Built on the WP Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+) and the MCP Adapter plugin, Lax Abilities Toolkit exposes your posts, pages, categories, tags, and media library as structured tools that AI clients understand natively.

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What you can do

Once connected, your AI assistant can:

• Write and publish — draft posts and pages, schedule them for a future date, set featured images
• Edit content — update titles, body, status, categories, tags, and metadata
• Browse your library — list posts by status, filter media by type, look up a single item by ID
• Manage taxonomies — create categories and tags, list them with post counts, delete unused ones
• Handle media — browse the media library, retrieve image URLs and dimensions, delete files
• Answer site questions — name, URL, WordPress version, timezone, language, admin email

Everything is scoped to the logged-in user's WordPress capabilities, so the AI can only do what that user account is allowed to do.

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Requirements

• WordPress 6.9+ (the Abilities API ships in core)
• PHP 7.4+
• MCP Adapter plugin — exposes abilities to AI clients over HTTP
• Node.js LTS — needed on the computer running the AI client (includes npx)

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Installation

1. Download the latest release zip from the Releases page.
2. In WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin and upload the zip.
3. Activate Lax Abilities Toolkit.
4. Install and activate the MCP Adapter plugin the same way.
5. Go to Settings → Lax Abilities — the setup guide is right there on that page.

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Connecting to an AI client

Step 1 — Create an Application Password

Application Passwords let AI clients log in to your site securely without using your main WordPress password.

1. In WordPress admin, click your name in the top-right corner, then Edit Profile (or go to Users → Profile).
2. Scroll to the Application Passwords section near the bottom.
3. Type a name — something like Claude Desktop — and click Add New Application Password.
4. Copy the password shown — it looks like xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx. You won't see it again.

The Settings → Lax Abilities page has a password field that auto-fills all config snippets below. Paste your password there to get ready-to-use configs.

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Step 2 — Configure your AI client

Pick the client you use:

Claude Desktop

1. Download Claude Desktop if you haven't already.
2. Open (or create) the config file for your OS:
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
   • Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
3. Add the entry below inside "mcpServers". If the file is empty, paste the whole block:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-wordpress-site": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "your-application-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

4. Replace the three values with your actual site URL, WordPress username, and the application password from Step 1.
5. Fully quit Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q on Mac / Alt+F4 on Windows) and reopen it.
6. A hammer icon will appear in the chat toolbar — that's your WordPress tools.

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Cursor

1. Download Cursor if you haven't already.
2. Open or create ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) or .cursor/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-wordpress-site": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "your-application-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Reload Cursor: Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P → Developer: Reload Window.
4. The server appears in Cursor Settings → MCP.

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VS Code

1. Install VS Code 1.99 or later (MCP support is built in).
2. Create .vscode/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "servers": {
    "my-wordpress-site": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "your-application-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. VS Code discovers the server automatically — no restart needed.
4. Open GitHub Copilot Chat (or any MCP-aware extension) to see the WordPress tools.

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Other MCP clients

Set these three environment variables, then run the bridge:

export WP_API_URL="https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server"
export WP_API_USERNAME="your-username"
export WP_API_PASSWORD="your-application-password"

npx -y @automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote

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Step 3 — Start a conversation

Once connected, paste this starter prompt to orient your AI and let it discover what it can do:

I've connected my WordPress site to you via MCP using the Lax Abilities Toolkit plugin.

Site: My Site Name (https://yoursite.com)
My WordPress username: your-username

You have access to abilities to create and manage posts, pages, categories, tags, and media on my site.

Please start by discovering all available abilities using your MCP tools, then give me a brief summary of what you can help me do.

The Settings → Lax Abilities page generates a pre-filled version of this prompt with your actual site name, URL, and username — just copy and paste.

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Ability Groups

From Settings → Lax Abilities → Ability Groups, you can enable or disable entire groups of abilities. For example, you can turn off media abilities if you only want the AI to manage written content, or disable site-info if you prefer to keep that private.

Changes take effect immediately — no plugin reactivation needed.

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All built-in abilities

Posts

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/create-post	Create a post; supports scheduling, featured image, categories, tags
lax-abilities/update-post	Update title, content, status, date, and metadata
lax-abilities/list-posts	List posts filtered by status (draft, publish, future, etc.)
lax-abilities/get-post	Full details of a single post by ID
lax-abilities/delete-post	Move a post to trash

Pages

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/create-page	Create a page with parent and template support
lax-abilities/update-page	Update a page
lax-abilities/list-pages	List pages
lax-abilities/get-page	Full details of a single page by ID
lax-abilities/delete-page	Move a page to trash

Categories

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/create-category	Create a category (returns existing data if name already exists)
lax-abilities/list-categories	List all categories with IDs, slugs, and post counts
lax-abilities/delete-category	Permanently delete a category by ID

