AcrossAI Abilities Manager gives your WordPress site 357 ready-made abilities, and gives you control over every one of them. An ability is a self-describing operation that WordPress 6.9’s Abilities API lets a plugin register — something an AI assistant, a REST client or another plugin can discover a
PricingFree downloadThe WordPress.org download is free. Pro versions, add-ons or external services may cost extra.
CompatibilityRequires WordPress 6.9 and PHP 8.1.
SourceWordPress plugins · Nov 8, 2026
01 / Source details
Aboutthistool.
AcrossAI Abilities Manager gives your WordPress site 357 ready-made abilities, and gives you control over every one of them.
An ability is a self-describing operation that WordPress 6.9’s Abilities API lets a plugin register — something an AI assistant, a REST client or another plugin can discover and call. WordPress ships the API; almost nothing ships abilities. This plugin does: 357 on any site, with no configuration , rising to over 800 as it detects the plugins you run.
It is free, GPL, and works on its own. Pair it with an MCP server and your site becomes something Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP-capable assistant can operate.
What Your Site Can Do, Out of the Box
Content — posts, pages and any custom post type with meta and revisions; comments; media, categories and tags; generating an image from a prompt straight into the Media Library (when an AI connector is configured); and semantic search that proposes, reviews and applies internal links.
Blocks — edit a page’s block tree without rewriting the page, build from patterns, generate sections and landing pages, and audit copy and design.
Appearance — theme.json and global styles, site-editor templates and parts, menus, widget areas, fonts, and site title, logo and icon.
Users — create and edit users, reset passwords, create roles, and grant or revoke individual capabilities.
Configuration — any option including values nested inside serialised arrays, permalinks, and which admin screen a setting lives on.
Database — schema and table sizes, index health, bloated autoloaded options, EXPLAIN on a slow query, table optimisation, and serialisation-safe search-and-replace.
Files — browse, read, write and delete inside an administrator-defined allowlist; zip backups; wp-config constants; the debug log.
Cron — every scheduled task, the overdue ones, running one on demand, and whether WP-Cron is firing at all.
Updates — plugins, themes and core; rollback; and verification against official checksums.
Diagnostics — Site Health, maintenance mode, recent fatal errors, and un-pausing what WordPress auto-disabled.
Cache — transients, object cache and rewrite rules.
A Dozen Tools, Not 357
An AI client is handed its tool list once, at connect time, and pays for it out of the context window on every conversation. Exposing 357 separate tools would flood it — most assistants degrade past a few dozen.
So your MCP server groups them into toolsets , and a toolset is a single tool answering three actions: discover to list what it holds, info to read one ability’s parameters, and execute to run it — the same three everywhere. AcrossAI MCP Manager provides that layer; this plugin provides the abilities.
Plugins You Already Run Get Their Own Toolset
Twenty-one integrations ship with the plugin, each with its own page in the integrations directory — and each registers only when that plugin is active , so nothing appears for software you do not have, and each becomes one more dispatcher tool rather than a pile of loose ones. They are listed on the plugin’s own Integrations screen (under AcrossAI), where a single switch turns any one’s abilities on or off.
Elementor (89 abilities) — pages, templates, kits, widgets, form submissions and cache; a subset needs Elementor Pro.
Yoast SEO (64) — titles and meta, indexing, breadcrumbs, schema and social defaults.
Rank Math (61) — SEO, redirections, schema, analytics and settings.
LiteSpeed Cache (61) — purge by target, and tune TTLs, exclusions and vary rules.
WooCommerce (34) — catalogue, prices, stock, orders, customers and store health.
Contact Form 7 (25) — forms, fields, mail templates, tag validation and messages.
WPCode (24) — snippets, their insertion points and conditional logic.
CookieYes (22) — cookies, consent categories, the banner and Consent Mode.
The Events Calendar (18) — create, reschedule and trash events; venues and organizers.
Event Tickets (16) — tickets, capacity, check-ins, orders and sales.
Advanced Custom Fields (16) — field groups, plus post types and taxonomies registered through ACF.
Site Kit by Google (14) — Search Console, Analytics 4, PageSpeed Insights and AdSense.
Loco Translate (14) — what is untranslated, and writing translations.
All-in-One WP Migration (9) — what archives exist, how recent, and exporting or removing them.
UpdraftPlus (8) — when a backup last ran, whether it worked, and its contents.
Redirection (8) — create, list, update and delete redirects; the 404 error log that shows which URLs need one; redirect groups; and Redirection’s settings.
WP Mail SMTP (4) — how the site sends mail, and a real test send.
Classic Editor (4) — the effective editor per post type, and whether users may choose.
