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Documentation

Installation

EMCP Tools is not on the WordPress.org plugin directory. Install it from a GitHub release zip: three steps, one minute.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • WordPress 6.9 or later
  • Elementor 3.20 or later (Elementor 4.0+ adds 13 atomic-element tools)
  • PHP 8.0 or later

The WordPress MCP Adapter is bundled with the plugin — you don’t need to install or activate it separately. It ships as a committed Composer dependency loaded via the Jetpack Autoloader (and coexists cleanly with other plugins that bundle their own copy).

If a prerequisite is missing on activation (for example WordPress is too old for the Abilities API), EMCP Tools shows an admin notice explaining what to do and refuses to register its tools until you fix it. Nothing breaks.

Install

Section titled “Install”

  1. Download the latest release zip from the Releases page. The asset is named emcp-tools-{version}.zip.

    GitHub Releases page for EMCP Tools with the latest emcp-tools zip asset highlighted

  2. In WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.

    WordPress admin Plugins → Add New screen with the Upload Plugin button

  3. Choose the zip, click Install Now, then Activate.

    Upload Plugin screen with the zip file chosen and Install Now button, followed by the Activate Plugin link

After activation, a new EMCP Tools menu appears in the WordPress sidebar. It opens on a Dashboard with your tool stats, a feature overview, video guides, and a version/update indicator.

EMCP Tools Dashboard screen showing tool stats, feature overview, and version indicator after first activation

What happens on first activation

Section titled “What happens on first activation”
  • The plugin registers its MCP server at /wp-json/mcp/emcp-tools-server.
  • Up to 267 MCP tools register with the WordPress Abilities API (scaled by your environment, fewer if you don’t have Elementor Pro / Elementor 4.0).
  • 131 tools ship disabled-by-default (SEO & Accessibility, Widget Builder, PHP Snippets, the 9 Plugins & Themes write tools, delete-media, the 2 Users write tools, the 3 Filesystem write tools, and the 3 Database write tools). Re-enable any of them from the Tools screen.
  • A one-time defaults marker is set so the disable-by-default doesn’t repeat on every page load.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

Updates

Section titled “Updates”

As of v3.1.0, the free plugin updates in your dashboard, the same experience as a WordPress.org plugin, but sourced from GitHub releases:

  • When a newer release is published, WordPress shows an update available notice in Plugins → Installed Plugins (and Dashboard → Updates) within ~12 hours. Click Update Now. You can also enable auto-updates.
  • The plugin’s own Dashboard shows a version indicator: “You’re on the latest version” or “Update available”.
  • Prefer to do it by hand? Re-download the latest emcp-tools-{version}.zip from the Releases page and overwrite the install.

Pro installs update through the bundled Freemius SDK using your license, no GitHub download needed.