How to Connect Claude Code to Your WordPress Site (Step-by-Step)

Claude Code is Anthropic’s terminal-based AI coding tool. But once it’s connected to your WordPress site via MCP, it’s much more than a coding assistant — it becomes a site management agent that can read, create, and update content directly.

Here’s the complete setup.

What You’ll Need

• WordPress site (6.x or later)
• Admin access to install plugins
• Claude Code installed locally (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
• A WordPress Application Password (WP Admin → Users → your profile → Application Passwords)

Step 1: Install the WordPress MCP Adapter

The MCP Adapter is a free plugin from the WordPress project. It provides the transport layer — the JSON-RPC endpoint your AI client will connect to.

1. Download from github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter
2. Install via WP Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Activate. Note your endpoint URL: https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server

Step 2: Install WDS MCP Content Manager

The Adapter provides the transport; WDS MCP Content Manager registers the 45 abilities that define what your AI can actually do on the site.

1. Purchase and download from wallstrdev.com
2. Install and activate in WP Admin → Plugins
3. Enter your license key in Settings → MCP Content Manager → License
4. Generate an Application Password in WP Admin → Users → your profile → Application Passwords. Name it “Claude Code” and copy the password.

Step 3: Add Your Site to Claude Code’s MCP Config

Claude Code reads MCP servers from its settings file. Add your WordPress site:

claude mcp add wordpress 
  --url https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server 
  --header "Authorization: Basic $(echo -n 'your-username:your-app-password' | base64)"

Or manually edit ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wordpress": {
      "url": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Basic YOUR_BASE64_ENCODED_CREDENTIALS"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Test the Connection

claude
> List my 5 most recent posts

You should see your post titles, URLs, and dates returned directly in the conversation. If you get an authentication error, double-check that your Application Password is correct and that the base64 encoding includes the colon: username:password.

What You Can Do Once Connected

With 45 abilities registered, Claude Code can now:

• Create, update, and schedule blog posts with full SEO metadata
• Manage WooCommerce products — create, update pricing, inject JSON-LD schema
• Build and update Elementor pages via HTML injection or native JSON
• Upload images from URLs to the media library
• Set Polylang languages and link translation pairs
• Trigger Yoast SEO reindexing after bulk metadata updates

The full ability reference is in the plugin docs. Start with "What abilities do you have access to on my WordPress site?" to get the complete list in your session.