The WordPress AI Team — formed in May 2025 — is doing important foundational work. The Abilities API shipped in WordPress 6.9, the MCP Adapter is maturing rapidly, and the WP AI Client is on track for WordPress 7.0. These are the building blocks that make WordPress intelligible to AI systems.
Agent Builder exists because building blocks need builders. We focus on the layer above: giving site owners ready-to-use AI assistants that understand WordPress deeply, with the safety controls and audit trail that production sites require. As the official infrastructure matures, we’re aligning our architecture to build on top of it — not beside it.
The WordPress AI Building Blocks
PHP AI Client SDK
Proposed for WP 7.0A provider-agnostic PHP library for communicating with LLMs. Supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others through a unified AiClient::prompt() interface. The WordPress-specific package adds REST API endpoints, an admin credentials screen, and a JavaScript client.
Abilities API
Shipped in WP 6.9A central registry where WordPress core, plugins, and themes can describe what they can do in a standardised, machine-readable format. Any registered ability is discoverable and executable via PHP, REST API, and external AI systems.
Core ships with built-in abilities: core/get-site-info, core/get-user-info, core/manage-plugins, core/manage-comments — with the expectation that the ecosystem will register many more.
MCP Adapter
v0.3.0Translates registered abilities into the Model Context Protocol (MCP) format, so external AI assistants — Claude Desktop, Cursor, ChatGPT — can discover and execute WordPress functionality as MCP tools and resources.
Authentication is handled via OAuth 2.1 on WordPress.com and via JWT tokens or application passwords on self-hosted sites.
AI Experiments Plugin
v0.3.0The reference implementation that brings all building blocks together. Includes title generation, excerpt generation, and the Abilities Explorer. Serves as both a practical tool and a developer guide.
Where Agent Builder Fits
The Abilities API is the framework. Agent Builder is a working implementation that fills gaps the framework deliberately leaves open.
What Core Provides
Core provides the registry, the protocols, and the standards. It answers the question “what can this site do?” in a format that machines can read. It gives developers wp_register_ability() and the MCP Adapter so that external AI tools can interact with WordPress.
What Agent Builder Provides
Agent Builder provides the agents, the safety layer, and the end-user experience. It answers the question “what should this site do right now?” by giving site owners pre-built AI assistants with production-grade controls.
| Capability | Core AI | Agent Builder |
|---|---|---|
| Registry of abilities | ✓ Abilities API | ✓ Agent Tools system |
| LLM communication | ✓ WP AI Client SDK | ✓ Built-in (multi-provider) |
| External AI access | ✓ MCP Adapter | — |
| WordPress CRUD tools | 4 minimal abilities | 12+ production tools |
| Granular tool enable/disable | — | ✓ Admin toggle per tool |
| Scope-based access control | — | ✓ By directory and operation |
| Sensitive data blocking | — | ✓ Pattern-based filtering |
| Audit logging | Hooks only | ✓ Every tool call logged |
| Draft-only safety | — | ✓ Agents cannot publish directly |
| Assistant marketplace | — | ✓ Install, activate, configure |
| Third-party agent ecosystem | — | ✓ agentic_agent_tools filter |
“We hope to make it easy for developers to create AI Agents, chatbots, workflow automations and more, using the AI Building Blocks.”— WordPress AI Building Blocks Announcement
They’re building the blocks. We’re building the agents — and the marketplace that makes them accessible to every site owner.
How We’re Aligning
Agent Builder’s tool system and the Abilities API solve related problems with different design priorities. Our tools are formatted for direct LLM function-calling with built-in safety controls. Abilities are protocol-agnostic registrations designed for ecosystem-wide discoverability. Both are needed.
Standalone with Backwards Compatibility
Agent Builder runs on WordPress 6.0+ with its own LLM integration and tool system. No dependency on the Abilities API or WP AI Client. This validates the agent-as-plugin model and ensures the widest possible compatibility.
Abilities Bridge
On WordPress 6.9+, Agent Builder detects the Abilities API at runtime and creates a two-way bridge:
Agent Builder’s 12+ WordPress tools get dual-registered as abilities, making them discoverable through the MCP Adapter, the Command Palette, and any other consumer of the Abilities API.
Agent Builder discovers abilities registered by other plugins and makes them available to our agents as tools — automatically. If your SEO plugin registers an ability, our agents can use it without any integration code.
// Runtime detection — never a hard dependency
if ( function_exists( 'wp_register_ability' ) ) {
add_action( 'wp_abilities_api_init', [ $bridge, 'register_tools_as_abilities' ] );
}On pre-6.9 installations, everything continues working exactly as it does today.
WP AI Client Adoption
When the WP AI Client SDK lands in core, Agent Builder will adopt it for LLM communication. This gives agents access to host-provided AI credentials and the unified provider interface — configure your API keys once in WordPress settings, and all agents can use them.
Agent Builder will still support its own credential management as a fallback for sites that haven’t configured the core client.
Full Ecosystem Integration
Agent capabilities exposed via MCP, allowing external AI assistants to orchestrate agents installed on a WordPress site. The third-party ability discovery UI gives site owners visibility into every capability their agents can access.
What We’re Contributing Back
Several patterns we’ve built for agent safety don’t exist in core yet. We see these as opportunities to contribute upstream:
Sensitive Data Filtering
Our is_sensitive_name() pattern blocks agent access to options and meta containing passwords, API keys, and secrets. The Abilities API relies on permission callbacks alone, which check who can act but not what data is safe to expose.
Protected Options
We maintain a blocklist of critical options (siteurl, home, active_plugins) that agents cannot modify regardless of permissions. This safety net prevents misconfiguration even with administrator-level access.
Audit Logging
Every tool call is logged with the agent ID, tool name, and arguments. Core fires hooks before and after ability execution, but doesn’t provide a built-in audit trail.
Scope-Based Access Control
Our system lets administrators restrict agent access by directory and operation type (plugins:read, themes:write). This is more granular than ability-level permissions.
Getting Involved
WordPress AI Team
Shape the foundation. Weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 17:00 UTC via Google Meet.
make.wordpress.org/ai ↗#core-ai on Slack
Join the discussion in the official WordPress Slack channel for AI development.
WordPress Slack ↗Agent Builder
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