Query Monitor (4) — profile a URL’s slow and duplicated queries, outbound HTTP calls and PHP errors; the PHP, MySQL and WordPress environment; object-cache status; and turning Query Monitor on or off.
Akismet — spam figures and checking a comment, from Akismet itself.
WPForms — read forms and stats, create forms, change settings; writes behind an admin switch, off by default.
The two backup integrations are deliberate exceptions: they register whether or not their plugin is installed, so “is this site backed up?” can be answered “no, there is no backup plugin here” rather than having no tool to answer it.
Third-party developers can register a toolset of their own through a filter, without touching this plugin.
More Integrations With AcrossAI Pro
The paid AcrossAI Pro add-on contributes 276 further abilities through the same toolset mechanism, again only when the host plugin is active:
Every ability runs WordPress’s own capability check for the calling user, so reaching one through this plugin grants nobody anything they could not already do. On top of that:
Roughly half the catalogue is annotated read-only and only about 13% is flagged destructive , so a look-but-don’t-touch surface is a matter of filtering, not trust.
Higher-risk operations require an explicit confirmation flag before they run.
Search-and-replace is a dry run unless you say otherwise, and skips post GUIDs unless asked.
File access is confined to an administrator-defined path allowlist — an empty write-allowlist means “deny all writes” — with a dangerous-extension blocklist and a maximum write size on top.
Secrets are redacted — database credentials and authentication salts are stripped out of file and debug-log reads.
Database abilities never accept a raw table name; they work from a fixed allowlist of core tables.
Any ability can be disallowed site-wide , and one you turn off is unregistered outright rather than merely hidden.
Full Control Over Every Ability
Browse all abilities — a searchable, sortable, paginated table listing every registered ability with slug, provider, source and current status.
Toggle allow/disallow — enable or disable any ability site-wide with a single click, saved instantly without a page reload.
Edit ability metadata — override readonly , destructive , idempotent , show_in_rest , show_in_mcp , mcp_type and mcp_servers per ability with a tri-state Yes / No / Inherit control, and reset any of it to registry defaults in one click.
Bulk actions — allow, disallow or reset up to 50 abilities at once.
Integrations — a dedicated screen listing every integration on the site, each with a single on/off switch that withdraws this plugin’s abilities for it. Each row shows how many abilities it contributes.
Ability Library — enable or disable add-on ability groups from a dedicated page, with All/Specific mode per group.
Add-ons page — browse companion plugins from wp-admin; WordPress.org-hosted ones install and activate in place.
Overrides live in their own table. The ability registry is never modified — only fields that differ from registry defaults are stored, so removing the plugin leaves it exactly as found.
Reproduce a Plugin Conflict Without Breaking the Site
Debugging → Conflict Testing toggles any plugin’s effective active state without ever writing to wp_options.active_plugins — reproduce a conflict for one browser session, then restore the site exactly by clearing a single JSON file.
Seven abilities expose the same thing to REST and AI clients, so an assistant can bisect a conflict for you. Each activation is guarded by a core-style sandbox probe, so a fatal-erroring plugin cannot take the site down — the override is refused instead.
Works With or Without an MCP Server
Abilities are the capability layer, not the connection. Every one is registered through WordPress 6.9’s own Abilities API with show_in_rest , so it is reachable over REST and callable by any plugin the moment you activate this one. Nothing is proprietary or bound to a particular transport, so anything that reads the Abilities API can expose these abilities — there is no lock-in:
AcrossAI MCP Manager — the free MCP server this plugin is built alongside, turning the toolsets into MCP tools with per-server curation and access control.
MCP Adapter — exposes registered abilities as MCP tools; when active, this plugin also lists its servers in the ability edit panel.
Any other consumer — another MCP server, a REST client, or a plugin calling the Abilities API directly. These are ordinary WordPress abilities, not a private format.
Requirements
WordPress 6.9 or later — the Abilities API arrived in 6.9, and this plugin registers nothing without it
PHP 8.1 or later
No other plugin is required
Where To Read More
The plugin — the plugin home page .
Every
See it in action
Screenshots & previews.
The Abilities Manager admin page — searchable, sortable ability table.The edit drawer — tri-state override controls for each ability field.Bulk actions toolbar for allow/disallow/reset across multiple abilities.The Ability Library page — enable/disable add-on ability groups.The Add-ons page — browse free companion plugins.Settings — Display (abilities-per-page) and Upload Media Abilities (allowed-MIME list + Add file types).
02 / Source details
Gettingstarted.
01Upload the acrossai-abilities-manager folder to /wp-content/plugins/ .
02Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
03Navigate to AcrossAI Abilities Manager in the WordPress admin menu.
