What You'll Set Up
By the end of this guide, your AI agent will be able to manage your WordPress site — publishing blog posts, editing pages, uploading images, organizing categories and tags, and more. The entire setup takes about five minutes using WordPress application passwords, a built-in feature that lets you grant API access without sharing your main login.
Once connected, your agent can handle tasks like "Draft a blog post about our spring sale" or "Update the About page with our new team member" directly on your WordPress site.
Before You Begin
Make sure you have:
- A self-hosted WordPress site running version 5.6 or later — Application passwords are a built-in feature starting with WordPress 5.6. If you are on WordPress.com, you need a Business plan or higher for API access.
- An admin account on your WordPress site
- A Pipeworks workspace — Sign up at pipeworks.ai if you haven't already
Application passwords are separate from your regular WordPress login password. They give controlled API access and can be revoked at any time without affecting your normal login.
Steps
Create an application password in WordPress
Log into your WordPress admin dashboard. Go to Users > Profile (or click your name in the top right corner and select Edit Profile).
Scroll down to the Application Passwords section near the bottom of the page. Enter a name for the password — something like "Pipeworks" — and click Add New Application Password.
WordPress will generate a 24-character password displayed in groups of four. Copy this password immediately and store it somewhere safe — WordPress will not show it again.
Note your site URL and username
You will need two more pieces of information:
- Site URL — The full URL of your WordPress site, such as
https://example.com. Includehttps://but do not include a trailing slash. - Username — Your WordPress admin username (the one you log in with).
Open your Pipeworks console
Log into your Pipeworks workspace and go to the Integrations page. Find WordPress in the list and click on it.
Enter your credentials
Fill in the three credential fields:
- Site URL — Your WordPress site address (e.g.,
https://example.com) - Username — Your WordPress admin username
- Application Password — The 24-character password you generated in Step 1
Click Connect to save your credentials. Pipeworks encrypts everything with AES-256-GCM before storing it. The plaintext is never saved to disk.
Start the integration
Click Start to launch the WordPress integration container. Once the status shows Running, your agent is ready to manage your WordPress site.
Test the connection
Use the Test button to verify everything works. This sends a request to your WordPress REST API to confirm your credentials are valid and your site is reachable.
What Your Agent Can Do
Once connected, your AI agent has access to WordPress tools for:
- Posts — Create, edit, publish, and delete blog posts with full formatting support
- Pages — Create and manage static pages on your site
- Media — Upload images, documents, and other files to your media library
- Categories and tags — Organize content with categories, tags, and custom taxonomies
- Users — View and manage user accounts and roles
- Comments — Moderate and manage comments on your posts
Use tool profiles to control what your agent can do. Set the profile to read-only if you want your agent to read content and gather information without publishing or editing anything. Use no-delete to let the agent create and edit content but prevent it from removing anything.
Connecting from Your AI Agent
Add the Pipeworks tools endpoint to your agent's configuration. Here's an example for Claude Desktop:
{
"mcpServers": {
"pipeworks-wordpress": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://app.pipeworks.ai/tools/wordpress"]
}
}
}
Claude Desktop will prompt you to sign in through Pipeworks when you first connect. No access key needed.
Troubleshooting
Connection test fails with "unauthorized"? Double-check that you copied the full application password from WordPress. It should be 24 characters in groups of four (e.g., abcd efgh ijkl mnop qrst uvwx). Enter it without the spaces.
REST API not available? Some WordPress security plugins disable the REST API. Check your security plugin settings and make sure the WordPress REST API is enabled. Your site also needs to be accessible over HTTPS.
Wrong site URL? Make sure you included https:// at the beginning and did not include a trailing slash. The URL should look like https://example.com, not example.com or https://example.com/.
Agent can't find tools? Verify your Pipeworks session is authenticated and that the integration status shows "Running" in your Pipeworks console.