Abilities Overview

An ability is what BuildPress can do with a plugin or theme that is already on your site. Nothing gets integrated: the plugin is installed and working, and BuildPress adds the ability to drive it. Every ability is a group of tools your AI uses over the same MCP connection, with no BuildPress account and no external API in the loop.

Every ability runs through one connection: your AI client talking to the MCP server inside your own WordPress at https://your-site.com/wp-json/buildpress/v1/mcp. The Abilities screen in wp-admin (BuildPress -> Abilities) shows one row per plugin and your active theme, saying exactly what BuildPress can do with it, split into Built-in and Custom.

Built-in abilities

Built-in abilities are written by BuildPress and ship inside the plugin. Each one switches on when its plugin is detected on your site, so your AI sees exactly the capabilities your stack actually supports.

• WordPress Core: your AI manages the site itself, not just a page builder, and debugs its own work. Always on.
• BuildPress: the native builder and everything around it. Reusable widgets, headers and footers, dynamic templates, your design system (including Figma imports), Project Memory, and the Feedback system. Always on.
• Elementor and Elementor Pro: pages built from real, reusable widgets bound to your design tokens, never a hardcoded hex value. Pro adds the whole Theme Builder, popups, forms, and loop grids, in conversation.
• JetEngine: describe the content your site needs, and your AI models it end to end. Custom post types, relations, queries, and listings, with no code.
• ACF: structured content your AI can scaffold and fill, without the usual key-vs-name footguns.
• GSAP: a professional animation engine in the box. Turn it on from the Abilities screen, then ask for motion in plain English.

Custom abilities

For every other plugin or theme on your site, BuildPress AI can study it once, work out what it can safely do with it, and save that as a set of tools every later session starts from. Read tools work straight away. Making changes stays off until you approve it, and every tool is checked on your own site before the AI relies on it. Read Custom Abilities for how studying, approval, and health checks work.

Abilities

What BuildPress AI can work with on this site.

Built-in7Custom2

Make BuildPress work with any plugin or theme

BuildPress learns a plugin or theme once and saves what it can do as tools. Nothing changes on your site until you approve it.

CreateImport

Your plugins and theme

Plugins and your theme that a built-in ability does not cover.

Rank Math SEOv1.0.277.113 operations it publishes about itself, 40 REST endpoints and 9 database tables.

Create ability

TranslatePress - Multilingualv3.24 REST endpoints, 2 content types and 6 stored settings.

Create ability

Contact Form 7v6.1.55 REST endpoints, 1 block and 2 shortcodes.

Create ability

Hello Elementorv3.4.9Theme4 REST endpoints, 6 registered settings and 2 admin actions.

Create ability

LiteSpeed Cachev7.8.113 REST endpoints, 2 database tables and 1 admin action.

Create ability

WP Mail SMTPv4.9.01 operation it publishes about itself, 16 stored settings and 29 admin actions.

Create ability

Page Builder by SiteOriginv2.36.0Page builder2 operations it publishes about itself, 1 REST endpoint and 4 stored settings.

Create ability

Safe SVGv2.4.02 registered settings and 1 block.

Create ability

WP

WPBakery Page Builderv9.0Page builder41 registered settings, 2 content types and 4 stored settings.

Create ability

Create an ability×

Choose the plugins to learn. Pick several and the AI covers them in one session.

Rank Math SEO

13 operations it publishes about itself, 40 REST endpoints and 9 database tables.

TranslatePress - Multilingual

4 REST endpoints, 2 content types and 6 stored settings.

Contact Form 7

5 REST endpoints, 1 block and 2 shortcodes.

Hello Elementor

4 REST endpoints, 6 registered settings and 2 admin actions.

LiteSpeed Cache

13 REST endpoints, 2 database tables and 1 admin action.

1 plugin selectedCancelCopy prompt

✓Prompt copied. Paste it into your AI assistant.×

Plugins with their own AI layer get a head start. When a plugin publishes its own operations, through an MCP layer or the WordPress Abilities API, BuildPress starts from what the vendor exposes rather than rediscovering it, and a plugin that describes itself can be switched on with a single toggle.

The REST fallback

When nothing else covers a plugin, your AI can still reach its REST routes directly. The REST fallback discovers your site's REST namespaces automatically and runs every call inside WordPress under your own permissions. It is the fallback of last resort: once a custom ability exists for a plugin, the AI prefers the ability, because its tools are verified and its writes read themselves back.

Any page builder

BuildPress drives its own builder and Elementor natively. If your site is built with Divi, Bricks, or any other builder, pick it during onboarding and BuildPress still builds with it: widgets are placed as blocks or shortcodes, the design system mirrors into it, and the AI gets page and widget plays written for that builder instead of the Elementor ones.

How a session uses them

You never pick an ability by hand. You talk in plain English, and your AI pulls in exactly the tools the task needs across whichever abilities are active. Every session is told up front which custom abilities the site has, and a single page build might touch WordPress Core, the active builder, and your design system in one pass.

• "Build me a homepage with a hero, a 3-column features section, and a contact CTA, using my design system."
• "Create a Properties post type with price, bedrooms, and a photo gallery, then build a listing grid of the newest ones on the homepage."
• "Import my design system from this Figma file, then use it to build an about page."
• "Study WooCommerce and write an ability for it, then list my products and tell me which are out of stock."