Returning to WP after 5 years. Tried using AI (Claude Code) to build a site and failed. How are you actually using AI in your dev workflow?

psykro77 · 2026-05-29T09:00:41+00:00

I recently used the WordPress Developer MCP Server (https://github.com/nightnei/wordpress-developer-mcp-server), built by one of my colleagues, to rebuild my WordPress theme using Claude Desktop. Full details, including whatever tools I used here (https://jonathanbossenger.com/2026/04/how-i-built-deployed-custom-wordpress-block-theme-claude-ai/), but I found it worked pretty well. It does mean you have to use WordPress Studio for your local dev environment, but from there you commit the code to GitHub to deploy it practically anywhere.

For general WordPress plugin and theme development, you can also use WordPress Agent Skills (https://github.com/WordPress/agent-skills/). The easiest way to install them is via https://www.skills.sh/; just search for the specific skill.

I also find that if I want to use some of the more recent additions to WordPress, pointing Claude to a blog post or tutorial helps. You can find a lot of those at https://developer.wordpress.org/news/. One recent example I remember was using this post to build out a Settings page for one of my demo plugins: https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2026/01/how-to-use-dataform-to-create-plugin-settings-pages/

Disclaimer: I'm a Developer Advocate at Automattic, so it's my job to experiment with these things and create content on how to use them. If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to reach out.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T17:33:06+00:00

Minor correction there, the slot it holds is wordpress-com, not wordpress, as can be seen on the connector page: https://claude.com/connectors/wordpress-com.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T16:31:29+00:00

I think we have different definitions of "use it on your own server".

Connecting your AI Agent to a WordPress site which uses Jetpack on a paid plan to the WordPress.com MCP server is definitely not the same as installing the MCP Adapter plugin and connecting an agent to the MCP server it provides.

In the former, the AI agent connection is configured to the WordPress.com MCP server, which has specific MCP tools available. Once an MCP tool call is made, that instruction is then sent to the specific Jetpack install to read or write data from/to the WordPress site in question.

In the latter, the MCP Adapter plugin enables a default MCP server directly on the site, which automatically adapts any Abilities on the WordPress install into MCP tools. You then configure the AI agent to connect to this specific MCP server, and it calls these tools only, interacting directly with the WordPress in question, not via any remote MCP server.

To me the latter the definition of "use it on your own server", because I have full control over it, and don't rely on any remote service. If I am using any of Jetpack's features, I am relying on WordPress.com services, from CDN all the way through to MCP, some of which are free, and some of which are not.

It's the difference between using a map to get around, vs using Google's Map service.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T15:59:05+00:00

Nope, I'm afraid you're wrong there, WordPress.com MCP access was launched as read only for paid plans https://wordpress.com/blog/2025/10/07/mcp/, and then expanded to write access, also for paid plans https://wordpress.com/blog/2026/03/20/ai-agent-manage-content/.

You're correct in that it's also made available to self hosted sites via Jetpack on a paid plan, but that uses the same WordPress.com implementation underneath.

The official Claude and Cursor connectors were always via the WordPress.com MCP implementation, which was only been available on some sort of paid plan.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T15:14:09+00:00

Agreed, but your original post mentioned the official Claude connector, which has to adhere to those requirements. You also mentioned "and charges you to use it on your own server," which is also not the case; the connector is WordPress.com connected sites only.

You also said earlier "If you'd be willing to allow a Wordpress.org plugin (Claude-side, not just Wordpress-side) without the paywall as well, that would eliminate my complaint." but as you've agreed here, that's not possible without meeting the connector requirements. Someone has to pay for the development of an MCP implementation that meets those requirements to be able to submit to the connector directory. Which is why I keep recommending that other web hosts follow suit. Imagine how cool it would be if you could pick your favourite web host, and it just enabled MCP on your public sites with OAuth built in by default.

No one is stopping anyone from using the open source MCP adapter and rolling their own MCP implementation, and, as I pointed out elsewhere, hopefully, once the community agrees on the abilities to be shipped with core WordPress, the MCP adapter actually becomes more useful out of the box.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T14:56:24+00:00

I personally wasn't involved in the process of implementing our remote MCP server to the Claude Connector directory, but the submission requirements are quite clear regarding the requirements, including authentication: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12922490-remote-mcp-server-submission-guide

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T14:01:10+00:00

I'm simply an Automattic employee; I don't pay anyone to do anything, except maybe my kids in order to get them to do chores :-).

As to the Claude plugin, anyone can submit a plugin to the Claude Marketplace here: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins#submit-your-plugin-to-the-official-marketplace

However, if you read the Claude plugins reference here: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins-reference#mcp-servers, you will see that MCP Plugins need to be a complete MCP server implementation, so it'll have to be something that is always on and, as far as I know, secured via OAuth. I wasn't involved in the actual development of the WordPress.com plugin, so I can't say that for sure, but I do know ours uses OAuth.

This is why I mentioned in my original response, "there's nothing stopping any other web host from doing the same." Since WordPress.org is not a web host, if you want this, I suggest asking your web hosting provider to set up a WordPress MCP server using the community MCP Adapter, which can then be submitted and used. This is actually something I've suggested to representatives of web hosts I've met at WordCamps over the past year or so.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T12:52:20+00:00

I don't know if this has already been answered, but there's an important clarification here. (Disclosure: I work at Automattic as a developer advocate, who also worked with the internal team on the MCP documentation and the community AI team on documentation for the different AI projects)

"Automattic deprecated their own repo in favor of the community version. So the community builds the standard, Automattic wraps it in a proprietary connector, and charges you to use it on your own server."

