HandL AI Connector Access Control vs VigIA – AI Visibility, Analytics & Control

Know when your WordPress plugins use AI. See activity. Control access. Track estimated spend. Avoid surprise AI bills See estimated spend by plugin. Add your own provider rates. Estimates are not bills. This plugin does not sell AI usage or add AI charges. Your AI provider controls actual billing. What it does Shows which plugin made each AI Client request. Shows whether each request was allowed or blocked. Shows the AI task, provider, model, tokens, and estimated spend. Lets you allow or deny each plugin. Lets you control text, image, speech, and video separately. Includes Learn mode so you can watch first. Includes Emergency stop for urgent shutdowns. Who it is for WordPress site owners. WordPress administrators. Multisite teams that manage rules one site at a time. No developer experience is required. How it works Install the plugin. Open Settings → HandL AI Connector Access Control. Turn on Learn mode. Review Activity. Add rules after you know which plugins need AI. Everyday controls Plugin rules: Allow, deny, or use the site default. Temporary allow: Optional expiry on Allow rules (auto-reverts to the site default). AI type rules: Control text, image, speech, and video separately. Learn mode: Record activity without enforcing deny rules. Emergency stop: Block AI Client calls across the site. Blocked AI tools: Stop prompts that offer blocked tools. Role gate: Choose which WordPress roles may start AI operations. More controls Denial alerts: Get an optional email when a request is blocked. Weekly report: Review activity, denials, and estimated spend by email. Estimated spend: Use token counts and your provider rates. Plugin AI profile: Open a plugin from Activity or Dashboard estimated spend to see its usage, incidents, estimated spend alerts, and current rules in one read-only view. Rule changes and CSV exports stay on their existing screens. Rules transfer: Export or import rules as JSON. Activity limits: Control how many entries are saved and for how long. Audit report: Print a governance summary (rules + activity) as PDF from your browser. Multisite overview: View status and activity for each site. WP-CLI: List and update AI type rules from the command line. Important limits AI Client calls are allowed by default until you change a rule. This plugin governs calls made through the WordPress AI Client. Version 1.2.0 can observe some direct AI connections. It does not block them. The known-provider list is not complete. Caller identification is best effort. Experimental model force is not a spending guarantee. Activity may be empty when WordPress disables AI site-wide. Privacy Activity stays on your WordPress site by default. Logging, denial alerts, and webhooks are optional. The weekly report is selected by default. It sends only while logging or Learn mode is on. See Privacy / Data below for every stored or transmitted field. Privacy / Data By default, this plugin does not send data to HandL Digital. Features that send data outside your site are optional and require an explicit setting or onboarding choice. The weekly report uses your site’s configured email system and runs only while logging or Learn mode is on. If you enable recent-call logging in Settings → HandL AI Connector Access Control, it stores a local log in the WordPress options table containing: Timestamp Allow/deny decision (AI Client rows) or observe (direct-HTTP AI observations) AI Client operation (e.g. generate_text, is_supported_for_text_generation) — or direct_http for shadow observations Capability family (text / image / speech / tts / video / unknown) for AI Client rows Provider and model when set on the prompt builder (or model preferences) In learn mode: whether a configured model pin matched, and the provider/model you pinned Truncated prompt preview and selected generation config (best-effort; AI Client rows only) Input and output token counts when the AI Client completes a generation (best-effort) Best-effort calling plugin (plugin basename) and source file Current user id and display name Initiating WordPress role slug(s) when a user context exists (role gate / audit; no usernames beyond display name already listed) Full request URI (including query string, kept only on this site) for AI Client admin-request context For direct-HTTP AI observations only: request host and path (query string stripped). No request body, no Authorization headers, no API keys. Channel label direct_http and matched provider id when known. Logs are kept as a single shared entry-based ring buffer (default 200 entries, configurable 20–1000) for both AI Client rows and direct-HTTP AI observations. An optional maximum log age (days) setting also drops rows older than the threshold on the next read or append; when both the count cap and the time-based TTL apply, the stricter limit wins. Leave maximum age empty for entry-count-only retention. Repeated direct-HTTP calls from the same attributed plugin + host (or the same unattributed file + host) that stay active within ~5 minutes of idle time are collapsed into one row whose count is the number of HTTP