GoBuildWP Pro · 18 WPBakery abilities
WPBakery MCP that edits elements, not shortcode strings. Batch edits and templates included.
GoBuildWP's WPBakery MCP gives an AI client 18 typed abilities in GoBuildWP Pro. Pages come back as a JSON element tree with a depth-first index, so the agent can edit one element, batch-edit every match in one atomic write, move elements and apply saved templates without hand-editing nested shortcodes.
Pro from $39/year, WPBakery 6.5+, Setup guide
Proposed sequence using source-declared abilities in GoBuildWP Pro 1.12.4. Site, IDs, changes and outcomes are illustrative; no live client, native-editor or restore test is recorded here. Confirm the installed schema and policy separately. A confirmed call carries confirm: true, which the agent sets itself by default; a person approves only when Confirmation mode is “A person approves” or a Pro approval policy holds the call.
Shortcode or element
A WPBakery page is a shortcode string; the agent edits it as elements
WPBakery stores layouts as nested shortcodes inside post content. Reading that by eye, or letting a model rewrite it as a string, is how rows lose their closing tags. GoBuildWP parses the page into a tree and writes the tree back, so the result reopens in the WPBakery editor.
Every element in that tree carries a depth-first index, _idx, with its attributes decoded. An edit names one index, a move detaches and reinserts one subtree, and a match-based batch changes every element that fits a pattern in a single write, so three call-to-action buttons change together or not at all.
When the page should leave WPBakery entirely, GoBuildWP Pro's page builder converter reads WPBakery, including raw HTML blocks, and writes a new draft in Elementor, Bricks, Divi 5, the block editor and others, with a report of everything that did not carry over.
Guard rails on WPBakery writes
- Parsed, not patched as text. Pages are read into a tree and written back from it, so nesting and closing tags survive.
- Atomic batches. wpbakery-edit-elements applies every matched edit in one write.
- Replace confirmed. Applying a template in replace mode discards the layout and is destructive; append and prepend are not.
- Schemas where they exist. An element tag WPBakery has not registered returns not found from the schema lookup, and its attributes are written without validation.
Inherited sites
WPBakery jobs on sites someone else built
Most WPBakery work starts with understanding a page nobody on the current team made, so every job below begins with a read.
Stop hand-editing shortcodes
Typed element operations mean the agent changes structure instead of doing string surgery.
Example prompt: Inspect this WPBakery page and list every element with its type.
Batch a repetitive change
Edit several elements in one atomic operation when the same change applies across a page.
Example prompt: Update the heading text in all three call-to-action elements in one batch edit.
Quote work on an inherited site
Read the full element inventory before estimating, with no write access at all.
Example prompt: Inventory the home, services and contact pages and list the add-on elements each one uses.
Reuse templates
Append or prepend a saved template rather than rebuilding the same rows and columns.
Example prompt: Append the saved 'Contact strip' template to the end of this page.
Element operations
The WPBakery abilities that replace shortcode surgery
- Reads
- 8
- Writes
- 6
- Destructive effects
- 4
wpbakery-inspect-pageOne read-only snapshot: setup, page settings, custom CSS and the full element inventory of a post.
wpbakery-get-contentThe page as a nested JSON tree with decoded attributes and a depth-first index for every element.
wpbakery-edit-elementsApplies match-based edits across many elements in a single atomic write.
wpbakery-get-element-schemaThe control schema for one element tag, so attributes are valid before they are written.
wpbakery-list-grid-item-elementsThe per-item layout elements used inside Grid Builder templates, which the main catalogue does not show.
wpbakery-set-settingsMarks a post as a WPBakery page and writes page-level custom CSS.
Complete module
All 18 WPBakery abilities with their risk
Reads · 8
| Ability | What it does | Read / Write / Destructive | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
wpbakery-check-setup | Check WPBakery Setup | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-get-content | Get WPBakery Content | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-get-element-schema | Get WPBakery Element Schema | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-get-settings | Get WPBakery Settings | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-inspect-page | Inspect WPBakery Page | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-list-elements | List WPBakery Elements | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-list-grid-item-elements | List WPBakery Grid Item Elements | Read | Pro |
wpbakery-list-templates | List WPBakery Templates | Read | Pro |
Writes · 6
| Ability | What it does | Read / Write / Destructive | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
wpbakery-add-element | Add WPBakery Element | Write | Pro |
wpbakery-create-template | Create WPBakery Template | Write | Pro |
wpbakery-edit-element | Edit WPBakery Element | Write | Pro |
wpbakery-edit-elements | Edit Multiple WPBakery Elements | Write | Pro |
wpbakery-move-element | Move WPBakery Element | Write | Pro |
wpbakery-set-settings | Set WPBakery Settings | Write | Pro |
Destructive effects; inspect confirmation policy · 4
| Ability | What it does | Read / Write / Destructive | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
wpbakery-apply-template | Apply WPBakery Template | Destructive | Pro |
wpbakery-delete-element | Delete WPBakery Element | Destructive | Pro |
wpbakery-delete-template | Delete WPBakery Template | Destructive | Pro |
wpbakery-set-content | Set WPBakery Content | Destructive | Pro |
Names drop the wppilot/ prefix. All 18 are GoBuildWP Pro and load only while the WPBakery plugin or theme is active. Supported writes are recorded in the change ledger with a redacted before and after, and reversible ones can be rolled back.
