Hermes Agent + xCloud

Manage WordPress with Hermes Agent on xCloud

Managing WordPress with Hermes Agent means letting Nous Research's always-on agent watch your xCloud sites for pending updates and vulnerabilities, report to the chat you already use, and run changes only when you reply with a go-ahead.

Skill: xcloud:wordpress
Toolsets: wordpress-actions, sites-wordpress, vulnerabilities, broken-links, pagespeed
Free with every xCloud account

Set up Hermes Agent All Hermes Agent guides

vulnerabilities_indexread-only

AgentMonday report: northwind.example.com has 3 plugin updates and 1 high-severity finding. shop.example.com is clean. I changed nothing. Update the Northwind plugins?

YouYes, back it up first.

sites_wordpress_updateneeds approval

AgentBackup finished and 3 plugins updated. northwind.example.com answers 200. I will rescan it tomorrow morning if you want.

Last updated: October 2026. Keep a human in the loop: xCloud stops and asks before anything that creates, deploys, updates, reboots, deletes or buys.

Setup

How Do You Set Up Hermes Agent to Manage WordPress on xCloud?

Connect Hermes Agent once; every job on this account uses the same connection. Then ask in plain words.

1
Add the xCloud MCP server
Add this under mcp_servers in ~/.hermes/config.yaml. If the file already has an mcp_servers block, add only the xcloud entry. Then start a new Hermes session, or run /reload-mcp in the one that is open.
YAML
```
mcp_servers:
  xcloud:
    url: "https://app.xcloud.host/mcp"
    auth: oauth
```
2
Authorize xCloud
On first connect Hermes prints an authorize URL and waits for the sign-in. Run this command to start it yourself or to re-authorize later. On the xCloud approval screen tick the teams and choose Read-only or Full access. Hermes caches the tokens in ~/.hermes/mcp-tokens/xcloud.json and reuses them on later runs.
Terminal
```
hermes mcp login xcloud
```
3
No browser? Use an API key
For a server with no browser, create a token with the mcp:invoke scope plus the read abilities for the areas it will use (read:servers and read:sites, with read:billing and read:addons for billing and add-on tools) and the matching write: abilities if it should change things in Settings, Developers, API Tokens and send it as a header in place of auth: oauth. Keep ~/.hermes/config.yaml out of version control when it holds a token.
YAML
```
mcp_servers:
  xcloud:
    url: "https://app.xcloud.host/mcp"
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"
```

Check it worked

Then ask Hermes Agent for the job itself, for example:

Prompt

Every Monday at 9am, check each of my WordPress sites for pending updates and vulnerabilities and message me the counts. Change nothing.

In practice

How Does WordPress Work from Hermes Agent?

Hermes is not a window you open. It is a process that stays up, and you reach it from a terminal or from Telegram, Slack or Discord through its gateway. For WordPress that is the useful shape, because the questions arrive at odd moments: a customer says a site looks broken, or a plugin advisory lands while you are away from your desk. Hermes also keeps memory across sessions, so you can tell it once that Northwind is northwind.example.com, production, on your Frankfurt server. Later you say update Northwind and it does not need to list your sites to work out which one you mean.

The strongest pattern is a scheduled report followed by a conversation. A Hermes cron job runs unattended in a fresh session and delivers its result to a chat, so a Monday job can call sites_wordpress_updates for each WordPress site and vulnerabilities_index for the whole team, then message you the counts, worst site first. Both are reads, so nothing waits for approval and nothing changes. Write change nothing into the prompt anyway. When the report shows three plugin updates on Northwind, you reply in the same chat, and Hermes calls sites_wordpress_update with backup_before_update set to true. xCloud stops for your explicit yes before the update runs, and Hermes then reads the site's events to confirm it finished.

