taxonomies/get-term-seo reads the Yoast SEO fields on one taxonomy term: SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase, canonical, breadcrumb title, noindex and cornerstone.
It is the term equivalent of Yoast’s own post-only SEO read.
At a glance
| Ability | taxonomies/get-term-seo |
| Toolset | Yoast SEO — toolset/yoast-seo |
| Group | Yoast SEO › Term SEO |
| Requires | Yoast SEO, active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Read-only — changes nothing |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Abilities Manager 0.0.34 and later |
How it works
Yoast stores term SEO in a single wpseo_taxonomy_meta option keyed by taxonomy and term, not in term meta. Anything reading term meta finds nothing, and anything writing term meta is writing somewhere Yoast never looks.
That storage choice is old and surprising, and it is the reason this ability exists. A migration script, an import, or a generic meta-reading tool all look in term meta, find nothing, and conclude the term has no SEO configuration — when it has.
It also means term SEO does not survive tools that copy term meta between sites, and does survive tools that copy options. Neither is obvious.
The fields themselves are the usual set, with one addition: the breadcrumb title, which is what a term shows in a breadcrumb trail when it differs from the term name. On a site with long category names that is a real setting rather than a nicety.
Yoast ships abilities of its own for single posts. This suite fills in what those cannot reach rather than duplicating them.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
taxonomy | string | Yes | The taxonomy. |
term_id | integer | Yes | The term. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
term_seo | object | SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase, canonical, breadcrumb title, noindex and cornerstone. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
What SEO settings does the “Guides” category have?
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "taxonomies/get-term-seo",
"parameters": {
"taxonomy": "category",
"term_id": 87
}
}Worth knowing
- Stored in one option, not in term meta. Generic meta reads miss it entirely.
- Does not travel with tools that copy term meta.
- The breadcrumb title is separate from the term name.
- Read-only.
Related abilities
- Update Term SEO — write these fields
- List Term SEO — a whole taxonomy at once
- Get Taxonomy SEO Settings — the settings above the term
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
Browse the rest: Every ability, by category