SiteOrigin MCP — Edit Page Builder by SiteOrigin with an AI Agent (12 Tools)

What is SiteOrigin MCP?

SiteOrigin MCP means changing your Page Builder by SiteOrigin layouts by describing the edit to an AI assistant instead of dragging rows and widgets around. Cowboy MCP's SiteOrigin integration gives an AI agent 12 tools over the Model Context Protocol whenever Page Builder is active, so your assistant can read a layout, edit it row by row and widget by widget or rewrite it whole, apply prebuilt layouts, change Page Builder settings, and switch Widgets Bundle widgets on and off — every write previewable and reversible.

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 SiteOrigin tools automatically when Page Builder is active. Every save goes through SiteOrigin's own code, so a layout the agent writes is stored exactly the way the Page Builder editor would store it.

What can an AI agent do with SiteOrigin Page Builder?

An agent can do the layout work you would otherwise click through: find every page with a Page Builder layout, read one as rows, cells, and widgets, and change it with small targeted edits — add a row, change a widget's text, move a widget to another cell, delete a row — or replace it in one go. It can apply a prebuilt layout your theme or plugins provide, copy another page's layout, look up which widgets are available and what settings each one takes, and update Page Builder's site-wide settings. Classic layouts and Page Builder's Layout Blocks in the block editor are both supported.

Here are all 12 tools. The names below are the real tool identifiers the agent sees.

Tool	What it does
wp_siteorigin_list_pages	List the posts and pages that have a Page Builder layout, classic or Layout Block, with row and widget counts
wp_siteorigin_get_layout	Read a page's layout in full, or as a short rows → cells → widgets overview with an id for each widget
wp_siteorigin_edit_layout	Make targeted edits — add, update, move, or delete rows and widgets — in one all-or-nothing call
wp_siteorigin_update_layout	Replace a page's whole layout; an empty layout clears it
wp_siteorigin_list_prebuilt_layouts	List the prebuilt layouts your theme and plugins register
wp_siteorigin_apply_prebuilt_layout	Apply a prebuilt layout, or copy another page's layout, replacing the current one or adding after it
wp_siteorigin_list_widgets	List the widgets a layout can use — core, third-party, and Widgets Bundle — including switched-off Bundle widgets
wp_siteorigin_get_widget_schema	Get the settings a widget accepts
wp_siteorigin_get_style_fields	List the style options available for rows, cells, and widgets
wp_siteorigin_set_widgets_active	Switch SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle widgets on or off, with a warning listing the pages that use a widget being switched off
wp_siteorigin_get_settings	Read Page Builder's site-wide settings and the options each one allows
wp_siteorigin_update_settings	Change those settings (only the keys you name)

Three real prompts, to make it concrete:

• "List every page built with Page Builder and give me an outline of the Home page's rows and widgets."
• "On the Pricing page, change the second row's button text to 'Start free' and move the FAQ widget above the testimonials — preview it first."
• "Apply the theme's 'Services' prebuilt layout to the new Consulting page, then put our phone number in the contact widget."

How do layout edits stay safe?

A layout edit touches a live page, so it is only reasonable if you can see it first and take it back after. Cowboy MCP puts the SiteOrigin write tools behind the same guardrails it uses across the whole site, plus a few that come from writing through SiteOrigin itself.

• Dry run — every layout write can report what it would change without saving: the rows and widgets added, changed, moved, or removed, and any HTML SiteOrigin's sanitizer would strip.
• Undo journal — every layout, settings, and widget-activation change is captured as its own entry, so a bad edit rolls back from the Activity tab without touching the rest of the site.
• All or nothing — a batch of targeted edits either applies completely or not at all. Edits that contradict each other, like updating a widget another edit deletes, are refused before anything is written.
• Unsafe HTML is always stripped — layouts are saved through SiteOrigin's own sanitizer, so scripts, iframes, and other unsafe HTML never reach the page, and the agent is told what was removed. There is no opt-out.
• No surprise widget activations — a layout that uses a switched-off Widgets Bundle widget is refused until the agent switches it on explicitly, instead of the widget quietly activating itself when the page renders.

None of the SiteOrigin 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 SiteOrigin MCP's limits?

Cowboy MCP works with Page Builder's layout data, not its canvas. It reads and writes rows, cells, widgets, and their styles, but it cannot see the page or judge how a layout looks. It is best at precise, repeatable edits — rewording a section, reordering widgets, rolling a prebuilt layout out to a new page.

Editing layouts needs Page Builder 2.36.0 or later, because the tools save through the layout-saving code SiteOrigin added in that version. On older versions the layout-editing tools do not appear, while reading layouts and widgets and changing Page Builder settings still work. Switching widgets on and off needs the SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle. Prebuilt layouts come from your theme and plugins — SiteOrigin's online layout directory is not used. Widgets that are not part of the Widgets Bundle have no machine-readable settings list, so the agent copies their settings from an existing instance.

How do I set it up?

Setup takes about five minutes and needs no code. Install the Cowboy MCP plugin, make sure Page Builder is active so the tools register, then connect your AI assistant and start with a read-only request like listing your Page 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 — "outline the rows and widgets on my Home page" — then ask for a change with a dry run first.

FAQ