Introducing WP-MCP: Manage Your WordPress Site Through AI

I’ve spent 16 years clicking through wp-admin. Creating posts, moderating comments, checking plugin updates, reviewing site health. The same screens, the same menus, the same workflows. Thousands of times across hundreds of client sites.

So I built something to stop doing that.

WP-MCP is an open-source MCP server that connects Claude (or any MCP-compatible AI assistant) directly to your WordPress site’s REST API. You talk to Claude. Claude talks to WordPress. Posts get created, settings get updated, plugins get checked. No browser tabs. No wp-admin. Just a conversation.

It’s live on npm right now. Install with npx @wpgaurav/wp-mcp setup and you’ll be running in under 5 minutes. No WordPress plugin installation required.

What Is MCP and Why WordPress Needs It

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard created by Anthropic that lets AI assistants interact with external services through defined tools. Think of it as a universal adapter between AI models and the software you already use. Instead of copying data between your AI chat and your CMS, MCP lets the AI talk to your CMS directly.

WordPress powers over 40% of the web. It has a mature REST API that exposes posts, pages, media, comments, users, plugins, themes, and settings. WP-MCP bridges these two things: it takes WordPress REST API endpoints and presents them as MCP tools that any MCP-compatible AI assistant can call.

The result: you can manage your WordPress site through a conversation with Claude, instead of clicking through wp-admin dashboards.

Why I Built WP-MCP

I wasn’t trying to build a product. I was trying to fix my own workflow.

I manage multiple WordPress sites: client projects, my own blogs, and sites I consult on. Every week, I repeat the same tasks across all of them:

• Check site health and performance status
• Review and moderate pending comments
• Verify plugin update status and security
• Create draft posts from outlines I already wrote
• Audit content for missing featured images, outdated posts, broken categories

None of these tasks are hard. They’re just slow. And they add up. Across 5-6 sites, that’s easily 2-3 hours a week of repetitive dashboard work.

I’d already been using Claude for writing and development. The obvious question: why can’t Claude do these WordPress tasks directly? MCP made that possible. I just needed an MCP server that exposed WordPress REST API endpoints as tools Claude could call.

The existing options were either too complex to configure, required a WordPress plugin installation, or didn’t expose all the endpoints I needed. So I built my own, cleaned it up, added auto-discovery for plugin endpoints, and published it on npm.

What WP-MCP Does

WP-MCP ships with 37 hand-crafted tools covering core WordPress REST API resources: posts, pages, media, categories, tags, comments, plugins, themes, users, settings, menus, search, and site health.

But the feature that makes it genuinely useful beyond basic sites is auto-discovery.

When you set WP_MCP_DISCOVER=true, WP-MCP scans your site’s /wp-json/ endpoint at startup and auto-generates tools for every plugin namespace it finds. This means:

• If WooCommerce is installed, you get WooCommerce product, order, and customer tools automatically
• If ACF exposes REST endpoints, those become tools too
• If Rank Math, Yoast, Gravity Forms, or any custom plugin has REST API endpoints, they get discovered and exposed
• Even custom post types registered with show_in_rest are auto-detected

Auto-discovered tools follow a clean naming convention: {namespace}_{resource}_{action}. For example, WooCommerce products become wc_products_list, wc_products_get, and wc_products_create.

Both STDIO and HTTP (StreamableHTTP) transports are supported. STDIO works with Claude Desktop and Claude Code. HTTP works for custom clients and remote setups.

How to Install and Set Up WP-MCP

You need three things:

• Node.js 18+ on your local machine
• A WordPress site with REST API enabled (it’s on by default)
• An Application Password from your WordPress user profile

Generate your Application Password at Users > Your Profile > Application Passwords in wp-admin. Copy it when shown. You won’t see it again.

Guided Setup (Recommended)

Run this in your terminal:

npx @wpgaurav/wp-mcp setup

The interactive wizard will:

• Ask for your WordPress URL, username, and Application Password
• Test the connection to your site
• Write the config to Claude Desktop and/or Claude Code automatically
• That’s it. Restart Claude and your WordPress tools are ready.

Application Passwords are at /wp-admin/profile.php in your WordPress dashboard. Create one specifically for WP-MCP and label it clearly.

Manual Installation

# Run directly with npx (no install needed)
npx @wpgaurav/wp-mcp

# Or install globally
npm install -g @wpgaurav/wp-mcp

Environment Variables

Set these if you’re doing manual configuration:

Variable	Required	Default	Description
WP_URL	Yes	—	Your WordPress site URL (no trailing slash)
WP_USERNAME	Yes	—	WordPress username
WP_APP_PASSWORD	Yes	—	Application Password from wp-admin
WP_MCP_TRANSPORT	No	stdio	stdio or http
WP_MCP_PORT	No	3000	HTTP transport port
WP_MCP_HOST	No	127.0.0.1	HTTP transport bind address
WP_MCP_DISCOVER	No	true	Auto-discover plugin REST endpoints
WP_MCP_MAX_TOOLS	No	128	Maximum total tools (core + discovered)

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add this to your Claude Desktop config file (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wordpress": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["wp-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "WP_URL": "https://yoursite.com",
        "WP_USERNAME": "yourusername",
        "WP_APP_PASSWORD": "abcd 1234 efgh 5678 ijkl 9012"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code Configuration

claude mcp add wordpress \
  -e WP_URL="https://yoursite.com" \
  -e WP_USERNAME="yourusername" \
  -e WP_APP_PASSWORD="abcd 1234 efgh 5678 ijkl 9012" \
  -- npx wp-mcp

Restart Claude Desktop or open a fresh Claude Code session. Ask: “show me my latest 5 posts”. If your posts appear, setup is complete.