calls (same unit as AI Client rows). Active clusters move to the newest slot so a chatty bypass does not erase the rest of the log, and the log does not drop the chatty cluster ahead of idle rows. If you set an estimated spend alert threshold (Activity → Estimated spend alerts), the plugin may send a message via WordPress wp_mail when the retained log’s estimated total first crosses that amount (site-wide or per-plugin). The email includes the threshold, current estimated total, dated log window, and (for per-plugin alerts) the plugin name. It states that the figure is estimated (token × rate placeholder), not billing. No prompt text or user identity is included. Empty thresholds never send mail. Delivery failures are contained and never change allow/deny. If you enable denial email alerts, the plugin sends a message via WordPress wp_mail when enforcement blocks a prompt (immediate rate-limited mail, or an hourly digest). The recipient is the address you configure, or the site admin_email if left empty — that may be any address you enter, and mail is delivered through whatever transport your site uses (core PHP mail or an SMTP / transactional-mail plugin). Alert messages include: Timestamp Calling plugin (best-effort basename) AI Client operation and capability family Denial reason and any matched blocked tools Provider and model when known (may be labeled inferred) Request path only (query string is stripped before mail; full URI stays in the local log if logging is enabled) Alert mail does not include prompt preview or user identity. Digest rows waiting to send are stored in a local options queue (path-only URI) and are removed when alerts are turned off or the plugin is uninstalled. If you enable shadow-AI email alerts (Activity tab; off by default), the plugin sends a message via WordPress wp_mail the first time a given attributed plugin+host (or unattributed file+host) pair appears as a direct_http observe row in the retained log window — immediate rate-limited mail, or the same hourly digest queue, using the same recipient and mode as denial alerts. Messages are explicitly labeled observe / not blocked and include: Timestamp Best-effort calling plugin, file, or method Request host Path only (query string stripped — same redaction as denial alerts) Shadow-AI alerts do not block HTTP and are not posted to the webhook. They require logging or learn mode, and are suppressed when AI is disabled site-wide via wp_supports_ai. Chatty-cluster collapse (~5 minutes idle) and the retained-window pair check prevent duplicate alerts for the same pair. If you also set a Webhook URL (Activity → denial alert settings), the plugin POSTs a generic JSON body with the same fields as the denial email alert to that http(s) URL whenever a denial alert would fire (same alert_on_deny gate, rate limit, and immediate/digest mode — not a separate toggle). Delivery uses WordPress wp_remote_post (timeouts/non-2xx are contained like wp_mail failures and never change allow/deny). The URL is an intentional admin-supplied outbound integration (same trust model as the alert recipient). Empty URL means no webhook POST is attempted. A Send test webhook control posts a sample payload clearly labeled as a test (bypasses rate limiting). Weekly report email and shadow-AI observe alerts are not sent to the webhook in this release. If you enable the weekly report email (Activity tab), the plugin sends one message per week via WordPress wp_mail with Dashboard-style aggregates from the retained local log. This is the first surface where retained log data can leave the WordPress site (through your site’s mail transport into an inbox). The weekly report includes only: Dated window from the oldest and newest retained log timestamps (self-dating so a late WP-cron send stays honest) Coverage call counts (through the AI Client vs outside — not governed by these rules) Deny count in the retained window; default policy and learn-mode / kill-switch state labels Estimated spend total and top plugins by estimated $ (token × rate placeholders — not billing) Pin-hold counts when experimental force rules are configured Plugin display names (or basenames) for top estimated-spend rows Weekly report mail does not include prompt preview, user identity, request paths, hosts, denial reason detail rows, or any per-call URI. Recipient is the same address as denial alerts (or site admin_email if empty). Every email includes a link to turn the report off. The weekly cron is cleared when the report is disabled, logging is off, or the plugin is uninstalled. During first-run setup, you can optionally agree to receive product news and related offers from HandL Digital. The checkbox is off by default. If you agree and finish setup, the plugin sends your alert email address, site URL, plugin version, and consent time to HandL Digital. HandL Digital stores this information on its server for those emails. If you leave the box unchecked, the plugin sends nothing to HandL Digital for this purpose. You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing [email protected]. This registration is separate from denial alerts, webhooks, and the weekly report.

