MCP server

What it does

The MCP server lets an AI assistant such as Claude manage the content of one WBengine site for an editor who is not technical. It works through the same API and the same kind of key as the central Admin, so it can do only what its key allows. It never opens the database and never reads the settings of the site.

An editor talks to the assistant in plain words, and the assistant does the technical steps:

• Writes an article as a draft, translates it, and shows a preview before anything is public.
• Creates what a new article needs: the page, a clean address, the browser title and description for search engines, the box that shows the article and, on request, a menu entry.
• Checks the article before it is published and says what is missing: no text, no box on the page, a missing translation, a title or description that is too long.
• Publishes, hides and shows an article, only when the editor asked for it.
• With the permission for structure: changes pages, the menu and boxes, and uploads images.
• Reads the statistics, writes a report from them and explains the change log.

What it never does

• It never deletes anything. No tool deletes an article, a page, a box, a menu entry or an image.
• It publishes, hides or shows an article only when asked. The client asks you to confirm each such step, and the key can be limited so that publishing is not possible at all.
• It treats text from the website as data. A sentence in an article that tells the assistant to do something is not followed.
• It cannot do more than the key allows. A key without the Structure group cannot touch pages, menu or boxes, and a key restricted to certain addresses works only from them.

Which key to issue

Issue a separate key for the assistant on the Integrations page of the site (see Central administration). Never reuse the key that the central Admin uses. The form offers presets:

Preset	For	What the key may do
Editor with structure and statistics	an editor who is not technical	write, publish and hide articles; pages, menu, boxes and images; read statistics and the change log. No users, no settings.
Agent for content	an assistant that only handles articles	write, publish and hide articles and pages; images; read the change log. No structure.
Agent, drafts only	an assistant that may only prepare	write drafts and images. It cannot publish or hide anything.
Read only	monitoring	read content, structure and images and the change log.
Full management	the central Admin	everything the Admin needs. Not for an assistant.

The key is shown once, together with the configuration to copy into the client. Restrict it to the addresses it is used from if you can, and revoke it when it is no longer used. The statistics tools need the Analytics choice on the key and analytics switched on for the site.

A typical request

"Write a short article about our spring opening hours in English and Czech, show it to me and publish it when I say so."

The assistant proposes an address and the search fields, saves the draft with both languages, shows the preview, checks that the page is complete and waits. When you answer "publish", it publishes and gives you the address of the published page.

The tools in plain words

Area	What the assistant can do
Articles	list and read articles, save a draft with translations, preview it, publish, hide and show
New article page	propose an address, browser title and description, check that the article is ready to publish
Pages and menu	change the title, address and search fields of a page, list and change menu entries
Boxes	list the box types and boxes, add a box, change it, take it off a page and put it back
Images	upload a PNG, JPEG or WebP image (up to 512 KiB) and list the uploaded images
Statistics	page views, article views and box appearances for a period, a ready report with the change against the period before, and the split by language when the site records it
History	list the changes and analyze the change log: who changed what, what was changed again and again, what the site refused
Help	short texts about how the site works (addresses and search fields, boxes, menu, languages, images, statistics, troubleshooting)

The assistant also has ready-made tasks: publish a new article, translate an article, a weekly report, find problems and a review of the search fields. The help texts are available to any client that reads resources.

Statistics and the change log

The numbers come from the site and are never made up. The report says what they do not contain: there are no unique visitors, only the top ten of each list is returned, and a period that starts before counting began is marked, because earlier days show zero only because nothing was counted. See Logging and audit for the change log.

Updating

A new version is a new file wbengine-mcp.phar from the WBengine release page. Replace the old file with it (copy it next to the old one under a temporary name and rename it, so the client never sees a half written file), then reconnect the client. See Connect an MCP client.

When something does not work

What you see	Usually
the server does not start	the address or the key is missing in the configuration, or the path of the file is wrong; the message says which
"unauthorized"	the key is wrong, was revoked, or the address belongs to another site
"ip_not_allowed"	the key is restricted to other addresses than the one the assistant runs from
"forbidden" or a missing tool	the key lacks the permission group for it; issue a key with a preset that has it
statistics are refused	the key has no Analytics choice, or analytics is not switched on for the site
the published page is empty	the page has no box that shows articles; the check names it before publishing