Track Site Changes in an Activity Log

A private WordPress activity log for module settings, publishing and plugin and theme changes.

Overview

Site Activity is a WordPress activity log for the changes that usually explain a broken site: a plugin update, a theme switch, a setting someone flipped, a page that went from published to draft. When something looks wrong, you check who changed what and when instead of guessing.

The module is off by default, and recording starts when you turn it on. Nothing that happened before is captured. Open Site Activity from the Functionalities dashboard to read the log. Only administrators can see it.

What Site Activity Records

Event	Target	Details
Module settings changed	The Functionalities option, such as functionalities_link_health	Names of the fields that changed, never their values
Plugin activated, Plugin deactivated	The plugin file, such as akismet/akismet.php
Plugin updated, Theme updated	The plugin file or theme folder	Manual and automatic updates, logged only when they succeed
Theme switched	The new theme’s folder name
Publishing status changed	The post or page ID	Old and new status, such as draft to publish

Each event also stores the time in UTC and the user. Background jobs such as automatic updates show as System or anonymized user.

What Site Activity Doesn’t Record

• Settings outside Functionalities. WordPress core options and other plugins’ settings aren’t tracked.
• Setting values. A changed code snippet or license key shows up as a field name only.
• Content edits that don’t change the status, plus autosaves and revisions.
• Custom post types. Only posts and pages.
• Plugin and theme installs, deletions and failed updates.
• Logins and routine visitor requests.

Search the Log

The log shows 50 events per page, newest first. Narrow it with three filters, then click Filter:

• Search target or fields matches the target and the details, so weekly_scan finds every change to that setting and trash finds posts moved to the trash.
• Event limits the list to one event type.
• Actor ID shows one user’s changes. Enter the numeric user ID, and 0 for system events.

How Long History Is Kept

• Up to 1,000 events. When a new event pushes past that, the oldest one drops.
• Nothing older than 30 days. A daily cleanup removes expired events.
• Clear activity log deletes the whole history. Tick Delete the stored activity history first to confirm.

If you need a year-long audit trail for compliance, this isn’t it. Site Activity is built for troubleshooting the last few weeks. For problems that come from code rather than people, pair it with Assumption Detection.

Privacy and Storage

• The log is a guarded file in the private wp-content/functionalities/ folder, not a database table.
• Tools > Export Personal Data includes a Functionalities Site Activity group for the matching user.
• Tools > Erase Personal Data replaces the user with an anonymous actor and keeps the event. Deleting a user from a multisite network does the same on every site.
• If the log can’t be read or written, the screen shows a storage error. A logging failure never blocks the change itself.