How to Connect Cursor to WordPress With MCP (Developer’s Setup)

The setup, in four steps ⚙️

1. Install Easy MCP AI

It’s on WordPress.org (10,000+ active installs, 5.0 out of 5 from 8 ratings as of September 2026, currently at version 1.7.17). Requires WordPress 6.0+ and PHP 7.4. Install from Plugins > Add New, activate, and a new Easy MCP AI menu appears. No Node.js, no external proxy, no second subscription. The plugin itself is free; a few optional SEO-data integrations (Semrush, SE Ranking, DataforSEO) need those vendors’ own paid accounts, while the Ahrefs Domain Rating lookup runs on a free Ahrefs API key.

A word on what the AI can and can’t see once it’s connected. Token scopes map onto ordinary WordPress capabilities, and every single tool call is checked against them. A read-only token can list, query, and report on anything your user role can see, but every write attempt gets rejected. That makes read-only genuinely useful for exploration (traffic questions, content audits, “what’s broken”) while keeping write a deliberate, later grant. Nothing is silently elevated, and the audit log records every call either way.

2. Create a scoped token

Head to Easy MCP AI > API Token & OAuth and create one. The sane default for a first run: read-only on content and analytics. You can grant write per content type later, once the client has earned your trust. Name the token after the client using it (“cursor-laptop”), so the audit log reads clearly later.

3. Point Cursor at the site

Copy your MCP server URL from the plugin’s Dashboard, then add it to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (the exact shape from the plugin’s own setup guide):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wordpress": {
      "url": "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/easy-mcp-ai/v1/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

Restart Cursor, open the AI panel, and your WordPress site is now a tool it can call. Same pattern works for Windsurf, Cline, and friends, just with their config file instead.

4. Smoke-test with three prompts

Verify the loop before you trust it with real work:

1. “List my five most recent draft posts.” (read path)
2. “What keywords does my homepage rank for, and what are the click counts?” (Search Console integration, if connected)
3. “Create a draft post titled ‘MCP smoke test’ with one paragraph about WordPress.” (write path, if your token allows it)

All three should come back with real data from your site. If prompt two says the integration isn’t configured, that’s the Search Console connection in the plugin settings, not a Cursor problem.