How I Run This Blog Through Pressable MCP and WP-CLI

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This blog is hosted on Pressable, and for the last few weeks almost everything I have done to it went through Pressable MCP with Claude: new posts, rewrites of old ones, link fixes, redirects, menu changes, cache purges. Here is how that works in practice and what tripped me up.

The setup

Host: Pressable, with Edge Cache on.
AI side: Claude, connected to Pressable MCP with OAuth.
The key tool: the MCP’s WP-CLI and bash tools. Pressable MCP manages hosting, not content, so anything inside WordPress (posts, menus, options) goes through wp commands.

If you have not connected it yet, here is how to connect Pressable MCP to Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, or Gemini CLI. The server address is https://mcp.pressable.com.

How a new post gets published

I ask Claude for a post and review the outline and facts.
Claude writes the post as WordPress block markup.
It uploads the file to the site’s temporary folder with a bash command, then checks the file’s checksum with wp eval so nothing got mangled on the way.
A short PHP script, run with wp eval-file, creates the post as a draft with the title, excerpt, slug, and categories.
I read the draft in WP Admin and publish it, or ask Claude to.
Claude purges the Edge Cache so the new post shows up right away.

That sounds like a lot of steps, but I only see a request and a link to the draft at the end.

Bulk edits

The real time saver is fixing many posts at once. With a single PHP script run through WP-CLI, Claude has:

Rewritten 20 older posts in one batch, keeping the URLs the same.
Added an affiliate disclosure and call-to-action box to 30 posts.
Found and replaced dead affiliate banners across the whole site.
Added “Related” links between new and old posts.

Each change lands as a normal post revision, so the old version is one click away in WP Admin.

The gotchas

WP-CLI output is trimmed. Results come back cut to about 500 characters. I have Claude print counts and short summaries instead of whole posts.
Bash output goes to the activity log, not back to you. Commands run through the bash tool do not return their output directly, so verification happens with a follow-up wp eval.
Some HTML gets stripped. WP-CLI runs without a logged-in user, so WordPress filters out things like <script> tags for FAQ schema. Setting the current user to an admin in the script before saving fixes it.
Publishing a draft by script can leave a blank GMT date. After wp_publish_post, I set the post date and GMT date to now, or the published date shows up wrong in feeds and Open Graph tags.
The web root is read-only. Work files go in /tmp, never in the uploads folder.
Testing redirects with a query string can fail. An exact-match redirect will not fire if you add ?v=1 to bust the cache.

Keeping it safe

Back up first. Take an on-demand backup before any site-wide change. Pressable allows three file and three database on-demand backups per site.
Drafts, not live posts. New content goes in as a draft so I review it before readers see it.
Check the log. Every MCP action is recorded in the site’s activity log, which you can filter by source.
Know the off switch. Revoke All MCP Tokens, under Settings, then MCP Authentication in MyPressable, disconnects every AI tool at once.

Is it worth it?

For me, yes. Work that used to be an evening of copy and paste in the editor is now a request and a review. The trade-off is that you are trusting an AI with shell access to your site, so backups and drafts are not optional. If you are already on Pressable, MCP costs nothing extra to try.

Want the same setup? Pressable MCP comes free with every Pressable plan, along with WP-CLI, SSH, staging, and daily backups.

See Pressable plans

FAQ

Can Pressable MCP create WordPress posts?

Not with a dedicated tool. It can run WP-CLI commands, though, and wp post create or a PHP script run with wp eval-file can create posts.

Why do my FAQ schema scripts disappear when I save posts with WP-CLI?

WordPress strips unfiltered HTML when no user with that capability is logged in. Set the current user to an administrator in your script before inserting or updating the post.

Do I need SSH access to use WP-CLI through Pressable MCP?

No. The MCP runs the commands for you on the site’s host. You do not have to set up SSH keys yourself.

Is it risky to let an AI run commands on my site?

It can be. Take a backup first, work in drafts or on a staging site, review the plan before it runs, and check the activity log afterward.