Let AI Agents Manage Your Bookings
Checking today’s schedule, finding a free slot for a regular client or approving a stack of requests takes a dozen clicks each. With the AI agent abilities module, you can ask an agent such as Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor to do it for you, and it works under the same permissions as your dashboard.
Core Bookings registers its booking engine with the WordPress Abilities API. An agent signed in as a WordPress user can find times, book, reschedule, approve, add time off, look up customers and read reports, but only what that user could do in wp-admin. Core Bookings itself never calls an AI service and never sends your booking data anywhere.
Turn It On
The module needs WordPress 6.9 or later, because that’s the release with the Abilities API. On older versions it registers nothing and its status reads Needs WordPress 6.9 or later.
- Go to Bookings → Settings → Modules, switch on AI agent abilities (in the Integrations group) and click Save modules.
- Open Bookings → Settings → AI agents. Every ability is offered by default.
- Untick anything you don’t want agents to use and click Save abilities.
- Connect your agent. We recommend Site Agent, a free plugin: see Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor with Site Agent.
Every Ability and Who Can Run It
The AI agents screen groups the 22 abilities the same way. “Managers” means users with the booking-manager capability (administrators by default). Staff only ever see appointments they host or co-host.
Booking (customers, staff and managers)
| Ability | What it does | Who may run it |
|---|---|---|
core-bookings/list-services | Lists bookable services (hidden ones are left out) | Anyone |
core-bookings/find-available-times | Finds open start times for a service, up to seven days from a date | Anyone; for an existing booking, only someone who may change it |
core-bookings/create-booking | Books a time | A signed-in WordPress user. Customers book only under their own account email; staff and managers can book for anyone. |
core-bookings/reschedule-booking | Moves a booking | Managers, the assigned staff member, the customer’s linked account, or anyone with the booking’s private link token |
core-bookings/cancel-booking | Cancels a booking, releases an unpaid hold or withdraws a request | Same as rescheduling |
core-bookings/list-my-bookings | A customer’s own bookings | A signed-in user linked to a customer profile |
Appointments and schedules (staff and managers)
| Ability | What it does | Who may run it |
|---|---|---|
core-bookings/list-appointments | Lists appointments with the workspace filters | Staff (own only) and managers |
core-bookings/get-site-context | Describes the setup: timezone, currency, modules, payment methods. Agents start here. | Staff and managers |
core-bookings/search | Searches appointments and customers | Staff and managers; only managers get customer results |
core-bookings/get-appointment | Reads one appointment, its notes, history and allowed actions | Staff (own only) and managers |
core-bookings/update-appointment | Approve, decline, complete, no-show, mark paid, reopen, confirm a reviewed payment or resend the confirmation | Staff (own only) and managers; confirming a reviewed payment is for managers |
core-bookings/add-appointment-note | Adds an internal note to an appointment | Staff (own only) and managers |
core-bookings/list-staff | Lists staff schedules: timezone, weekly hours, time off and services | Managers; staff see only themselves |
core-bookings/add-time-off | Adds whole days off | Managers, or staff allowed to manage their own availability |
core-bookings/block-time | Blocks part of one day | Managers, or staff allowed to manage their own availability |
Customers, services and reports (managers)
| Ability | What it does | Who may run it |
|---|---|---|
core-bookings/list-customers | Lists customers with booking counts | Managers |
core-bookings/get-customer | Reads one customer’s tags, fields, notes and recent bookings | Managers |
core-bookings/add-customer-note | Adds a note to a customer | Managers |
core-bookings/list-all-services | Lists every service with its settings | Managers |
core-bookings/create-service | Creates a service, switched off unless the agent asks for it active | Managers |
core-bookings/update-service | Changes basic fields such as title, length, buffers, price and capacity | Managers |
core-bookings/get-report | Reads reports for a date range (needs the Insights module) | Managers |
What Stays in Your Control
- Same rules as the dashboard. An agent acts as the WordPress user who connected it. Customer records, services and reports stay with managers.
- No blind changes. Every change needs the version the agent last read, so a change made in between makes it read again. Staff actions also need a reason, saved in the history.
- Ask first. The bundled skill tells agents to check with you before cancelling, declining, rescheduling or emailing a customer.
- wp-admin only. Refunds, payment and module settings, deleting records and full service editing never happen through an agent.
- Services start off. A service an agent creates stays inactive until you or the agent switch it on, so you can review it first.
MCP Clients
Under MCP clients, List these abilities as tools for MCP clients, such as the WordPress MCP adapter is on by default. It marks the abilities as public so MCP servers that list only public abilities, like the WordPress MCP adapter’s default server, show them as tools. Untick it to hide them from MCP clients while keeping them available to the Abilities REST API.
Good to Know
- Booking through an agent always needs a signed-in account. Agents can’t solve spam-protection challenges, so anonymous booking stays with your website form.
- No ability ever returns private booking tokens or manage links.
- Booking abilities share the REST API’s rate limits (20 changes and 120 reads per minute per visitor address).
- A switched-off ability isn’t registered at all, so agents can’t see or call it.
Developers can also call the abilities over REST: see the REST API reference.