WordPress Theme MCP that respects the theme's override chain.

Dedicated theme modules and the theme bridge are not the same depth

The module table lists nine themes, but they fall into two groups, and which group your theme is in decides what you can ask for. Astra, GeneratePress, OceanWP, Avada and Kadence have modules written for their own storage, with abilities named after the theme. Blocksy, Neve, WoodMart and block themes in general go through one shared bridge with three abilities: theme-bridge-check-setup, theme-bridge-list-customizer-settings and theme-bridge-update-customizer-settings, plus theme-bridge-list-block-assets on a block theme.

The bridge only writes settings the theme still registers with the WordPress Customizer, through each setting's own validator. It never guesses an option name and never writes a theme's private panel. That keeps each write inside the theme's own validation, though a valid value can still look wrong on a page that overrides it, and it also means anything the theme keeps outside the Customizer is reported as unavailable rather than changed.

• Astra: settings, palette, typography, header and footer builder rows, page-level settings, modules, Advanced Hooks and page headers with the Pro addon.
• GeneratePress: settings, GP Premium Elements with their display conditions, the font library, modules and Site Library imports.
• OceanWP: Customizer panels, typography, header configuration, per-page overrides, modules and Ocean Extra library templates.
• Avada: a curated set of global options, the global palette and type sets, and Fusion Slider slides and settings.
• Kadence: settings in whichever storage the site uses and a read of the resolved theme.json. It has no palette writer, and its header, navigation and form builders are edited as ordinary posts.
• Blocksy, Neve and WoodMart: registered Customizer settings only. Blocksy Content Blocks, Neve Custom Layouts, and WoodMart's Theme Settings, Header Builder and Layouts are outside it.
• Block themes: an inventory of templates and parts through the bridge (Pro). Separately, from GoBuildWP Free 1.18.0, update-template, revert-template and update-global-styles edit templates, template parts and Global Styles directly, the way the site editor saves them, with undo from the change log.

Choosing a theme for a site an agent will maintain

If the theme is not settled yet and you expect an agent to handle site-wide design changes, the dedicated modules give it more to work with. A header rebuilt from a prompt, a hook element shown only on archives, or a typography change applied across devices all have abilities of their own on Astra, GeneratePress or OceanWP. On WoodMart the same requests mostly end in a list of surfaces the bridge cannot reach, and a person finishes them in WoodMart's own panel.

That is not a reason to switch an existing site. A WoodMart or Neve store with a settled header gains little from a theme change and risks a lot. Use the bridge for what it covers, keep the agent on page bodies through the page's own builder, and leave vendor builders to a person.

The child-theme trap and other places settings seem to vanish

Customizer values are stored per stylesheet, so activating a child theme makes a configured site look reset, and switching back makes the agent's last changes look lost. Blocksy documents this and offers a copy tool in its companion plugin. Before any theme change, run the theme's setup check and note whether a child theme is active.

Kadence adds a second trap: by default each setting is a theme mod, but a site can move them all into one named option with a filter. The setup check reports which applies and the writer follows it, so do not compare values by reading theme mods by hand. Avada has no options row at all until wp-admin has loaded once after install.

Undo works on the whole settings row

Most theme writes are restored by putting back the entire settings row as it was before the call: the astra-settings option, Avada's options array, GeneratePress settings, OceanWP's theme mods row or the bridge's row for the active stylesheet. That puts the row back exactly, but it is not selective. Rolling back one call reverts everything that call wrote, and rolling back an older call with rollback-change after newer ones were made overwrites those newer changes too. Undo newest first, or use undo-session, which refuses the whole run when a target changed after the session.

Some theme data never goes back. Fonts added or removed through GeneratePress are files, Avada slider settings live in term meta, a hard-deleted hook or element is gone, and a GeneratePress Site Library import changes settings and content together. generatepress-restore-site replays GP Premium's own backup instead, and restoring content uses that backup up, so it works once.

What a theme module will never touch

Every module draws the same line around code. The options that let Astra Advanced Hooks or GeneratePress hook elements execute PHP are never read or written, and settings that look like custom CSS, scripts, tracking, licence keys or credentials are redacted and refused. Avada rejects any value containing angle brackets because it would reach the theme's generated CSS. If a design change genuinely needs code, that is a separate, deliberate step with a person reviewing it.

Asking for a theme change: a prompt that sets the agent up

“Run the setup check for the active theme and tell me whether a child theme is active, which module or bridge answers for it, and which parts of the header, footer and colours are outside its reach. Then read the current palette and body typography, propose the change I describe, and list every key you would write before writing any.” Review the proposal on a staging copy, and compare the page you edit with a page that sets its own overrides. On block themes, adopt-design-from-site reads global styles as a starting point.