You want to point an agent at your WordPress archive and say add a meta description to every post that is missing one, fix the titles that still use the old product name, and tighten the excerpts. What stops you is the live site. WordPress has no per-field undo. A bad pass means opening a backup, not pressing ctrl-z.
pi is the agent you configure to fit your workflow exactly. Your prompts, your validators, your voice. Scratch gives pi real WordPress content to work on as local files, and a review layer so nothing ships until you have seen the diff and approved it. The live site does not change until you say so.
How it works
- Scratch pulls your content into files. Posts, pages, and any custom post types come down to a folder on your machine, one file each. pi works against that folder, never the live database.
- pi edits the content. Run pi against the folder with a prompt you have tuned to your site. pi reads every file, applies the changes, and writes the results back as local files. The live site is untouched.
- You review every diff and publish. Scratch shows each change next to the original, word by word. Approve what ships, and Scratch writes only those posts back to WordPress over the REST API.
What people use it for
- Add a meta description to every post missing one, each kept under the character limit.
- Rewrite titles that still reference an old product name, price, or policy.
- Normalize inconsistent heading case and formatting across the whole archive.
- Freshen evergreen posts that have stale dates or outdated examples.
- Tighten excerpts so category pages and RSS feeds read clearly.
Why not an MCP server?
A WordPress MCP server gives the agent a live connection to your database. The agent can read and write directly, which sounds convenient until you need to undo something. There is no diff step, no approval gate, and no per-field undo in WordPress itself. One bad prompt and you are restoring from a backup.
Scratch pulls the same content out as files and holds the publish step back. pi gets full read and write access to the files. You get the publish button. Nothing goes live until you have approved the diff. On a site with real traffic, that boundary is the thing that matters.
What pi edits in WordPress
Editable by default:
- Post and page body content, with block structure preserved
- Titles, slugs, excerpts, and publication status
- Custom post types and taxonomies, auto-discovered from your site
- Advanced Custom Fields and image alt text across the media library
Stays locked:
- Theme templates and template parts
- Post meta is hidden by default, so plugin-owned SEO fields are not touched unless you explicitly expose them
- Plugin configuration and site settings
Validators are optional. Add a length check, a required-fields rule, or a custom script. pi runs them before Scratch shows you the diff, so bad output is caught before it reaches your approval queue.
Questions people ask
Does pi write to the live WordPress database?
No. pi edits files on your machine. Scratch sends the approved changes to WordPress over the REST API only after you have reviewed and approved each one. The live site does not change until you say so.
Will pi use my site's voice and style?
That is the point of pi. You configure the system prompt, the validators, and the review rules to match your site. If your site uses a specific tone, a house style guide, or particular terminology, you put that in the prompt. pi is not a generic tool you adapt to. It is the one you shape to yourself.
Will pi touch my theme or SEO plugin fields?
No. Templates and template parts are excluded. Post meta is hidden by default, so fields owned by Yoast, RankMath, or any other SEO plugin are not edited unless you explicitly open them. You control what is in scope.
Can it handle a large archive?
Yes. Pull 50 posts first to test your prompt and validators, then pull the whole archive. The loop is the same at any scale: pull, edit, review, publish.
Do I need to know how to code?
Not to run it. Install Scratch, connect WordPress, run pi against the folder with a prompt, and approve the diffs. Validators are shell commands or scripts, so some jobs benefit from a bit of configuration, but the core loop is not technical.
See it on your own posts
The fastest way to trust it is to watch pi run on your actual content. Talk through your WordPress setup and we will walk through a first pass together, or download Scratch free and run it yourself.