A step-by-step guide to building an AI-powered WordPress plugin called 'Photo to Post' using three WordPress Core AI building blocks: the Abilities API, the WordPress AI Client, and the MCP Adapter. The plugin takes an image URL, uses a vision AI model to describe it, generates a blog post from that description, and creates a draft post with the image as the featured image. The tutorial covers registering composable Abilities in PHP, making provider-agnostic AI calls via the WordPress AI Client, composing abilities together, wiring up a JavaScript admin UI using the Abilities JS API, and exposing the functionality to AI agents via MCP — all without writing separate code for each interface.
Table of contents
What we’re buildingBefore you startConnecting your site to your AI providerBuilding the plugin functionalityStep 1: Register the abilitiesStep 2: Hook the abilities inStep 3: Check your work over RESTStep 4: Describe the image (your first AI call)Step 5: Generate the post copyStep 6: Compose the abilities (the good bit)Step 7: Update the Admin InterfaceStep 8: Hand it to an AI agent (MCP)Wrap up5.7K Impressions