AI assistants (MCP)

Food Online Premium 6.1.0 and newer can let an AI assistant read and change your restaurant setup:

• the menu: product categories, products with sizes and prices, product and category images
• product options: sauces, extra toppings, comments, half and half, and their stock
• opening hours and time slot schedules, capacity per time slot, pickup locations
• all Food Online settings, with an explanation and an example for each
• the settings of Food Online blocks on your pages, for example the modes, the mini cart and the recommended products popup
• WooCommerce shipping: shipping zones, delivery rates, Local Pickup and the Eat at Restaurant method

It can also build a whole menu from a PDF or photo of your menu, and copy a restaurant setup to another site. It works through the WordPress Abilities API and the MCP Adapter plugin.

The assistant acts as a WordPress user and can only do what that user is allowed to do. Every saved change is logged.

Requirements

• Food Online Premium 6.1.0 or newer
• WordPress 6.9 or newer (the Abilities API is part of WordPress core from 6.9)
• WooCommerce 9.8 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer
• The MCP Adapter plugin, installed and active
• An AI client that supports MCP, for example Claude Desktop, Cursor or VS Code

On older WordPress versions the plugin works as before; the AI functions are simply not available.

Turn it on

The function is off by default. Turn on AI assistant access (MCP) under WooCommerce > Settings > Food Online Premium > Advanced. Turning it off again removes all AI functions immediately.

Who can do what

• Users who can manage WooCommerce (Shop Manager and Administrator) can read the setup and change settings, schedules, pickup locations, option groups and shipping.
• Creating and changing products, categories and images also needs the right to edit products. Publishing a product needs the right to publish products.
• Creating a menu page or changing block settings on a page needs the right to edit pages. A new menu page is always a draft.
• Deleting a schedule or an option group, importing a whole setup and replacing the regions of a shipping zone also need a site Administrator.
• You always see the change first. The assistant shows you what would change and saves only after you say yes. If you change your request, or wait more than 15 minutes, it shows you the change again. (Behind the scenes it uses a one-time confirmation code; you never need to handle it.)
• New products are always saved as drafts. They appear on the menu only when you ask the assistant to publish them, or publish them yourself.
• The assistant can not delete products, and it never sees customers, orders or addresses. For time slots it only sees how many orders a slot has.
• It can not see or change license keys, API keys or passwords, and it can not change payments.
• Every saved change is logged under WooCommerce > Status > Logs with the source fdoe-mcp (shipping changes: arosoft-mcp-shipping).

Connect an AI assistant

1. Choose a WordPress user

Use a user that can manage WooCommerce. A separate user for the assistant makes it easy to see its changes and to remove its access later.

2. Create an Application Password

1. In the WordPress admin, go to Users > Profile (or edit the user).
2. Under Application Passwords, enter a name, for example “AI assistant”, and click Add New Application Password.
3. Copy the password. WordPress shows it only once.

Application Passwords need HTTPS on a live site.

3. Add the server to your AI client

The MCP endpoint of your site is:

https://example.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server

Replace https://example.com with the Site Address (URL) from Settings > General.

Most desktop clients connect through the @automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote helper, which needs Node.js. Example configuration for Claude Desktop (Settings > Developer > Edit Config) or Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-restaurant": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@automattic/mcp-wordpress-remote@latest"],
      "env": {
        "WP_API_URL": "https://example.com/wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server",
        "WP_API_USERNAME": "your-username",
        "WP_API_PASSWORD": "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

Never share the Application Password in support tickets or chats. More connection options are described in the MCP Adapter documentation.

4. Test the connection

Restart the client and ask the assistant to “get the Food Online status”. A reply with the plugin version means it works.

• 401 / not allowed: wrong username or Application Password, or the user can not manage WooCommerce.
• 404 or no route: MCP Adapter is not active or the URL is wrong.
• No Food Online functions: AI assistant access (MCP) is turned off, or WordPress is older than 6.9.

How the assistant learns the plugin

The assistant starts with food-online/get-guide. It explains how Food Online works, the rules (preview first, drafts, what it may not do) and step-by-step recipes: a new restaurant from scratch, a menu from a PDF, opening hours with time slots and capacity, the recommended products popup, product options, copying a setup to another site, and troubleshooting. It links to the matching pages of this documentation and of WooCommerce. Error messages end with a link to the page that explains the problem.

For shipping it starts with arosoft-shipping/get-guide.

food-online/get-status lists setup problems, for example a time picker that is on without a schedule (customers see no times), a checkout engine that does not match the checkout page, or a menu without published products. Ask the assistant to run it before and after changes.

