// guide

How to connect your WordPress site to Hermes Agent

Want Hermes Agent to run a WordPress site, not just talk about it? Install one free plugin on your self-hosted site, paste one message into your Hermes chat — or run one command — and approve the sign-in in your browser. No API key to copy, no config file to hand-edit — a few minutes, on a live site or a local one. New to MCP? Start with the WordPress MCP server guide.

Install the plugin Jump to the steps →

// what you can ask

What can Hermes do on your WordPress site once it's connected?

Once connected, Hermes acts on your live WordPress site with real tools — it does the work itself instead of handing back text you paste in. Ask in plain English, in the chat or terminal you already use, and it can draft and schedule posts, put a WooCommerce collection on sale, keep plugins updated, or read the error log to explain what broke. Cowboy MCP exposes 203 WordPress tools that Hermes calls directly over HTTPS.

hermes — cowboy-mcp

$ "Draft a launch post from these notes and schedule it for Thursday 8am."

$ "Find posts missing a meta description and draft one for each — do not publish, just report the list."

$ "Which plugins have updates waiting? Update them one at a time and health-check after each."

$ "Read the last hour of the error log. If there are fatal errors, summarise them and name the plugin involved."

// setup

How do you connect Hermes Agent to WordPress in three steps?

Connecting takes three steps and no code. Install the free Cowboy MCP plugin, copy the message from the Hermes Agent panel on the Connections tab under Settings → Cowboy MCP, and paste it into your Hermes chat. Hermes adds your site to its config and starts the one-click sign-in. There's no key to copy or keep safe, and nothing is allowed until you click Approve on your own site.

1
Install the free plugin
In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search for Cowboy MCP, and click Install then Activate.
2
Copy the message
Open Settings → Cowboy MCP, pick Hermes Agent under Automation & developers on the Connections tab, and click Copy message. The message tells Hermes to add your site's /wp-json/cowboy-mcp/v1/endpoint URL to its config with OAuth sign-in and to start the sign-in; copying it turns on browser sign-in and opens a 30-minute window for new connections.
3
Paste it and approve
Paste the message into your Hermes chat. Hermes adds the server and sends you a sign-in link — open it in your browser. The page is on your site: pick full access, read-only, or a custom list of tools, and click Approve. Hermes replies with the tools it found; to check later, run hermes mcp test your-site.

Prefer the terminal? Open Use the terminal instead on the same panel and run the one pre-filled line where Hermes is installed: hermes mcp add … --auth oauth --connect-timeout 300. Hermes opens your browser to sign in, then asks which tools to enable — answer Y (press Enter again if nothing happens). Over SSH, open the printed link in a local browser and paste the address your browser ends on back into the terminal. The config.yaml block and an API-key setup are on the panel too; Hermes asks for the key and stores it in ~/.hermes/.env.

Install the plugin Docs ↗

// architecture

Does Hermes need a public site, or does a local one work?

Both work, because Hermes connects from wherever you run it. Cowboy MCP publishes a Streamable HTTP endpoint as an ordinary WordPress REST route at /wp-json/cowboy-mcp/v1/endpoint, so Hermes reaches your site directly over HTTPS — no proxy, no relay, and no third-party service in between. A Hermes on your laptop reaches a site on Local, Studio, MAMP or Docker with no public address; a Hermes on a server reaches any site that server can see, with the paste-back step above closing the sign-in loop. The plugin is itself the MCP server; Hermes is the MCP client.

The same endpoint serves every client — Claude, ChatGPT, OpenClaw — so a Hermes agent and a human in a chat can work the same site side by side, each with its own connection and its own scope. The local WordPress MCP guide covers the local-site details.

// safety

Is it safe to let an agent change your live site?

Yes, with guardrails that matter more when an agent works on its own. Approve the connection with read-only or a custom list of tools if the agent only needs some of them, so a prompt injection or a bad loop can't reach the rest. Safe mode is on by default, so destructive tools ask before they run; any write can be previewed as a dry run; every change lands in an undo journal you can roll back from the Activity tab; and requests are rate-limited to 120 per minute. Every call is written to the audit log, and a connection can be revoked in one click — it all runs on your own server. More on security →

// faq

Questions, answered.

What is Hermes Agent, and what do I need before I start?

Hermes Agent is Nous Research's open agent: it runs on your machine or server, you talk to it from a chat or the terminal, and it can hold MCP servers in its config. You need a working Hermes install and a WordPress site with Cowboy MCP installed. Because Hermes runs where you install it, a local development site works as well as a live one.

Should I paste the message or run the command?

The message is for people who drive Hermes from a chat: the agent adds your site to its config with its terminal tool, starts the sign-in with its connection tool and sends you the link. That connection tool is not present on every Hermes account; if Hermes says it has none, the one terminal command — hermes mcp add with --auth oauth — does the same job from a terminal where Hermes is installed and works on every install. Either way the sign-in page is on your own site, and the access you approve there is what Hermes gets.

My browser ends on a 127.0.0.1 address that won't load — what now?

That happens when Hermes runs on another machine: after you approve, the browser is sent to a local address that only Hermes's host can open. Copy the full address from the browser's address bar and paste it back — into the chat if you used the message, or into the terminal if you used the command. Hermes fetches it from its own host and the sign-in completes.

Does my content get sent anywhere?

Hermes talks to your site directly from wherever it runs, and what it reads goes to the model it is configured to use — nothing else. Cowboy MCP adds no cloud, proxy, or tracking of its own, and everything else runs on your own server.

hermes mcp test lists only two tools — is that right?

Yes. Cowboy MCP exposes two gateway tools, cowboy_discover and cowboy_run, instead of loading every schema into the agent's context — ask Hermes to “discover tools for WooCommerce” and it finds the rest on demand. If even those two are missing, the connection's scope is probably empty: check it under Connected apps on the Connections tab. Still nothing? Ask in the support forum (opens in new tab).

I get a 401, 403 or “registration is closed” when connecting — what's wrong?

“Registration is closed” means Hermes tried to register while new connections were off: click Copy on the message or command in the Hermes Agent panel (it opens a 30-minute window), then sign in again. For the rest, run the Connection Doctor on the Connections tab. A 401 with a Basic Auth prompt means server-level password protection answers before WordPress — exclude /wp-json/cowboy-mcp/ and /.well-known/ from it. A 403 or 503 from Cloudflare is a bot challenge; a 403 or 406 mentioning ModSecurity is a firewall blocking JSON POSTs. Still stuck? Paste the report into the support forum (opens in new tab).

// get started

Ready to connect Hermes Agent to your WordPress site?

Install the free plugin, copy the message, paste it into Hermes, and approve the sign-in — your agent is working on your site minutes later. It works on any self-hosted WordPress site running version 6.2 or newer on PHP 8.0+. The same site also connects to OpenClaw, n8n, and Claude Code.