Quick Connect setup wizard:
On activation the plugin opens a short setup wizard once — how many abilities the site has, how to edit them, how to act on many at once, what they cover, and how to connect them to an AI assistant. It does not open on sites already running AcrossAI MCP Manager, which provides its own wizard.
The wizard is re-runnable at any time and is reachable from four places: AcrossAI → Quick Connect in the sidebar, the Quick Connect via AcrossAI entry in the admin toolbar, the Quick Connect via AcrossAI link on the Plugins screen, and a button under Setup on the AcrossAI → Settings → Abilities tab. Those entries are hidden when AcrossAI MCP Manager is active, to avoid two wizards competing for the same surfaces; the wizard itself stays reachable at /wp-admin/admin.php?page=acrossai-abilities-manager&quick-connect=1&step=1.
Add-ons:
04Go to AcrossAI → Add-ons to browse available companion plugins.
05All add-ons are free and hosted on WordPress.org; each card offers a one-click Install / Activate / Deactivate action via the standard WordPress plugin installer.
03 / Source details
Frequently asked questions.
Is this plugin free?
Yes, entirely, and under GPL. There is no paid tier of this plugin and no feature is held back.
What can an AI actually do once this is installed?
357 abilities on any site — content, blocks, appearance, users, configuration, database, files, cron, cache, updates and diagnostics — rising to over 800 as it detects plugins such as WooCommerce, Elementor, Rank Math, Yoast SEO, ACF and LiteSpeed Cache. Abilities are the capability layer; connecting an AI assistant to them needs a transport (see below).
Why does my AI only see about a dozen tools when there are 357 abilities?
That is deliberate, and it is what makes the catalogue usable. Your MCP server groups the abilities into toolsets, and each toolset is a single tool answering three actions — discover to list what it holds, info to read one ability’s parameters, execute to run it. Exposing 357 separate tools would flood the model’s context window, and most assistants degrade badly past a few dozen. Your AI reaches everything through those, drilling in only when it needs to.
Does removing the plugin leave anything behind?
The WordPress ability registry is never modified, so deactivating returns it exactly as it was. Overrides you set live in the plugin’s own table; abilities registered by this plugin simply stop being registered.
Do I need another plugin to use this with an AI assistant?
For an AI client to reach these abilities over MCP, yes — you need an MCP server such as AcrossAI MCP Manager , which is also free. This plugin works perfectly well without one: abilities are registered with show_in_rest , so they remain reachable over the WordPress REST API and callable by any plugin.
Can an AI break my site?
It can only do what you allow. Every ability runs WordPress’s own capability check for the calling user, so nothing here grants extra privilege. Roughly half the catalogue is annotated read-only and only about 13% is flagged destructive; higher-risk operations require an explicit confirmation flag; search-and-replace defaults to a dry run; file access is confined to an administrator-defined path allowlist; and secrets such as database credentials and auth salts are stripped from file and log reads. Any ability you disallow is unregistered outright, not merely hidden.
Does it need WordPress 6.9?
Yes. The Abilities API arrived in WordPress 6.9, and this plugin registers nothing without it — the registration path is guarded, so an older site simply gets no abilities rather than an error.
Does this plugin support Multisite?
No. This plugin has not been tested on WordPress Multisite installations.
Does this plugin modify the WordPress ability registry?
No. The plugin stores only overrides — fields that differ from the registry defaults. The ability registry itself ( wp_get_ability() ) is never modified.
What happens when I reset an override?
The override row is deleted from the database. The ability will inherit its values from the registry again.
What is the Ability Library?
The Library page lets you enable or disable ability groups registered by add-on plugins. Each group shows an ON/OFF master toggle and an All/Specific mode selector. In Specific mode, individual ability slots can be toggled independently.
What is the MCP Adapter integration?
If the MCP Adapter plugin is active on your site, AcrossAI Abilities Manager will display the list of registered MCP servers in the ability edit panel. This is entirely optional — the plugin works without the MCP Adapter.
Does this plugin make external HTTP requests?
Just one from the plugin’s own code: when an administrator opens AcrossAI → Integrations , it fetches the list of supported integrations from https://acrossai.co/wp-json/acrossai/v1/integrations so the list stays current between releases. It carries no site, user or ability data, is cached, and falls back to a copy bundled with the plugin if acrossai.co can’t be reached.
A few admin screens also load Google Fonts and images from acrossai.co , the setup wizard embeds YouTube walkthroughs, and some buttons link out to acrossai.co and the WordPress.org directory — all contacted by the administrator’s browser, not your server. Full disclosure is in the External Services section of this readme.
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