VigIA (Spanish for “lookout” or “watchman”, incorporating “IA” – Spanish for “AI”) is a complete AI visibility toolkit for WordPress. Monitor 60+ AI crawlers, control access to your content, and optimize how AI systems discover and understand your site. What does VigIA do? Scores your AI visibility with a 100-point analyzer covering 20 checks across 5 categories Tracks AI crawlers visiting your site (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and 60+ others) Provides detailed analytics with advanced filters, server-side pagination, and exportable reports with metadata banner Blocks unwanted crawlers via PHP (403 response) Manages robots.txt rules for AI crawlers with compliance monitoring Sends email alerts about crawler activity (daily, weekly, or monthly) Generates llms.txt files to help AI systems understand your site Serves markdown endpoints for posts, pages, taxonomy archives (categories, tags, WooCommerce product categories, custom taxonomies) and WooCommerce products with schema-like data Generates JSON-LD structured data with Site Identity and AI Discovery signals Exposes abilities for AI agents and automation tools (WordPress 6.9+) Key Features AI Visibility Analyzer * 100-point scoring system with letter grades (A+ to F) * 20 individual checks across 5 categories * Access & AI Discovery (37 pts): robots.txt, AI bot directives, Content Signals, llms.txt, sitemap, RSS feed * Structured Data & Semantic Context (25 pts): JSON-LD schemas, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, meta description, canonical URL * Content Structure & Readability (20 pts): heading hierarchy, semantic HTML5, image alt text, content/HTML ratio * AI Interaction & Distribution (8 pts): markdown delivery, AI share buttons * Access Performance (10 pts): TTFB measurement * Smart recommendations with direct links to VigIA features and plugin suggestions * Analyze any page on your site with URL autocomplete selector * Results cached for 24 hours with manual re-analyze option Analytics Dashboard * Total visits, unique crawlers, and pages crawled statistics * Timeline chart with daily breakdown * Category distribution (AI Training, AI Search, AI Assistant, Data Scraper) * Top crawlers and most crawled pages tables with paginated navigation * Share Buttons & AI-powered Summaries integration: see share button clicks per page * Recent activity log with content type and HTTP status columns (color coded by status family) * Advanced filters: multi-select crawler picker, content type, HTTP status code, and configurable date range * Server-side pagination with four-button pager (first, previous, next, last) — operates over the full database, not just the latest 500 rows * Period comparison functionality * CSV export with a metadata banner (site name, site URL, export type, date range, export timestamp, applied filters) * “Export filtered CSV” button that downloads exactly what the active filters return, with vigia-filtered-YYYY-MM-DD.csv filename * Content type detection distinguishes Home, Post, Page, Product, custom CPTs, Category archive, Tag archive, Date/Author archive, Feed, Sitemap, REST API, File, Admin / login attempts (/wp-admin, /wp-login.php), WordPress system (admin-ajax, xmlrpc, wp-cron, wp-comments-post), 404 Not found, and Other Crawler Blocking * Block crawlers via PHP with 403 Forbidden response * Quick block dropdown in analytics dashboard * Manage blocks from Extras page * Works on any server (Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed, etc.) Robots.txt Management * Add Disallow rules for AI crawlers * Visual preview of your robots.txt * Compliance monitoring: see which crawlers ignore your rules * One-click blocking for non-compliant crawlers * Works with both physical and virtual robots.txt Email Alerts * Daily, weekly, or monthly reports * Three detail levels: Minimal, Normal, Complete * Non-compliant crawler warnings * Activity comparison with previous period Markdown for Agents * Serve posts, pages and any public post type as optimized markdown for AI agents * Serve taxonomy archive pages (categories, tags, WooCommerce product categories, custom taxonomies) as markdown — disabled by default, opt in per taxonomy * Dedicated .md URL endpoints (e.g., /your-post.md, /category/news.md, /product-category/electronics.md) * Accept: text/markdown content negotiation on posts and taxonomy archive