Agent - Abilities

Agent mode integrates with WordPress 6.9's Abilities API, allowing your AI assistant to discover and execute registered WordPress abilities based on your user permissions.

What are WordPress Abilities?

WordPress Abilities are a standardized way for plugins and themes to expose actions that can be performed programmatically. Each ability has:

• A unique name: Such as core/get-site-title or woocommerce/get-products
• A description: Explaining what the ability does
• Input/output schemas: Defining what parameters it accepts and what it returns
• Permission checks: Ensuring only authorized users can execute it

The agent has two tools for working with abilities:

• search_abilities: Discovers available abilities, optionally filtered by search query or category
• execute_ability: Runs a specific ability with provided input parameters

How It Works

When you ask the agent to perform an action that maps to a WordPress ability, it will:

1. Search for relevant abilities using search_abilities
2. Review the available options and their input requirements
3. Execute the appropriate ability using execute_ability
4. Return the result to you

For example, asking "What is the site title?" might result in the agent:

1. Searching for abilities related to "site title"
2. Finding core/get-site-title
3. Executing it and returning "My WordPress Site"

Permission Filtering

The agent only sees abilities you have permission to use. This is determined by WordPress's capability system. If an ability requires manage_options and you don't have that capability, the ability won't appear in search results.

This ensures the AI assistant operates within your permission boundaries and cannot perform actions you wouldn't be able to perform manually.

Plugin Extensibility

Any plugin can register abilities that become available to the agent. As the WordPress ecosystem adopts the Abilities API, your agent automatically gains new capabilities without any configuration on your part.

For example, if you install a WooCommerce extension that registers order management abilities, the agent can immediately help you with order-related tasks.

Example Prompts

Here are some ways to use abilities with the agent:

• "What abilities are available?"
• "Search for abilities related to posts"
• "Get the site title"
• "What can I do with users?"

The agent will use its search_abilities and execute_ability tools to fulfill these requests.

Limitations

• WordPress 6.9+ required: The Abilities API is not available in older versions
• Plugin adoption: Only abilities explicitly registered by plugins are available
• Read-heavy initially: Early adopters of the API may focus on read operations before write operations

As WordPress core and the plugin ecosystem expand their use of the Abilities API, the agent's capabilities will grow accordingly.