Requirements
WPBakery 6.5, add-on elements and theme CSS
Requirements
- WordPress
- 6.9 or newer, PHP 8.0 or newer.
- WPBakery
- WPBakery Page Builder 6.5 or newer.
- Add-on elements
- Schema-checked where they register a schema with WPBakery.
- GoBuildWP
- Free plugin plus a Pro licence for the 18 WPBakery abilities.
- Current versions
- GoBuildWP Free 1.18.6 and Pro 1.12.4.
Limits
- Shortcode layouts are sensitive to malformed nesting. Writes go through the parsed tree, but a full-tree write reports unknown attribute keys and invalid values after saving rather than refusing them, and batch edits are not schema-checked per match. Re-read the tree and open the page in WPBakery after a change.
- Third-party add-on elements are schema-checked only where they register a schema with WPBakery.
- Applying a template in replace mode discards the existing layout and needs confirmation; append and prepend do not.
- Rendered output depends on theme CSS, so review the page after a structural change.
First run
Install GoBuildWP Free
WordPress 6.9+ and PHP 8.0+; the site becomes its own MCP endpoint.
Connect a client
OAuth 2.1 in the browser, or an Application Password where the client cannot sign in.
Inspect one page
wpbakery-inspect-page returns setup, page settings, custom CSS and the element inventory in one read.
Batch one change
With Pro, update matching elements in one atomic write on a draft.
Setup guide · OAuth 2.1 · Application Passwords · Client guides
Older WPBakery sites in practice
Other plugins' shortcodes on the same page survive
Pages built in WPBakery years ago rarely contain only WPBakery. A contact form shortcode, a gallery or a slider plugin's tag usually sits somewhere in the same post content. wpbakery-inspect-page lists those foreign shortcodes separately from the element tree, and the write abilities keep them: wpbakery-delete-element and wpbakery-apply-template preserve non-WPBakery shortcodes and report which ones they carried over. Even a template applied in replace mode, which discards every WPBakery node, leaves a [contact-form-7] tag in place. Read the preserved list in the response anyway; it tells you where on the page the form ended up.
Page CSS and Design Options CSS are different things
WPBakery keeps two kinds of CSS on a page, and agents confuse them. The page-level custom CSS is the free-form box a person writes in, and wpbakery-get-settings and wpbakery-set-settings read and write it. The shortcodes custom CSS is generated by WPBakery from each element's Design Options and rebuilt when the page is saved in the editor. Writing that second one by hand works until someone next saves the page, then disappears. For spacing, borders and backgrounds, have the agent change the element's css attribute through wpbakery-edit-element so WPBakery regenerates the stylesheet itself.
One more setting matters on imported or hand-made posts: the WPBakery-edited flag. If a page has WPBakery shortcodes but no flag, the Edit with WPBakery link does not appear and the front-end assets may not load. wpbakery-set-settings can set it.
Grid Builder items and post grids
Post grids are where WPBakery sites tend to look dated, and they are built in two places: the grid element on the page, and a separate grid item template that lays out each card. wpbakery-check-setup reports whether Grid Builder is available, and wpbakery-list-grid-item-elements describes the item-level shortcodes along with the special link values such as the post link and lightbox image. Ask the agent to read the grid item template before restyling the cards, because changing the page's grid element alone will not move the title above the image.
One change across many pages
wpbakery-edit-elements batches changes within one page in a single atomic write, matching nodes by tag and index. Across pages it is one call per page, so ask for a plan first: "List every page that uses the old phone number in a vc_btn or vc_column_text element, show me the edits per page, then apply them one page at a time and stop if any write fails." Index numbers renumber after structural edits, so the agent should read each page fresh rather than reuse indexes from an earlier inventory.
FAQ
WPBakery MCP questions about shortcodes and add-ons
Other builders: Elementor, Bricks, Breakdance, Divi, Oxygen, Beaver Builder, Flatsome, Etch, Mosaic.
What is WPBakery MCP?
WPBakery MCP lets an AI client inspect WPBakery page content and element schemas, then edit elements, templates and settings instead of raw shortcodes. The MCP server itself is GoBuildWP Free running inside your WordPress install, and GoBuildWP Pro adds 18 typed WPBakery abilities.
Does it edit WPBakery shortcodes directly?
It works through typed element operations on a parsed tree rather than string manipulation, which avoids text-level mistakes such as lost closing tags. It does not validate every attribute: a full-tree write reports invalid values after saving, and batch edits are not schema-checked. Open the page in the WPBakery editor afterwards.
Will it work with my WPBakery add-ons?
Add-on elements get a schema where they register one with WPBakery. Where they do not, the schema lookup returns not found and edits to that element are written without attribute validation, so check those elements by hand.
Can it convert WPBakery to another builder?
Not this module, which works inside WPBakery. GoBuildWP Pro's page builder converter reads WPBakery pages and writes a new draft in another builder, leaves the source untouched, and reports every element that did not survive whole.
Is WPBakery worth automating on an old site?
Inspection alone is often the win. Reading a full element inventory is much faster than clicking through the editor, and it needs no write access.
Inventory a WPBakery page before anyone edits it.
Connect read-only and inspect one inherited page; the element list is often most of the estimate.