pages * Discoverability via Link HTTP headers and HTML tags * YAML frontmatter for posts: title, date, modified, author, image, categories, tags, post type, lang * YAML frontmatter for taxonomy terms: title, description, url, type, taxonomy, parent, count, image (term meta), lang * WooCommerce product frontmatter adds schema-like fields: sku, product_type, price, regular_price, sale_price, currency, availability, stock_quantity, rating, rating_count, review_count * Taxonomy term body includes the term description (rendered through the_content), the list of direct child terms in hierarchical taxonomies, and an excerpt of the latest posts/products assigned to the term * Product listings inside product_cat archives include an inline summary with formatted price, “was X” on sale items, star rating and out-of-stock flag * Respects blocking rules (blocked crawlers get 403) and LLMs.txt exclusion filters * Per-term noindex detection from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress * Analytics integration: tracks markdown requests per crawler * X-Markdown-Tokens response header * Filters: vigia_markdown_post_eligible, vigia_markdown_term_eligible, vigia_markdown_term_posts_limit * Follows the Cloudflare Markdown for Agents standard LLMs.txt Generator * Select content by post type with one click * Filter by taxonomies (categories, tags, custom) * Manual include/exclude with AJAX search * Exclude by URL patterns (wildcards supported) * SEO plugin integration (auto-exclude noindex content) * Auto-regeneration (daily, weekly, monthly) * Robots.txt integration (add llms.txt and llms-full.txt references) * Generate llms.txt and llms-full.txt files * Full content or excerpt mode * Compatible with Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework, and Native SEO NoIndexer JSON-LD Structured Data * Generate WebSite and Organization/Person schema for site identity * AI Discovery: ReadAction pointers to llms.txt, llms-full.txt, and Markdown for Agents endpoints * Social profiles and sameAs links for brand identity across the web * SearchAction for Google sitelinks search box * Media library integration for logo selection * SEO plugin conflict detection (Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework) * Choose output page (front page or any published page) * Live JSON-LD preview with real-time updates * Smart integration with LLMs.txt and Markdown for Agents features Supported AI Crawlers VigIA monitors 60+ AI crawlers including: OpenAI: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, OAI-AdsBot, ChatGPT-User Anthropic: ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, Claude-Code Google: Google-Extended, GoogleOther, Gemini-Deep-Research, Google-NotebookLM Perplexity: PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User Meta: Meta-ExternalAgent, FacebookBot, Meta-WebIndexer Amazon: Amazonbot, Amzn-SearchBot, bedrockbot Mistral: MistralAI-User, MistralAI-Index Microsoft: BingBot ByteDance: Bytespider Apple: Applebot-Extended And many more… Privacy Focused VigIA stores visitor data locally in your WordPress database. No data is sent to external servers. Abilities API VigIA is one of the first WordPress plugins to implement the Abilities API introduced in WordPress 6.9. This API allows AI agents, automation tools, and external systems to discover and interact with VigIA’s functionality in a standardized, secure way. What are Abilities? Abilities are self-contained units of functionality that VigIA exposes through WordPress’s central registry. Each ability has defined inputs, outputs, and permissions, making it easy for automation tools to understand and use them. Available Abilities VigIA registers the following abilities: Analytics vigia/get-crawler-stats – Get statistics about AI crawler visits (total visits, unique crawlers, pages crawled) vigia/get-top-crawlers – Get a ranked list of most active AI crawlers vigia/get-top-pages – Get the most crawled pages on your site Blocking vigia/get-blocked-items – List all blocked crawlers and IP addresses vigia/block-crawler – Block a crawler by User-Agent pattern vigia/unblock-crawler – Remove an existing block Robots.txt vigia/get-robots-rules – Get current AI crawler rules in robots.txt vigia/add-robots-disallow – Add a Disallow directive for a crawler vigia/remove-robots-rule – Remove a robots.txt rule Use Cases Automated monitoring: AI