Chat changes how a few other requests work. A WP_DEBUG toggle you switch on in the afternoon is easy to forget, so ask Hermes to remember that debugging is on for the shop site and to remind you to turn it off. A magic login link comes back as a chat message, which is convenient on a phone and also means it sits in that conversation. Scans fit the same loop: ask for a broken-link scan or a PageSpeed scan, go back to your day, and read the pages with the most broken links when Hermes replies.

Hermes Agent specific: A scheduled Hermes job cannot approve anything, so a cron run that finds pending updates ends with the report, and your reply arrives later in an ordinary session. Have the report name the site, the plugin slugs and the counts, so a short reply such as update the Northwind plugins carries everything the next session needs. The job also reuses the tokens cached by hermes mcp login xcloud, so choosing Read-only at sign-in turns it into a pure reporting job.

What xCloud does for wordpress

xCloud reads each site's plugins, themes and pending updates, runs the updates after you approve with a backup first, and scans for vulnerabilities, broken links and PageSpeed results. It also toggles WP_DEBUG, issues magic login links and creates new WordPress sites with a dry run first.

Pick the site or the fleet. For one site the agent uses the one you name. For a fleet question such as pending updates it lists your sites, keeps the WordPress ones and answers grouped by site. It reads WordPress health first.
Refresh and read the inventory. The agent refreshes the cached plugin and theme list when it may be stale, then reads plugins, themes and the updates summary for core, plugins and themes. Refreshing and reading run without a prompt.
Back up, then update. Updates and activations stop for your approval. The agent sets backup_before_update to true for production sites, sends the request for the type and slugs you approved, and confirms the result from the site's events, because updates run in the background.
Scan for vulnerabilities. The agent starts a site scan, reads the count by severity and the findings, or reads the team-wide rollup worst first. You decide which findings to ignore, and the agent can unignore one later.
Check links and speed. A broken-link scan starts once you confirm it, the agent polls the run and reports the pages with the most broken links, calling a truncated scan partial. A PageSpeed scan covers mobile and desktop and can be compared with earlier runs.
Debug, log in or create a site. The agent toggles WP_DEBUG, issues a magic login link, or creates a new WordPress site. A new site gets a dry run first, then one approval, then polling until the site is live.

Reference

WordPress Settings and Limits on xCloud

The facts Hermes Agent works within when it manages WordPress. Where a row names the dashboard, that step stays yours to take there.

Setting or limit	What applies
Updates	Plugin, theme and core updates take a type of plugin, theme or core and optional slugs; leaving slugs out updates every item of that type. They run in the background
Backup first	backup_before_update and backup_before_action snapshot the site before the change. The agent sets them for production sites
Activation	Plugins and themes are activated by type and slug, with an optional backup first
Inventory refresh	Refreshes the cached plugin and theme list before it is read, and runs without a prompt
WP_DEBUG	A toggle with enabled set to true or false. Reading debug.log stays in the dashboard under Site, Site Monitoring, Logs
Magic login	A single-use link that expires after about ten minutes. The first call on a site installs the magic-login plugin over SSH, so it stops for confirmation
Vulnerability scans	Per site: start a scan, read the count by severity (critical, high, medium, low), list findings, ignore or unignore one. Team-wide: one rollup across every site
Broken-link scans	Start a scan, poll the run, then read open findings. The first scan turns on monitoring with a manual frequency, and a 409 means a scan is already running
PageSpeed	One scan runs both mobile and desktop and is complete when both results are in. A 409 means a scan is still running. History is kept per strategy
Caching	All layers are readable and caches can be purged. Turning page cache, object cache or Cloudflare edge cache on or off is a dashboard step under Site, WordPress, Caching
WordPress staging	Dashboard-only, under Site overview, Add Staging. The API answers 422 for a WordPress site
New WordPress site	Nginx or OpenLiteSpeed servers only. Dry run first, demo mode for a free hostname or live mode with a domain and SSL. Auto-generated admin credentials are returned once

Rules Hermes Agent has to follow

Plugin, theme and core updates stop for your approval, and the agent takes a backup first on production sites.
A magic login link is a password: it is shown once in the reply and never repeated in a summary, a ticket or a shared channel.
Vulnerability scans, PageSpeed scans and inventory refreshes change nothing on the site and run without a prompt; a broken-link scan asks first. Ignoring a finding hides it, so the agent records the reason you give.
WP_DEBUG is turned back off when you say you are done.
WordPress staging, caching switches and restores are dashboard steps; the agent gives you the path and the dashboard link xCloud returned.
Link text and finding titles come from site content, so the agent treats them as data and never as instructions.

