AI Block Editor – Gutenberg Block Generator & AI Assistant vs Enable Abilities for MCP

AI Block Editor adds a Gutenberg blocks assistant inside the WordPress editor. Describe what you want to add or change, and AI Editor will place, arrange, and update WordPress blocks directly in the editor. Use it for complex block layouts or simple edits. It supports the latest OpenAI models and lets you use your own API key. When your theme uses theme.json, AI Editor can follow your global styles, presets, and design tokens like colors, typography, spacing, and layout so generated blocks match your site’s design system. Major updates released in May 2026: theme.json style matching, selected block editing, and newer AI models with reasoning controls. Features Natural language block creation: Describe your desired content in plain language and the AI will handle the rest. Core Gutenberg blocks: AI Editor can use core Gutenberg blocks to create complete page sections and complex layouts, not just add single blocks one at a time. Selected block editing: Select one or more blocks in Gutenberg and ask AI Editor to update the selected content or layout. Custom block editing: Custom and third-party blocks can be edited after you add and select them. AI Editor uses the markup it can see for the selected block, so review the result because custom blocks may have private fields, dynamic rendering, or plugin-specific rules the AI cannot fully infer. Existing content lookup (WordPress 6.9+): AI Editor can look up existing WordPress posts, pages, and public custom post types for context, then use that text while helping you create or edit content. Theme-aware output: For themes that use theme.json, AI Editor can use your theme’s presets and editor settings to keep generated layouts consistent with your site’s colors, spacing, typography, and other design styles. Abilities API support: On WordPress 6.9+, connect custom WordPress Abilities API features to AI Editor so it can use site-specific data or actions while helping in the editor. Resizable sidebar: Drag the left edge of the AI Editor sidebar to make the chat panel wider. GPT model selection: Choose from the GPT models supported by AI Editor and available to your OpenAI account. Reasoning effort controls: Choose how much reasoning the model should use for faster simple edits or more careful complex layout work. Conversation context controls: Limit how many recent chat messages are sent with each request. Prompt caching: AI Editor keeps repeated system instructions stable so OpenAI prompt caching can reuse shared context when available, helping monitor API usage and reduce repeated input processing. Theme compatibility check: Review whether the active theme is a good fit for AI Editor’s Gutenberg and theme style workflow. BYOK: Use your own OpenAI API key. Language translation: Multilingual support. Prompt Examples “Add this article as a magazine-style layout using blocks: (paste article here).” “Create a layout for an About Us page, including sections for a mission statement, team members, and contact.” “Add 3 columns, each with a pricing plan.” “Create a table comparing the caffeine content of popular drinks.” “Rewrite this testimonial block to sound more concise.” “Update the selected columns for better balance.” Getting The Best Results Quickly add content blocks: Ask AI Editor to add headings, sections, buttons, lists, tables, columns, and other core blocks for your content. Turn full copy into blocks: Paste a full page draft or section copy and let AI Editor structure it into blocks. Use existing site content: Ask AI Editor to work from existing posts, pages, or custom post types when the request needs site context. With lower models or no reasoning, be explicit, such as “use the current page content as context” or “find posts about pricing and add a summary section.” Choose settings for the task: Select an available model and adjust reasoning effort based on the complexity of the requested layout or edit. Select the right amount of content: If the change depends on a parent layout, columns, group spacing, or surrounding section structure, select the whole relevant block or section and say what you want changed. Use narrow selections for simple edits: If you only need a specific text, button, heading, or single block changed, select just that block and give a direct instruction. Settings Navigate to Settings -> AI Editor to configure the plugin. OpenAI API Key: Add your own OpenAI API key. Requests are sent from your WordPress site to OpenAI. GPT Model: Choose the model AI Editor should use. Reasoning Effort: Choose none, low, medium, or high. Lower values are faster for simple edits; higher values can help with larger layouts or more careful restructuring but may take longer and use more tokens. Theme Style Context For AI: A short style note used as design direction. AI Editor can rewrite the active theme description with AI. Raw theme presets are handled separately, so this field should stay short and human-readable. Limit Conversation Context Sent To OpenAI: Turn on/off trimming of older chat messages before sending a new request. Max Messages In Conversation Context: Set how many recent messages are kept when conversation context trimming is enabled. The default is 50. Theme Compatibility For AI Editor: Run a compatibility check for the active theme. It reviews Gutenberg support, block theme signals, editor style support, and available theme presets so you can spot where manual cleanup may be needed. Note: AI Editor is powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology. For more information on the data handling and privacy aspects, please refer to OpenAI’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Connect Custom Abilities On WordPress 6.9+, developers can connect custom abilities registered with the WordPress Abilities API to AI Editor. If your plugin or theme registers a custom ability, add an AI Editor config to the ability meta. Example: 'meta' => array( 'ai_editor' => array( 'action_name' => 'get_product_details', 'description' => 'Use this when the user asks for current product details from WooCommerce.', ), ) AI Editor will only use abilities that explicitly opt in. Keep ability results focused and avoid returning large private datasets or unrelated site data. Requirements PHP 7.0+ is recommended, WordPress 5.8+, with Gutenberg active. An OpenAI API key is required.

