Content Abilities

Production-quality WordPress plugin that exposes post, category, tag, and media abilities through the WordPress Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+) and the official MCP Adapter, so AI agents and automation can work with site content safely.

• No delete ability — content cannot be destroyed through this plugin.
• WordPress capability checks on every ability, including object-level read_post / edit_post / publish_post.
• JSON Schema input/output definitions and structured WP_Error outputs.
• Modern PHP 8.3+ architecture: PSR-4, final/readonly classes, constructor injection, service/repository separation, strict_types.

Requirements

Component	Version
PHP	≥ 8.3 (tested on 8.3 and 8.4)
WordPress	≥ 6.9 (7.1 recommended)
MCP Adapter (optional, for MCP exposure)	≥ 0.6.1

Abilities

All abilities live in the content category (registered on wp_abilities_api_categories_init; abilities on wp_abilities_api_init). Every ability sets meta.public = true and carries MCP annotations in WordPress format (readonly, destructive, idempotent), which the MCP Adapter converts to readOnlyHint / destructiveHint / idempotentHint.

Ability	Purpose	Annotations
content/find-posts	Search/list posts of public post types; pagination; optional drafts	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/get-post	Fetch one post incl. categories & tags	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/create-post	Create a post (draft by default)	readonly: false, idempotent: false
content/update-post	Update fields of one post	readonly: false, idempotent: true
content/patch-post	Exact text replacement in content, title, or excerpt	readonly: false, idempotent: false
content/find-terms	List/search categories or tags	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/get-term	Fetch one category or tag	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/create-term	Create a category or tag	readonly: false, idempotent: false
content/update-term	Update a category or tag	readonly: false, idempotent: true
content/find-media	Search/list readable attachments with pagination and MIME filters	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/get-media	Fetch stable attachment metadata and generated image sizes	readonly: true, idempotent: true
content/import-media	Securely sideload media from a public HTTPS URL	readonly: false, idempotent: false
content/update-media	Update attachment title, alt text, caption, or description	readonly: false, idempotent: true
content/set-featured-image	Set a readable image attachment as a post's featured image	readonly: false, idempotent: true
content/insert-media	Insert a Gutenberg image block into post content	readonly: false, idempotent: false

Example inputs

content/find-posts

{ "search": "release notes", "post_type": "post", "page": 1, "per_page": 10, "include_drafts": false }

content/get-post

{ "id": 42 }

content/create-post

{
  "title": "Hello from an agent",
  "content": "<p>Written via MCP.</p>",
  "status": "draft",
  "post_type": "post",
  "categories": [12, "News"],
  "tags": [34, "mcp"]
}

content/update-post

{ "id": 42, "title": "Updated title", "status": "publish", "tags": ["mcp"] }

Category and tag arrays accept integer term IDs or string names. JSON types keep an ID such as 12 distinct from a numeric name such as "12". Missing names are created only when caller also has taxonomy edit_terms; invalid IDs and WordPress assignment errors are returned unchanged.

content/patch-post

{
  "id": 42,
  "field": "content",
  "old_text": "<strong>old wording</strong>",
  "new_text": "<strong>new wording</strong>",
  "replace_all": false,
  "expected_modified_gmt": "2026-04-01 10:30:00"
}

Matching is exact and case-sensitive. With replace_all: false, zero matches return content_patch_text_not_found and multiple matches return content_patch_ambiguous. A stale expected_modified_gmt returns content_post_modified. Output is sanitized while untouched surrounding formatting remains unchanged. Successful output contains replacement_count and the updated post.

content/find-terms

{ "taxonomy": "category", "search": "news", "page": 1, "per_page": 20 }

content/get-term

{ "taxonomy": "post_tag", "id": 34 }

content/create-term

{ "taxonomy": "category", "name": "Releases", "slug": "releases", "description": "Release notes" }

content/update-term

{ "taxonomy": "post_tag", "id": 34, "name": "WordPress AI" }

content/find-media

{ "search": "launch", "mime_type": "image", "page": 1, "per_page": 20 }

content/import-media

{
  "source_url": "https://cdn.example.com/images/launch.jpg",
  "title": "Launch photo",
  "alt_text": "Team launching the product",
  "caption": "Launch day",
  "description": "Press image from launch day",
  "attach_to_post_id": 42
}