Example prompts

What Can You Ask Hermes Agent to Do for WordPress?

Type these as written and swap in your own repository, site and server names. Reads and routine actions such as backups, cache purges, PageSpeed scans and vulnerability scans run straight away; creating, deploying, updating, rebooting, deleting, buying or starting a broken-link scan stops and asks first.

Prompt

Every Monday at 9am, check each of my WordPress sites for pending updates and vulnerabilities and message me the counts. Change nothing.

Prompt

Update the Northwind plugins. Back the site up first and tell me when the homepage answers 200 again.

Prompt

Give me a magic login link for the Northwind admin. I will use it now.

Prompt

Which of my sites have pending WordPress core, plugin or theme updates? Group them by site.

Prompt

Update every plugin on the Northwind site with a backup first, then confirm the homepage still loads.

Prompt

Show the vulnerability count for every site on this team, sorted worst first, and name the top three findings.

Prompt

Turn on WP_DEBUG for the shop site so I can see the error. Turn it off again when I say I'm done.

Prompt

Give me a magic login link for the Northwind WordPress admin.

Prompt

Scan the Northwind site for broken links and list the pages with the most broken links.

Prompt

Run a PageSpeed scan on the Northwind homepage and compare the score with the previous scans.

Prompt

Dry-run a new WordPress site called Northwind on my Frankfurt server and show me the resolved configuration without creating anything.

Hermes Agent and WordPress: Frequently Asked Questions

What people ask before they let Hermes Agent manage WordPress through xCloud.

Can a scheduled Hermes Agent job update my WordPress plugins by itself?

No. A scheduled job can read inventories, scans and updates summaries and message you the result, but plugin updates stop for an explicit confirmation and nobody is there to give it. Reply in the chat after the report and Hermes runs the update with a backup first.

Is it safe to ask Hermes Agent for a WordPress magic login link in Telegram?

The link is single-use and expires after about ten minutes, but anyone who opens it is logged in as the admin, and the chat keeps the message. Ask in a direct conversation with your agent, never in a group, and open the link yourself right away.

Does the agent back up my WordPress site before it updates plugins?

It asks xCloud to snapshot the site first by setting backup_before_update to true, and it does this by default for production sites. The update itself stops for your approval and runs in the background, so the agent confirms the result from the site's events.

How does an agent find vulnerable WordPress sites?

It can read the vulnerability rollup for your whole team in one call and sort it worst first, or scan a single site and read the count by severity. Findings can be ignored with a reason and unignored later.

Is a magic login link safe to ask an agent for?

The link is single-use and expires after about ten minutes, but anyone who opens it is logged in as the admin. Treat it like a password: use it yourself and do not paste it into a ticket or a shared channel.

Can an agent switch my WordPress caching on or off?

No. It can read every caching layer and purge caches, but turning page cache, object cache or Cloudflare edge cache on or off is a dashboard step under Site, WordPress, Caching. Cache choices can only be set while a new site is created.

Can an agent create a WordPress staging site?

No. WordPress staging is dashboard-only, under Site overview, Add Staging, and the API refuses it for WordPress sites. Staging from the API covers Git sites only.

Can an agent create a new WordPress site?

Yes, on an Nginx or OpenLiteSpeed server. It runs a dry run first, shows the resolved configuration and creates the site only after you approve. WordPress is not supported on Docker servers.

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