Full setup documentation on npm

No WordPress Plugin Required

This is a deliberate design choice. WP-MCP runs entirely on your local machine and connects to WordPress through the REST API + Application Passwords. No config files on WordPress. No JSON manifests on your server. No Docker. No plugin to install, update, or maintain.

This matters when you’re managing client sites where you can’t install plugins freely, or when you want to keep your plugin footprint minimal for performance reasons. Three environment variables and you’re done.

Real Workflows I Use WP-MCP For

I don’t care about theoretical demos. These are the workflows I actually run every week on my own sites.

Weekly Site Health Checks

Every Monday morning, I ask Claude:

Show me the site health status.

Critical issues, recommendations, and passed tests show up in seconds. This used to take 10+ minutes of clicking through wp-admin dashboards. Now it’s one sentence.

Markdown to Draft Publishing

I write all my content in markdown. When I’m ready to push a draft:

Create a new draft post titled ‘Redis Object Caching on CloudPanel’ with this content. Category: WordPress. Tag: Performance.

Post created. No block editor fumbling. No copy-paste formatting cleanup. No forgotten category assignment. This is how I publish most of my developer-focused content now.

Comment Moderation

Show me all pending comments from the last 7 days.

I review comments in the chat, approve the legitimate ones, and trash spam. For sites with active comment sections, this is significantly faster than the wp-admin comments table with its endless pagination.

Plugin Security Audits

List all installed plugins with versions and update status.

Which plugins haven’t been updated by their developers in over a year?

That second query is gold for proactive WordPress maintenance. Abandoned plugins are a security risk, and this surfaces them instantly.

WooCommerce Inventory Queries

With auto-discovery enabled on a WooCommerce site:

Show me products with stock under 10 units.

Without WP-MCP, this query usually requires SQL or a reporting plugin. With it, one sentence gives you the answer.

Content Hygiene Audits

List published posts that don’t have a featured image.

Show posts published before 2023 that haven’t been updated since.

These were spreadsheet tasks before. Now they’re quick conversational queries with immediate results. I run content audits like these every month and they’ve helped me identify hundreds of posts that needed updates.

Design Decisions Behind WP-MCP

Every tool makes tradeoffs. Here are the deliberate choices I made and why.

Single-Site Focus

WP-MCP connects to one WordPress site per instance. Multi-site support is planned, but I shipped single-site first because it matches how I actually work: I focus on one site at a time. You can run multiple instances with different configs if you need to manage several sites.

External Server, No WordPress Plugin

WP-MCP runs on your local machine and connects through the REST API + Application Passwords. This is useful when you can’t install plugins (managed hosting restrictions, client sites) or when you want to keep your WordPress installation lean. It also means WP-MCP updates don’t require touching your WordPress site at all.

Hand-Crafted Core + Auto-Discovery

The 37 core tools have hand-designed parameter names, sensible defaults, and proper validation. Auto-discovery handles plugin endpoints where hand-crafting every method isn’t practical. This hybrid approach gives you polished tools for common tasks and functional tools for everything else.

WP-MCP vs Other WordPress MCP Servers

I’m not claiming WP-MCP is the only option. The WordPress MCP ecosystem is growing, and that’s healthy. Here’s how the main options compare:

• Official WordPress MCP Adapter: A PHP plugin that runs inside WordPress using the Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+). Deep core alignment, but requires plugin/composer installation. Best long-term canonical path for teams invested in WordPress core.
• Automattic Remote MCP: Strong OAuth 2.1 enterprise security. Excellent for organizations with strict compliance requirements. More complex setup.
• Other community servers: Some are stronger on multi-site management or Dockerized deployment patterns.
• WP-MCP: Fastest setup (3 environment variables, no WordPress plugin), auto-discovery for plugin REST endpoints, and it works with any WordPress 5.6+ site immediately. Best for developers and site managers who want to start using AI with WordPress today without changing their WordPress setup.

Different workflows need different tradeoffs. If you need enterprise OAuth and deep core integration, the official adapter or Automattic’s server makes more sense. If you want to be up and running in 5 minutes with zero WordPress-side changes, WP-MCP is built for that.

Roadmap

Everything on this list is driven by real usage, not theoretical features:

I’m also evaluating MCP resource primitives so the AI assistant can read passive site context before making tool calls, which would make sessions smoother and reduce unnecessary API requests.

Repository: wpgaurav/wp-mcp on GitHub
Package: @wpgaurav/wp-mcp on npm

Frequently Asked Questions

Get Started with WP-MCP

WP-MCP is free, open-source, and you can start using it right now. Run npx @wpgaurav/wp-mcp setup, enter your site credentials, and test it with a real task. If it saves even 30 minutes a week on WordPress admin work, that’s over 25 hours a year you get back.

If you’re a WordPress developer managing multiple sites, or a content creator tired of wp-admin for routine tasks, this is built for you. I use it daily on my own sites and I’m improving it based on what I actually need. For my broader WordPress management setup, I also use a Raycast extension that handles quick lookups without opening a browser.

Questions, bug reports, or feature requests: open an issue on GitHub or drop a comment below.