Beaver Builder MCP — Edit Beaver Builder with an AI Agent (7 Tools)

What is Beaver Builder MCP?

Beaver Builder MCP means changing your Beaver Builder pages by describing the edit to an AI assistant instead of dragging rows and modules around the editor. Cowboy MCP's Beaver Builder integration gives an AI agent 7 tools over the Model Context Protocol whenever Beaver Builder is active, so your assistant can find the pages built with it, read a layout, rewrite it, and adjust the builder's site-wide settings — with a node-by-node preview before anything saves and an undo entry after.

MCP is the open standard an AI client uses to discover and call those tools, and the same Cowboy MCP plugin that manages your posts, users, and plugins surfaces the Beaver Builder tools automatically when the builder is active. The agent works with the same rows, columns, and modules you see in the editor, changes the values you name, and leaves everything else as it was.

What can an AI agent do with Beaver Builder?

An agent can do the structural work you would otherwise click through: list every page built with Beaver Builder, read a page's full layout, change text, settings, and order across rows, columns, and modules, add or remove modules, and publish the result. It can look up which module types are installed and what settings each one takes, so new modules are built with valid settings rather than guessed ones, and it can read and update Beaver Builder's global settings such as default row widths, spacing, and responsive breakpoints.

Here are all 7 tools. The names below are the real tool identifiers the agent sees.

Tool	What it does
wp_beaver_list_pages	List the posts and pages built with Beaver Builder, with node and module counts and whether an unpublished editor draft differs from the live layout
wp_beaver_get_layout	Read a page's layout as a flat list of rows, columns, and modules with their settings, or as a short nested overview
wp_beaver_update_layout	Replace a page's layout and publish it — the agent reads the layout, edits it, and sends it back; can also switch the builder on for a page that does not use it yet
wp_beaver_list_modules	List the module types installed on the site — slug, name, category, and whether each is enabled
wp_beaver_get_module_schema	Get the settings a module, row, or column accepts, with defaults, field types, and options
wp_beaver_get_settings	Read Beaver Builder's site-wide settings: row and column widths, spacing, responsive breakpoints, global CSS and JavaScript
wp_beaver_update_settings	Change those settings (only the keys you name) and clear every Beaver Builder page's cached CSS and JavaScript

Three real prompts, to make it concrete:

• "List every page built with Beaver Builder and tell me which ones have unpublished editor changes."
• "On the Services page, change the heading in the second row to 'What we do' and make the button link to /contact — show me what would change before you save."
• "Add a testimonial row under the hero on the About page, using the same module the Home page uses."

How do layout edits stay safe?

A layout rewrite touches a live page, so it is only reasonable if you can see the change first and take it back after. Cowboy MCP puts the Beaver Builder write tools behind the same guardrails it uses across the whole site, plus two that are specific to page builders.

• Dry run — wp_beaver_update_layout and wp_beaver_update_settings can report exactly what they would do without saving. For a layout, that is a node-by-node diff: which rows, columns, and modules would be added, changed, moved, or removed.
• Undo journal — every layout and settings save is captured as its own entry, including the page content Beaver Builder renders from the layout, so a bad edit rolls back from the Activity tab without touching the rest of the site.
• Untouched modules stay byte-for-byte — the agent's version is compared with the stored layout, and only nodes it actually changed are re-processed. Settings it did not touch keep their stored values.
• Code is blocked by default — HTML modules, custom JavaScript and CSS fields, scripts, iframes, inline event handlers, and javascript: links are refused unless you explicitly pass allow_unfiltered_html. The check looks only at what the agent changed, so an existing HTML module a human added never blocks an unrelated edit.

None of the Beaver Builder tools is flagged destructive, so safe mode does not stop them for a confirmation — the dry run and the undo journal are the safety net. Every call is written to the audit log, and your MCP client asks you to approve each tool call. The full guardrail model lives on the security page.

What are Beaver Builder MCP's limits?

Cowboy MCP works with Beaver Builder's layout data, not its canvas. It reads and rewrites the rows, columns, and modules of a page and the builder's global settings, but it cannot see the page, judge how a layout looks, or position elements by eye. It is best at precise, repeatable edits — rewording a section, swapping a link everywhere it appears, rebuilding a row from a module that already works elsewhere.

A save replaces the whole layout and publishes it, so it also overwrites any unpublished draft someone left open in the editor; wp_beaver_list_pages flags those pages so the agent can check first. The tools are verified against Beaver Builder Lite. Pro stores page layouts the same way but has not been tested yet, and Pro-only features such as saved templates, saved and global rows and modules, and Global Styles are not covered.

How do I set it up?

Setup takes about five minutes and needs no code. Install the Cowboy MCP plugin, make sure Beaver Builder is active so the tools register, then connect your AI assistant and start with a read-only request like listing your Beaver Builder pages. There is nothing extra to switch on.

1. Install the plugin. In wp-admin, go to Plugins → Add New, search for "Cowboy MCP", and click Install then Activate. It is free on the WordPress.org plugin directory (opens in new tab) and needs WordPress 6.2+ and PHP 8.0+.
2. Connect your AI. Open Settings → Cowboy MCP and follow the guided setup. See how to connect WordPress to Claude or how to connect WordPress to ChatGPT for the full walkthrough.
3. Ask for something real. Start read-only — "list my Beaver Builder pages" — then ask for a change with a dry run first, so you see the node-by-node preview before it saves.

FAQ