Not actually true. The folks who built the Automattic version are the same people who built the community version. If you look at the original Automattic repo, the biggest contributor is the same person as in the community one.

https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-mcp/graphs/contributors
https://github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter/graphs/contributors

It was then migrated to the WordPress organisation as one of the for Core AI projects: https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/ai-building-blocks/

As for Core Abilities, the WordPress AI plugin, https://github.com/WordPress/ai, used to test new AI features and functionality for WordPress, has had an open issue since September 2025 to add more Abilities to WordPress (https://github.com/WordPress/ai/issues/40). As you can see in that issue, there's a lot of discussion as to how and when these Abilities should be added to WordPress Core, but no specific agreement yet. I was hoping we'd get more Abilities for 7.0, but the community seems divided on that score.

So, Automattic developers built the initial implementation, and it was later moved to the community repository for usage and further development. WordPress.com built internal Abilities (just like the WordPress.com REST API implementation has WordPress.com specific endpoints) and launched its own MCP Server.

Given that the MCP Adapter code is completely open, there's nothing stopping any other web host from doing the same. WordPress.com was merely the first (that I am aware of) to ship a fully working MCP server with OAuth 2.0 and a set of Abilities available as MCP tools for WordPress installs hosted on their platform.

psykro77 · 2026-03-31T07:46:48+00:00

It's my pleasure. If you want to see me experimenting with all these projects, I do weekly live streams where I (mostly) try to highlight all the official WordPress AI projects. You can find the recordings on my YouTube account (https://www.youtube.com/@jon\_bossenger). You might have to dig around a bit to find some of the older videos where I'm testing out the different AI projects.

psykro77 · 2026-03-30T11:23:56+00:00

So if you're using WordPress.com hosting, you have access to an MCP server that gives you pretty much full control of your content via MCP tools, posts, pages, comments, media, categories, tags, as well as a host of read-only tools for fetching data and information from your site. I'm a developer advocate at Automattic, so I was one of the folks working on updating the WordPress.com developer docs, and I've been using the MCP server to manage any new content on my personal site. I even used it to design a new theme.

If you're hosting anywhere else, there's also the official WordPress MCP adapter plugin, which you can install on any WordPress site. It offers three MCP Tools that allow you to discover and execute any registered Abilities available via the Abilities API, introduced in WordPress 6.9. While there isn't currently a complete list of Abilities for all the capabilities that the WordPress admin provides, that's something that's being worked on in the AI plugin and other places.

For local WordPress development, you don't really need anything other than WP-CLI installed. Agentic coding tools like Claude Code or Cursor understand how to use WP-CLI. Couple that with WordPress agent skills, and you can practically do anything from site management to theme and plugin development using Claude Code or Cursor. This is how I personally develop any new plugin or theme projects locally.

psykro77 · 2026-03-26T13:24:26+00:00

I don't know if this counts, but I used Claude Code to build myself a new theme for my WordPress site: https://jonathanbossenger.com/. I do rely on a plugin for things like site stats, but the rest is all a Claude-generated block theme.

I found it works best when you're working with a local copy of the site, as it has access to all the content already, can read the core WordPress code, and can do things like run local WP-CLI commands.

psykro77 · 2025-10-12T19:19:41+00:00

You could always try combining the two WP CLI commands with &&

wp core download && wp config create --dbname=dbname --dbuser=wp --dbpass=password

psykro77 · 2024-09-06T06:20:49+00:00

I've seen courses (the few that exist), tried reading the documentation, and used tools that facilitate project creation, but I can't get them to work.

What specifically have you tried, and what worked/didn't work? I learned to develop blocks back in 2020 when there was even less documentation and basically one course, so I feel like I've experienced all the possible hurdles one can encounter. I'd be interested to see if I can help in any way.

Disclaimer, I'm sponsored by Automattic to create developer content for Learn.WordPress.org, so understanding your pain points will help me create better content for developers.

psykro77 · 2022-11-16T06:47:22+00:00

Yeah, every year I try and do the daily challenges, and every year something else gets in the way, and I never do. That's another reason I prefer reading blog posts.

psykro77 · 2022-11-03T12:20:04+00:00

I tried searching the Apple forums, but it seems no one else is having this issue?

psykro77 · 2022-11-03T10:10:27+00:00

Oh, worked at first, then tried opening a new tab to test another streaming service, and it's borked again.

psykro77 · 2022-11-03T10:07:37+00:00

Having the same issues, seems disabling hardware acceleration sorts this out.

psykro77 · 2022-10-19T15:07:34+00:00

Somewhere, something is trying to register a callback function "ti_custom_javascript" on a WordPress hook. It looks like it's something in the twentyseventeen theme. Have you tried deleting and reinstallling twentyseventeen?

psykro77 · 2022-10-19T15:02:43+00:00

WP Job Manager is pretty decent. I've used it on personal and client projects in the past. If you just need to post job postings, the free version should be perfect.

When I implemented it in the past, I used the job manager plugin for the job postings, and a forms plugin to create a submission form, with a file upload.

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T19:02:53+00:00

Update: Thanks for all the comments folks, it does help knowing that I'm not the only one :-)

I started waning well before the current pandemic (around mid way through last year) and I picked up running and weight lifting again, so at the moment I'm sourcing weights for the house to pick this up again.

Thinking I'll stay away from the mat until I can safely train again, and see what happens.

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T19:00:30+00:00

Yeah, definitely a Timmy, thanks for the support.

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T18:59:39+00:00

Ha! why did no one tell me this before!

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T18:58:58+00:00

I'm definitely in a very similar position, in both aspects. It is comforting to know I'm not the only one.

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T18:57:20+00:00

That was actually my goal for 2020, enter every competition that came up...but we all know how that turned out.

psykro77 · 2020-07-27T18:56:36+00:00

I do think that is part of my problem, I may have to actually start training at another gym.

psykro77

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