Connecting a client

Your AI client connects in to your site over MCP. The plugin never calls out to any AI provider, so there is no model API key to add and nothing extra to pay for. There are two ways to connect.

The two ways to connect

OAuth

Approve the agent once in the browser. Paste your site’s MCP endpoint into your client, approve the connection, and the agent acts as the account that approved it. There is no secret to store. Approve while logged in as the account you want the agent to be, because the connection takes that account’s capabilities.

Application Password

Point a dedicated low-privilege user at the endpoint. Create the agent user the Connection tab offers, generate an Application Password for it, and connect with that. A guided screen builds the client config and checks the endpoint for you. Read the caution below before you generate one: an Application Password is a whole-site credential and this plugin cannot narrow it.

An Application Password reaches further than this plugin can scope

An Application Password is a whole-site WordPress credential, bounded only by the role of the user it belongs to. The plugin cannot narrow it. So the IP allowlist, the high-risk lock, and the audit log govern the calls that arrive at this plugin’s MCP endpoint, and they do not follow that credential anywhere else in WordPress. Issue it on a dedicated low-privilege user so that user’s role is the real limit.

A token issued over OAuth does not carry that limit, because it only ever authenticates this one endpoint. It has a caveat of its own: the scope a client asks for does not restrict the token it gets. The token takes the capabilities of the account that approved it, and every ability re-checks that capability before it runs.

Approve as the account you want the agent to be

There is no account picker in the OAuth consent flow. The token carries the capabilities of whichever WordPress account approves it, so approving as an administrator gives the agent administrator capabilities. Log in as your dedicated agent user first, then approve. The consent screen warns you when the approving account is an administrator.

The endpoint shown here is illustrative

Your real endpoint appears on the plugin’s Connection tab. The shape is https://your-site.com/wp-json/.../mcp. Copy the exact value from the Connection tab rather than the example above.

Clients that connect today

ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Claude Desktop, Manus, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, and Gemini CLI all work today, some directly and some through the open-source mcp-remote bridge.

• Custom connector apps: ChatGPT, Claude.ai, Claude Desktop, and Manus. Each connects by adding your site as a custom connector and approving it once over OAuth. On ChatGPT you turn Developer Mode on first, and custom connectors are a beta feature on ChatGPT’s paid plans. On Claude.ai you add the connector from its own settings, in beta but not gated behind a paid plan. Claude Desktop shares that same connector, so one you add in either place shows up in both. On Manus you add your site as a custom MCP connector using your endpoint URL. Connectors are dialled from the AI vendor’s side rather than from your own machine, so your site has to answer on the public internet. A site on localhost or behind a VPN will not connect this way, and Claude Desktop is no exception despite running on your own computer.
• AI code editors and IDEs: Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, and Windsurf.
• Command line: Gemini CLI.
• AI agent frameworks: any MCP-compatible framework can call your enabled abilities as tools.

The bridge, for clients that cannot connect directly

Clients that cannot open a remote MCP connection on their own use the open-source mcp-remote or @automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote bridge. It runs on your own machine and talks only to your site and your local AI client. Neither bridge is bundled with the plugin or run by it: you install and run it yourself.

Not supported yet known limitation

The Gemini app is not supported yet. It expects a streamable HTTP or SSE remote connector that the underlying MCP Adapter does not serve natively yet. The clients listed above all work today, including ChatGPT through its Developer Mode custom connectors.

Revoking an agent’s access

Connecting an agent is documented everywhere. Cutting one off usually is not. Uninstalling the plugin does not revoke an agent on its own. It removes the plugin’s settings and activity log, and its OAuth tables too if you turned on “Delete data on uninstall” first. What it never removes is the dedicated agent user or any Application Password issued to it, because those are ordinary WordPress account credentials that live outside the plugin’s own data.

To actually cut an agent off, do one of these:

• Revoke its OAuth grant on the plugin’s Connection tab.
• Delete its Application Password on the Users screen, under that user’s profile.
• Delete the agent user account outright, if it exists only to serve that agent.

Any of the three works before or after you remove the plugin. Do it first if the credential is the thing you want gone, since removing the plugin closes the door this plugin owns and leaves the WordPress credential sitting there.

Next steps

• Troubleshooting: OAuth discovery, Windows clients, local sites.
• Governance concepts: what the connected agent can and cannot do.