Build a menu from a PDF

1. Give the assistant your menu as a PDF, photo or text. The assistant reads it in the AI client; the file is not uploaded to your site.
2. It turns the menu into categories and products: name, ingredients, price, and sizes with their own prices.
3. It shows you a preview of everything it will create. Products whose name already exists in the same category are skipped.
4. After your yes, it creates the categories and the products as drafts.
5. Check the drafts under Products, then ask the assistant to publish them and to set the order of the menu sections.

Images can be added afterwards: give the assistant an image from the media library or a link to an image. Options such as sauces and extra toppings are added as option groups (see below).

Example requests

• “Create the menu from this PDF: pizzas with sizes, prices and the side dishes as categories.”
• “Pickup 11–21 and delivery 17–21 every day, 15-minute time slots and at most 8 orders per slot.”
• “Show me tomorrow’s pickup times and which are full.”
• “Why do customers see no times at checkout?”
• “Add a pickup location at Storgatan 1, Uppsala.”
• “Raise the price of all large pizzas by 10.” (the assistant shows each change before saving)
• “Add a sauce choice to all pizzas: tomato (default), garlic, and chili for 5 kr. Ask how strong when chili is chosen.”
• “Show recommended drinks in a popup before checkout.”
• “Add delivery for postcodes 75x with a 39 kr fee, free over 300 kr, and add Eat at Restaurant.”
• “Copy the opening hours, settings and option groups to our second restaurant.” (export on one site, import on the other)

Abilities

All names start with food-online/.

Ability	Type	What it does
get-guide	Read	How Food Online works, rules, recipes and links to the documentation.
get-status	Read	Versions, checkout engine and checkout page, time pickers and capacity, pages with Food Online blocks, and warnings.
list-menu / get-product	Read	Categories in menu order and products with prices, status and variations.
get-settings	Read	All Food Online settings, with the current value, allowed values, an example, a tip and a link to the documentation. Can be filtered by section or search word.
list-schedules	Read	Availability schedules: time slots, ordering hours and dropdown choices per mode, weekday or date.
list-pickup-locations	Read	Pickup locations.
preview-time-slots	Read	The time slots of a mode for up to 7 days, with booked and full slots.
list-block-pages / get-block-settings	Read	Pages with Food Online blocks, and every setting of a block with its current value and help.
list-option-groups	Read	Option groups with their choices, prices, stock and where they are used.
get-product-addons	Read	Which options a product shows: Food Online option groups, WooCommerce Product Add-Ons or YITH add-ons.
export-config	Read	Settings, schedules, pickup locations, option groups and optionally the menu, ready to import on another site.
import-menu	Change	Creates categories and products (drafts) from a whole menu, at most 200 products per request.
create-category / update-category / set-category-order	Change	Menu sections and their order.
create-product / update-product	Change	Products with a price or with sizes (variations) that have their own prices.
set-product-status	Change	Publishes a product or turns it back into a draft.
set-product-image / set-category-image	Change	Sets an image from the media library or from a link.
set-product-addons	Change	Add-ons of WooCommerce Product Add-Ons, when that plugin is active.
update-settings	Change	Any setting listed by get-settings.
upsert-schedule	Change	Adds or changes an availability schedule.
upsert-pickup-location	Change	Adds or changes a pickup location.
save-option-group / set-option-stock	Change	Adds or changes an option group, and the stock of a choice.
update-block-settings	Change	Changes the settings of a Food Online block on a page.
create-menu-page	Change	Creates a draft page with the Food Online Menu Flow.
delete-schedule / delete-option-group	Delete	Deletes a schedule or an option group (Administrator only).
import-config	Change	Applies a setup from export-config (Administrator only).

Shipping

The shipping abilities are shared with Shipping Zones by Drawing Premium. When both plugins are active they are registered once. All names start with arosoft-shipping/.

Ability	Type	What it does
get-guide	Read	Rules and recipes for WooCommerce shipping.
list-shipping-methods / list-shipping-classes / describe-wc-method	Read	Shipping zones with their methods and settings, shipping classes, and the settings a method has.
get-local-pickup	Read	The Local Pickup settings of the Checkout block.
create-wc-shipping-zone / update-wc-shipping-zone	Change	Adds or changes a shipping zone.
create-wc-method / update-wc-method	Change	Adds or changes a method in a zone, including Food Online’s Eat at Restaurant method.
set-shipping-method-enabled / reorder-shipping-methods	Change	Turns a method on or off, or changes the order.
update-local-pickup	Change	Changes the Local Pickup settings.
replace-wc-zone-regions	Delete	Replaces the regions of a zone (Administrator only).

Related

• Opening hours and order times
• Pickup
• Troubleshooting
• WordPress MCP Adapter