Version 1.8.0 adds three things to the admin: a Site Brief you write once for every agent, a Connection Doctor that checks why an agent cannot connect, and a Needs review card for the drafts your agents write. It also changes one thing on upgrade day. Existing sites move to a new Settings switch set to Automatic, which starts the MCP Adapter’s default server only when another plugin publishes tools there.
The catalog is unchanged at 179 abilities, and no ability was added, removed or renamed.
Takeaways:
- Site Brief is up to 1,500 characters of rules that the plugin sends to every agent when its session starts. Whether an agent follows it depends on the client.
- Check my connection (the Connection Doctor) tests the connection from your own server and names the fix.
- Needs review lists the drafts and pending posts an agent starts. Pair it with Force draft on create.
- Update day: if another plugin publishes tools to the Adapter’s default server, that server now starts on Automatic. Those tools are not governed by this plugin.
- A site that ran the standalone Adapter only for WordPress core abilities should pick Always on.
Site Brief: tell every agent about your site once
Open the Settings tab and you will find a Site Brief box. Write a few lines about how your site works, for example your house style or what to leave alone, and every agent that connects to this plugin’s endpoint receives the text when its session starts.
A few facts about how it behaves:
- It is plain text, capped at 1,500 characters.
- Only you can change it. No ability writes the Brief, so an agent cannot edit the rules it is given.
- Each change is recorded in the Activity Log as “Site brief updated”, without the text itself.
- Keep passwords and private details out of it, because every connected agent reads it.
It is guidance, not enforcement. Whether an agent follows the Brief depends on the client, so use safety controls for anything that must hold.
Connection Doctor: find out why an agent cannot connect
On the Connection tab, click Check my connection. The checks run from your own server, and nothing is sent to anyone else. They cover whether the endpoint answers, whether PHP receives the Authorization header, Application Passwords, HTTPS, permalinks, security plugins, and the OAuth discovery documents when OAuth is on.
Each failing row says who can fix it, and the Authorization header row includes the server lines to pass the header through. Because the checks are requests your site makes to itself, they can miss a CDN or firewall rule that only blocks the AI client’s traffic. The step-by-step version is in why ChatGPT or Claude can’t connect to your WordPress site.
Needs review: look over drafts before they go live
The Dashboard has a new Needs review card. It lists the drafts and pending posts your agents start, each with Preview, Open in editor, Publish and Discard buttons. Discard moves the post to the Trash, and it is unavailable when the Trash is off.
The card pairs with Force draft on create, which saves what an agent creates as a draft. Two limits matter. Force draft does not hold edits to posts that are already live, so connect the agent as a Contributor if you want those reviewed too, and the card lists posts an agent starts, not every post it touches. Review what your AI agent wrote before it goes live covers both.
The Adapter’s default server can now start when you update
The WordPress MCP Adapter has a built-in default server. According to the Adapter’s README, WordPress abilities are private by default, and a plugin exposes one by setting meta.public or meta.mcp.public to true. Other plugins use that to publish their own tools.
In earlier releases, other plugins’ tools on that server stopped working while this plugin was active. 1.8.0 brings the server back and puts it behind a Settings switch with three choices. Tools that other plugins publish there are not governed by this plugin, so read the next two sections before you update:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Automatic (the default) | Starts the server only when another active plugin publishes tools there |
| Always on | Starts it regardless |
| Always off | Never starts it |
What happens when you update
Existing sites move to Automatic. If no other plugin publishes tools there, nothing visibly changes. If one does, the default server starts, the Settings row reads “Currently running”, and the Activity Log records the first time it happened, naming up to three of the tools.
WordPress core’s own public abilities do not count as a publisher. If you ran the standalone Adapter only to reach those, choose Always on.
What it does not cover
This plugin’s own tools are never on the default server, whichever setting you choose. They are served only by the plugin’s governed endpoint. The tools that are on the default server are not governed by this plugin: its read-only mode, allowlists, IP allowlist, rate limit and audit log do not apply to them. Choose Always off if you want none of it.
The line from the readme still holds for this plugin’s tools: nothing is exposed until you turn it on, and an update never switches one on. The default server is the one thing an update can change, which is why it gets its own section here.
Smaller fixes
- With Force draft on, an agent that sent “publish” again for a post that was already live took it offline. The post now stays live.
- A “WP_MCP_VERSION already defined” warning next to the standalone MCP Adapter 0.6.x no longer appears.
- The Settings tab no longer crashes with an older adapter copy.
- The plugin title now names Claude and ChatGPT. It reads “Agent Abilities for MCP - Connect Claude and ChatGPT with Permission Controls and Audit Log”.
What did not change
None of this plugin’s abilities changed, and each keeps the same permission check. The one thing an update can change is whether the Adapter’s default server starts. This release adds ways to brief, check and review an agent, and a switch for a server that was not working. The full history is on the changelog, and the release before this one was 1.7.10 (9 October, a fix for a Query Monitor warning), and the last one with a write-up is 1.7.9, which runs beside the standalone MCP Adapter.