Connect Claude Desktop to your own WordPress site over the Model Context Protocol. Claude talks to your site directly — there is no relay in between, no account to create, and your credentials never leave your machine. Setup takes about a minute once MCP Manager is installed.
Free plugin · No account · Runs on your own server · Any WordPress host
Config file
claude_desktop_config.json
Top-level key
mcpServers
Transport
npx bridge over HTTP
Before you start
You need AcrossAI MCP Manager installed and active on the WordPress site you want Claude to reach, plus an administrator account on that site. If you have not installed it yet, follow the Get Started guide first — it takes about a minute, and the MCP server ships bundled with the plugin.
You also need Node.js on the machine running Claude Desktop, because the connection runs through an npx bridge. Nothing is installed permanently — npx fetches the bridge on demand.
How to connect Claude Desktop to WordPress
Step 1
Open Quick Connect and choose Claude Desktop
In wp-admin go to AcrossAI → MCP, open the server you want to expose, and start Quick Connect. Pick Claude Desktop from the client list. Everything below is generated for you with your real site URL and username already filled in.
Step 2
Generate an Application Password
Click Generate password in the wizard. This creates a standard WordPress Application Password — not your login password — scoped to this connection and revocable at any time from your user profile.
The password is shown once, at creation. Copy it whole, including the spaces — WordPress accepts them. If you lose it, generate a new one rather than trying to recover it.
Step 3
Paste the config into claude_desktop_config.json
The quickest route to the file is inside Claude Desktop itself: Settings → Developer → Edit Config. That opens the folder containing claude_desktop_config.json. On macOS it lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/; on Windows at %APPDATA%\Claude\.
Paste the entry under the mcpServers key. If you already have other MCP servers configured, add this one alongside them rather than replacing the file.
{
"mcpServers": {
"your-site-mcp-adapter-default-server": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote@latest"],
"env": {
"WP_API_URL": "https://example.com/wp-json/acrossai/mcp",
"WP_API_USERNAME": "your-wp-username",
"WP_API_PASSWORD": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"
}
}
}
}Step 4
Restart Claude Desktop and check the tools
Quit Claude Desktop completely and reopen it — closing the window is not enough on macOS. Your site appears in the tools menu, and the toolsets it exposes become available in chat. Ask something harmless to confirm it is live — “Which plugins on this site need updating?” is a good first test.
What Claude can do once it is connected
With Abilities Manager installed alongside it, Claude reaches 350+ abilities across 14 toolsets — rising past 800 once it detects the plugins you already run. In plain conversation it can:
- Write and edit content — posts, pages and any custom post type with their meta and revisions, and surgically edit a page’s block tree without rewriting the page.
- Build pages — from block patterns, generating whole sections and landing pages, then auditing the copy and design it produced.
- Run maintenance — updates, backups, Site Health, recent fatal errors, cron and cache, without opening wp-admin.
- Tidy an archive — categorise every post, fix internal links, audit SEO meta across a back catalogue.
- Reach the plugins you already run — WooCommerce, Elementor, ACF, Rank Math, Yoast, WPCode and more, each registering only when that plugin is active.
Every ability runs WordPress’s own capability check for the calling user, so Claude can never do anything your account could not already do. See the full platform overview for the complete catalogue.
Frequently asked questions
Is connecting Claude to WordPress free?
Yes. AcrossAI MCP Manager and Abilities Manager are both free and GPL on WordPress.org, and there is no AcrossAI account to create. You use the Claude subscription you already have — AcrossAI never charges for AI inference, because none of it runs here.
Does my site data pass through AcrossAI servers?
No. Claude Desktop connects straight to your own domain and every request terminates at your /wp-json/ route. There is no relay, no gateway and no telemetry. Whatever Claude reads is still processed by Anthropic, so treat it as you would any other prompt.
What about claude.ai in the browser?
The config file on this page applies to the Claude Desktop app. Connecting claude.ai in a browser uses a custom connector with OAuth sign-in instead of an Application Password — see the Claude connector guide for that route. Claude Code, the terminal tool, has its own guide.
Can Claude break my site?
Every ability runs WordPress’s own capability check for the calling user, so Claude can never exceed what your account can already do. Higher-risk operations refuse to run without an explicit confirmation flag, file access is confined to an allowlist you define, search-and-replace is a dry run by default, and any ability can be disallowed site-wide.
How do I disconnect Claude again?
Revoke the Application Password from your WordPress user profile, or remove the entry from claude_desktop_config.json. Access is re-checked on every request, so revoking takes effect immediately even if the config is still on the machine.
Troubleshooting
Claude Desktop does not list the server at all
Quit the app completely rather than closing the window — on macOS, Cmd+W leaves it running and the config is only read at launch. Check the file is valid JSON: a trailing comma or missing brace makes Claude skip it silently. Confirm your entry sits under mcpServers and not at the root. Claude Desktop also has a log viewer under Settings → Developer that shows why a server failed to start.
The server appears but has no tools
That is the connection working and the catalogue being empty. Either Abilities Manager is not installed — MCP Manager will serve an empty catalogue quite happily — or the abilities exist but are not exposed to this particular server. Open AcrossAI → MCP, select the server, and check its Tools and Abilities tabs. After changing what a server exposes, restart Claude: MCP clients receive their tool list once, at connection time.
Authentication fails
Application Passwords are shown once and are not your login password. Generate a fresh one from Quick Connect rather than retyping an old one, and copy it complete with spaces. If the request is being refused rather than failing, check the server’s access rules — a new server requires manage_options until you add a rule, and the gate fails closed.
It worked yesterday and stopped today
Access is re-checked on every request, not just at setup. A change to your role, capability or membership takes effect immediately, and a saved config does not keep working. Revoking the Application Password has the same effect.
npx is not found
The bridge runs through npx, which ships with Node.js. Install Node.js on the machine running Claude Desktop and restart it. A desktop app does not inherit your shell’s PATH, so if Node came from a version manager such as nvm you will usually need to point command at the absolute path to npx — run which npx in a terminal to find it.
Connect a different AI client
The same server works with every MCP client — only the config file and top-level key change. See the guides for Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Zed, Codex and every other client.
Not installed yet?
Install MCP Manager on your site, then come back and run Quick Connect.