Imports accept only public HTTPS URLs. Downloads use WordPress safe HTTP validation across redirects, stream to a temporary file, time out after 15 seconds, and stop at a plugin-level 20 MiB maximum regardless of the site's upload limit. WordPress validates the downloaded file's allowed MIME type and extension before media_handle_sideload() runs. Base64 payloads and local file paths are not accepted. Temporary files are removed on success and every failure path.

content/update-media

{ "id": 77, "title": "Updated photo", "alt_text": "Updated alternative text" }

content/set-featured-image

{ "post_id": 42, "media_id": 77 }

content/insert-media

{
  "post_id": 42,
  "media_id": 77,
  "expected_modified_gmt": "2026-04-01 10:30:00",
  "placement": "after",
  "anchor_text": "<!-- /wp:heading -->",
  "size_slug": "large",
  "caption": "Launch day",
  "link_destination": "media"
}

Insertion supports append, prepend, before, after, and replace. Anchored modes require one exact byte match; missing or repeated anchors fail without changing the post. Allowed image sizes are thumbnail, medium, medium_large, large, and full; link destinations are none, media, and attachment.

Permissions

Every ability enforces WordPress capabilities; failures return structured WP_Error values. Native WordPress errors from post, term, and assignment operations are propagated.

Ability	Required capability
content/find-posts	read for published posts; edit_posts when include_drafts is true
content/get-post	Object-level read_post — private posts need read_private_posts or ownership
content/create-post	Post-type create capability (edit_posts); publish_posts when status: publish
content/update-post	Object-level edit_post; publish_post when publishing a draft
content/patch-post	Object-level edit_post
content/find-terms / content/get-term	Public category/tag reads
content/create-term / content/update-term	Selected taxonomy's edit_terms capability
content/find-media / content/get-media	Object-level read_post for returned attachments
content/import-media	upload_files; object-level edit_post when attaching to a parent
content/update-media	Object-level edit_post on the attachment
content/set-featured-image	Object-level edit_post on target post and read_post on image attachment
content/insert-media	Object-level edit_post on target post and read_post on image attachment

Supplying categories or tags to post creation/update additionally requires the selected taxonomy's assign_terms capability.

Sanitization: titles/excerpts via sanitize_text_field(), content via wp_kses_post() (scripts and event handlers stripped), term names sanitized before assignment.

Installation

From source (Git)

git clone https://github.com/shekohex/wordpress-content-abilities.git \
  wp-content/plugins/wordpress-content-abilities
composer install --no-dev

Activate Content Abilities in wp-admin, then activate the MCP Adapter plugin.

Release package

Build a distributable zip (excludes dev dependencies):

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
zip -r wordpress-content-abilities.zip \
  wordpress-content-abilities.php src readme.txt uninstall.php LICENSE

Connecting MCP clients

With the MCP Adapter active, abilities are exposed through the default MCP server at /wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server and via WP-CLI STDIO transport. Authentication is application-passwords/OAuth 2.0 as provided by the MCP Adapter; nothing is exposed anonymously.

Claude Desktop example (HTTP):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wordpress": {
      "url": "https://your-site.example.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server"
    }
  }
}

See the MCP Adapter docs for STDIO and proxy setups.

Development

composer install
composer test        # PHPUnit
composer analyse     # PHPStan (level 8)
composer sniff       # PHPCS with WordPress Coding Standards
composer check       # all of the above

The test suite runs against in-memory WordPress stubs (no database required).

Architecture

wordpress-content-abilities.php   Bootstrap: plugin header, hooks registration
src/
  Load.php                        Boot loader (no Composer needed in production)
  Plugin.php                      Category + ability registration (thin WP layer)
  Container.php                   Minimal auto-wiring DI container
  Contracts/AbilityContract.php   Ability interface
  Abilities/                      One final class per ability + shared base
  Services/                       Post, term, and media validation, caps, sanitization
  Repositories/                   WordPress post, term, media, and HTTP data access
  Support/                        CapabilityGuard, PostTypes helpers
tests/                            PHPUnit tests + WP stubs

License

GPL-2.0-or-later