Documentation

MCP Setup

Connect Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any MCP client to your site — one command or one config block — plus what to do when it says “Server disconnected”.

What MCP is here

The plugin ships an MCP server on a single endpoint of your own site, protected by a bearer token. Any MCP-capable client can connect to it and use all 85 tools — reading your design tokens, writing sections, managing versions.

Protocol revisions 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26 and 2024-11-05 are supported; the server picks the newest revision your client understands.

Get a token

Design Pages → MCP Connection (any role granted Design Page access), or Settings → MCP Connection for administrators managing everyone's tokens. Non-administrators see and revoke only their own.

The plaintext token is shown exactly once. It is stored hashed. Copy it before you navigate away.

Claude Code / VS Code — one command

The MCP Connection screen generates a ready-made command:

claude mcp add ...

The CLI writes the entry into .mcp.json itself — nothing to locate, no braces to balance, and no way to land the entry in the wrong place. This is the recommended path.

Prefer to edit the file yourself? The screen also gives you a full config and an add-to-existing-config snippet. The server type must be http.

The MCP Connection screen generates the command for you. The token is shown once.

Claude Desktop

Copy the whole entry from the MCP Connection screen into your Claude Desktop config, including the env block — that block holds the token the ${PPD_AUTH_HEADER} reference stands in for. Dropping it sends an empty login.

The config launches the bridge via npx -y mcp-remote. You need Node installed; verify with:

node --version

npm install -g mcp-remote is optional — npx fetches it on demand.

About the endpoint address

The address in your config comes from WordPress itself, so it already matches whichever form your site answers on. On sites with Plain permalinks, WordPress serves its API from index.php?rest_route=… rather than /wp-json/…, and the generated address will look longer.

Do not "tidy" that address into /wp-json/…. On a Plain-permalink site that address is a flat 404, and it is the single edit most likely to break a working config. To get the shorter form, change to any permalink structure other than Plain at Settings → Permalinks, then re-copy the config.

Subdirectory installs are handled the same way.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause and fix
The server never appears, and there is no error	The entry landed outside the `mcpServers` object. The file is still valid JSON, so nothing complains. Check the nesting.
`Server disconnected` in Claude Desktop	Almost always a wrong address or a stale config. Re-copy the config from the MCP Connection screen; your token stays valid.
`status 404` in the MCP log	The address doesn't exist on your site. Quick test: if `/feed/` and `/wp-sitemap.xml` also 404, no pretty URL works on the site and it's a site-wide permalink problem, not an MCP one.
`spawn mcp-remote ENOENT` / `'mcp-remote' is not recognized`	The bridge was launched bare. It must be launched as `npx -y mcp-remote`. Re-copy the config.
`spawn npx ENOENT`	Node isn't installed or isn't on PATH. Install the LTS build and restart your computer.
`not valid MCP server configurations`	The entry declares a server type Claude Code doesn't accept. It must be `http` — not `url`.
`401 Unauthorized` with a freshly generated token	Some servers strip the `Authorization` header before PHP can read it, so every request looks anonymous. Add `RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]` to `.htaccess`, or the equivalent for your server.
`rest_forbidden`	The token's owner doesn't have Design Page access. Check Settings → Access.
`Bad Request` on a local site over plain HTTP	Add `--allow-http` to the bridge arguments.
`Invalid URL` from `mcp-remote --help`	Not a fault. `mcp-remote` treats its first argument as the server URL, so `--help` always fails. Verify your install with `node --version` instead.

After changing a Claude Desktop config, quit the app fully from the tray — closing the window is not enough.