Tags

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/create-tag	Create a tag (returns existing data if name already exists)
lax-abilities/list-tags	List all tags with IDs, slugs, and post counts
lax-abilities/delete-tag	Permanently delete a tag by ID

Media

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/list-media	List media items with URLs, dimensions, alt text; filter by MIME type or parent post
lax-abilities/get-media	Full details of a single attachment including all registered image sizes
lax-abilities/delete-media	Permanently delete a media attachment and its associated files

Site

Ability	Description
lax-abilities/site-info	Site name, URL, tagline, WordPress version, timezone, language, admin email

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Scheduling posts

create-post and update-post accept an optional publish_date field in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format (site timezone). When the date is in the future the post status is automatically set to future. The response includes scheduled_for and scheduled_for_gmt so the AI can confirm exactly when it will go live.

{
  "title": "My Upcoming Post",
  "content": "Hello world.",
  "publish_date": "2025-09-01 09:00:00"
}

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Developer: Extending with custom post types

Register any post type with the lax_abilities_registered_post_types filter. The plugin generates create, update, list, get, and delete abilities automatically.

add_filter( 'lax_abilities_registered_post_types', function( $types ) {
    $types['product'] = array(
        'label'             => 'Product',
        'plural'            => 'Products',
        'capability_type'   => 'product',
        'taxonomies'        => array( 'product_cat', 'product_tag' ),
        'supports_schedule' => false,
    );
    return $types;
} );
// Registers: lax-abilities/create-product, lax-abilities/update-product,
//            lax-abilities/list-products, lax-abilities/get-product,
//            lax-abilities/delete-product

Only post types with public = true are shown in the admin UI and registered as abilities. Internal WordPress types (nav menus, patterns, templates, etc.) are automatically excluded.

Post type config options

Key	Type	Default	Description
label	string	derived from slug	Singular label
plural	string	label + "s"	Plural label
capability_type	string	post type slug	Used to derive publish_{type}s cap
taxonomies	string[]	[]	Taxonomy slugs; generates {taxonomy}_ids input fields
supports_parent	bool	false	Adds parent_id field
supports_template	bool	false	Adds template field
supports_schedule	bool	true	Adds publish_date scheduling field

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Developer: Extending with custom taxonomies

add_filter( 'lax_abilities_registered_taxonomies', function( $taxonomies ) {
    $taxonomies['product_cat'] = array(
        'label'        => 'Product Category',
        'plural'       => 'Product Categories',
        'hierarchical' => true,
        'ability_slug' => 'product-category',
    );
    return $taxonomies;
} );
// Registers: lax-abilities/create-product-category
//            lax-abilities/list-product-categories
//            lax-abilities/delete-product-category

Only taxonomies with publicly_queryable or show_ui set to true are included.

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Developer: Extra fields and meta

Add fields to the create/update schema

add_filter( 'lax_abilities_input_schema_product', function( $schema, $post_type ) {
    $schema['properties']['price'] = array(
        'type'        => 'string',
        'description' => 'Product price.',
    );
    return $schema;
}, 10, 2 );

Persist extra fields before insert/update

add_filter( 'lax_abilities_post_data_product', function( $post_data, $params, $post_type ) {
    if ( isset( $params['price'] ) ) {
        $post_data['meta_input']['_price'] = sanitize_text_field( $params['price'] );
    }
    return $post_data;
}, 10, 3 );

Extend the response

// create/update responses
add_filter( 'lax_abilities_post_response_product', function( $response, $post ) {
    $response['price'] = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_price', true );
    return $response;
}, 10, 2 );

// list items
add_filter( 'lax_abilities_list_item_product', function( $item, $post, $post_type ) {
    $item['price'] = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_price', true );
    return $item;
}, 10, 3 );

// single-item detail
add_filter( 'lax_abilities_post_detail_product', function( $item, $post, $post_type ) {
    $item['price'] = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_price', true );
    $item['sku']   = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_sku', true );
    return $item;
}, 10, 3 );

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Filter reference

Filter	Args	Description
lax_abilities_registered_post_types	$types	Add or modify post type configurations
lax_abilities_registered_taxonomies	$taxonomies	Add or modify taxonomy configurations
lax_abilities_input_schema_{post_type}	$schema, $post_type	Extend create/update input schema
lax_abilities_post_data_{post_type}	$post_data, $params, $post_type	Modify post data before insert/update
lax_abilities_post_response_{post_type}	$response, $post	Extend create/update response
lax_abilities_list_item_{post_type}	$item, $post, $post_type	Extend individual list items
lax_abilities_post_detail_{post_type}	$item, $post, $post_type	Extend single-item get response

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License

GPL v2 or later.