Letting Claude maintain WordPress sites without giving it SSH access

A developer built PressBridge, a self-hosted MCP server that lets Claude manage WordPress sites over SSH without exposing wp-config.php, the database password, or other sensitive files. Every permission limit is enforced server-side by PressBridge rather than by prompt instructions, so text hidden in plugin readmes or web pages cannot talk the model past them. The free edition is MIT-licensed on GitHub and limited to one site with read-only tools, while a paid edition adds edits with automatic backups, one-call undo, PHP syntax checks, allow-listed plugin, theme and core updates, and a full audit log.

I look after WordPress sites for a living, and lately I've wanted Claude to take over the boring parts: find where a piece of text lives in a theme, fix it, check which plugins need updates, write the monthly care report for the client. The two obvious ways to do that both felt wrong: wp-config.php and the database password, and one bad instruction can wipe a client's site. So I built something in between: PressBridge , a self-hosted MCP server that sits between Claude and the WordPress site. Claude gets useful tools; the server decides what those tools are allowed to do. A prompt like "never read wp-config.php" is a suggestion. A file that is invisible to the tool is a guarantee. That was the main design rule: every limit is checked by PressBridge before anything runs, so text hidden in a plugin readme or a web page can't talk Claude past it. In the free edition, Claude can: site overview to get the WordPress version and pending updates in one call And it can't: .env , SQL dumps, keys or .git , at any folder depth It connects over SSH, so nothing is exposed to the internet. Here's a 70-second recording of a real session on a test site: health overview, creating and editing a file with an automatic backup, a one-call undo, a safe delete and the audit log. The free edition is MIT-licensed on GitHub, for one site, read-only: https://github.com/pressbridgesupport/pressbridge https://github.com/pressbridgesupport/pressbridge Install takes about five minutes on any Linux server where you have SSH: a Python venv, WP-CLI, and a small YAML file listing your site. Then add it to Claude Code or Claude Desktop and ask: "Give me a health overview of mysite." I also sell a paid edition, which is how I'm hoping to keep working on this. It adds edits with automatic backups and one-call undo, a PHP syntax check before saving, allow-listed plugin, theme and core updates, unlimited sites, a Docker HTTPS server and a full audit log. There's also a monthly plan with a nightly security check that alerts you to new admin accounts, PHP files in uploads and changed core files. Details: https://pressbridgesupport.github.io/pressbridge https://pressbridgesupport.github.io/pressbridge One honest limit: file backups don't cover database changes such as plugin updates, so keep your normal database backups running. I'd really like to hear from people who manage WordPress sites: what would you want blocked, or allowed, before you'd let an AI assistant anywhere near a client site?