agents can query crawler statistics and alert you to anomalies Reactive blocking: Automation tools can block crawlers that repeatedly ignore robots.txt External dashboards: Aggregate data from multiple WordPress sites with VigIA installed WP-CLI integration: Future command-line access through the Abilities API n8n / Make workflows: Build custom automation flows using VigIA’s abilities Requirements The Abilities API ships with WordPress 6.9 and later. On older WordPress versions, VigIA works normally but abilities and MCP are not available. MCP Server (Model Context Protocol) VigIA exposes its 9 abilities as native MCP tools to any MCP-compatible client (Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, Antigravity, Continue, Cline, Zed and similar) using the official WordPress MCP Adapter. The adapter ships bundled with the plugin, so the MCP endpoint is active right after installation — no Composer step or terminal access required. Requirements WordPress 6.9 or later (provides the Abilities API) Quick connect (recommended) Open VigIA > Extras > MCP and click “Generate password and connection commands”. The plugin creates a dedicated Application Password named VigIA MCP and renders ready-to-paste commands for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop and a generic block (URL + Authorization header) for any other MCP client. The plain password is shown only once. If you lose it, revoke the entry from the same panel and generate a new one. Endpoint https://your-site.example/wp-json/vigia/v1/mcp The endpoint uses HTTP Basic auth with the WordPress Application Password. The user must have the manage_options capability. Connecting Claude Code Quick Connect builds the full command for you. The shape is: claude mcp add --transport http vigia https://your-site.example/wp-json/vigia/v1/mcp --header "Authorization: Basic BASE64_OF_USER_AND_APP_PASSWORD" Claude Code merges the new entry into its config file automatically — no risk of breaking other servers. Connecting Cursor Save the JSON block from Quick Connect as ~/.cursor/mcp.json. You can also reach this file from inside Cursor at Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP. If the file already exists with other content, see the FAQ. Claude Desktop and other clients Claude Desktop does not speak HTTP MCP, so it needs a small bridge and a config file of its own. Any other client (Codex CLI, Continue, Cline, Antigravity, Zed, or your own) takes the two raw values Quick Connect exposes: the server URL and the Authorization header. Both cases are covered in the FAQ, together with how to merge VigIA into a config file that already exists without losing what is in it. Read-only mode If you only want your AI to consult VigIA (not change anything), enable “Read-only mode” in the MCP tab. While on, write actions (block, unblock, robots changes) return a permission denied error. Read actions (statistics, top crawlers, blocked items, robots rules) keep working. The toggle stores a vigia_mcp_read_only option that hooks into the vigia_can_write_via_abilities filter. Developers can still force read-only from a mu-plugin: add_filter( 'vigia_can_write_via_abilities', '__return_false' ); The mu-plugin filter at the default priority takes precedence over the toggle. Who can reach the endpoint The endpoint requires the capability to manage options, the same one every tool behind it already asked for. The vigia_mcp_transport_capability filter can lower that bar; each tool keeps its own permission check. After connecting Restart your MCP client after adding the server so it picks up the new tools. Then try a few prompts to confirm everything is wired up: “Show me VigIA crawler stats for the last 7 days.” “List the top 5 most crawled pages on this site.” “Add a robots.txt Disallow rule for TestBot and then list the current AI crawler rules.” The third example exercises a read + write + read round-trip, which is the most complete sanity check. Support Need private support or custom development? Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need. Need help or have suggestions? Official website WordPress support forum YouTube channel Documentation and tutorials Love the plugin? Please leave us a 5-star review and help spread the word! About AyudaWP We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, AI and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.