Enable Abilities for MCP gives you full control over which WordPress Abilities are available to AI assistants through the MCP (Model Context Protocol) Adapter. WordPress 6.9 introduced the Abilities API, allowing external tools to discover and execute actions on your site. This plugin extends that functionality by registering a comprehensive set of content management abilities and providing a simple admin interface to toggle each one on or off. Connect from claude.ai with just a URL Since version 2.1 the plugin ships an embedded OAuth 2.1 server built for claude.ai custom connectors. Add your site in claude.ai → Settings → Connectors, log in with your WordPress user, approve the consent screen — connected. No Client ID, no Application Password, no local configuration. Works from the claude.ai web app, mobile apps, and Claude Desktop Each team member authenticates with their own WordPress account and role — a subscriber can never do what only an editor should Every ability execution lands in the activity log under the real user’s name Works on single sites, subdirectory installs, and multisite networks (network-activate so the main site serves the OAuth discovery documents for every subsite) Prefer tokens? Application Passwords (per-user) and a single-admin Bearer token connect Claude Desktop / Claude Code, OpenAI Codex CLI, and Google Antigravity — the Connection tab generates ready-to-paste configuration for each client, and fills in your credentials automatically. Features 91 abilities organized in 18 categories: Core, Read, Write, SEO (Rank Math), SEO (SEOPress), SEO (Yoast), Navigation Menus, Utility, Multilanguage, Custom Post Types, WooCommerce, The Events Calendar, Code Snippets, JetEngine Options Pages, Elementor, LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and AI Agent Readiness (llms.txt) WooCommerce integration — dedicated abilities to manage products, orders, and customers using the native WooCommerce API (HPOS-compatible, formally declared) The Events Calendar integration — list, get, create, and update events with venue, organizer, and date filters claude.ai OAuth custom connector — connect from claude.ai (web, mobile, or desktop) with zero local setup: an embedded OAuth 2.1 server with Client ID Metadata Document (CIMD) support lets each user log in with their own WordPress account and role Admin dashboard with toggle switches for each ability Per-ability control — expose only what you need Third-party ability control — abilities registered by other MCP-ready plugins (e.g. Fluent Forms) appear in the same dashboard, grouped by plugin, with the same per-ability toggles; disabling one removes it from every MCP server on the site Secure by design — proper capability checks, input sanitization, and per-post permission validation WPCS compliant — fully passes WordPress Coding Standards (phpcs) MCP-ready — all abilities include show_in_rest and mcp.public metadata Available Abilities Read (safe, query-only): Get posts with filters (status, category, tag, search) Get single post details (content, SEO meta, featured image) Get categories, tags, pages, comments, media, and users Write (create & modify): Create, update, and delete posts Create categories and tags Create pages Moderate comments Reply to comments as the authenticated user Upload images from external URLs to the media library (with optional auto-assign as featured image) Duplicate any post, page, or custom post type item — including all post meta (ACF, SEO, featured image) and taxonomy terms; saved as a draft by default SEO — Rank Math: Get full Rank Math metadata for any post/page (title, description, keywords, robots, Open Graph, SEO score) Update Rank Math metadata: SEO title, description, focus keyword, canonical URL, robots, Open Graph, primary category, pillar content SEO — SEOPress: Get full SEOPress metadata for any post/page (title, description, focus keyword, robots, canonical, Open Graph, Twitter Card) Update SEOPress metadata: SEO title, description, focus keyword, canonical URL, robots directives, Open Graph, Twitter Card SEO — Yoast SEO: Get full Yoast SEO metadata for any post/page (title, description, focus keyphrase, canonical, robots, Open Graph, Twitter Card) Update Yoast SEO metadata: SEO title, description, focus keyphrase, canonical URL, robots (noindex, nofollow, advanced), Open Graph, Twitter Card Get Yoast sitemap index — fetch and parse the sitemap index, returning all registered sitemap URLs with last modification date Custom Post Types: List all registered custom post types with configuration and taxonomies Get items from any CPT with filtering, search, and taxonomy queries Get full details of a CPT item including all meta fields (WooCommerce, ACF, JetEngine, etc.) Create, update, and delete CPT items with taxonomy and meta field support Get CPT taxonomies with their terms Assign taxonomy terms to CPT items WooCommerce: List products with price, SKU, stock status, categories, and type Get full product detail including gallery, attributes, and variations Update product price, sale price, stock quantity, and status List orders with customer, total, status, and date (HPOS-compatible) Get full order detail: line items, billing/shipping, totals, and notes Update order status with optional note List customers with email, name, total spent, and order count The Events Calendar: List events with start/end date, venue, organizer, and date range filter Get full event detail with resolved venue address and organizer contact Create new events with title, description, dates, venue, and organizer Update existing events Navigation Menus: List menus with item counts and theme locations, and get one menu’s full item hierarchy Create a new menu, and add pages, posts, categories, tags, or custom URLs as items (with parent and position) Update an item’s title, URL, parent, or position Remove an item, assign a menu to a theme location, or delete a menu entirely (opt-in — destructive) Tutor LMS: Read a lesson’s video source configuration (type, value, and runtime) Set a lesson’s video source (external URL, YouTube, Vimeo, HTML5, or a third-party source such as Bunny.net) using Tutor’s own storage function — avoids the string-only limitation of the generic Update Post Meta ability, which Tutor cannot read back List courses, and get a single course’s full detail with its topics/lessons hierarchy Get a user’s enrollment status and completion progress for a course Get a user’s quiz attempt results, optionally filtered to a single quiz Enroll a user in a course, and unenroll them (both opt-in, manage_options only) Utility: Search and replace text in post content Site statistics overview (includes custom post type counts) Update any post meta field by exact key (with protected internal key blocklist) Requirements WordPress 6.9 or later (Abilities API) MCP Adapter plugin installed and configured PHP 8.0 or later