Using WebberZone Image Optimizer with AI Assistants (Abilities API)

From version 1.3.0, WebberZone Image Optimizer registers six abilities with the WordPress Abilities APIOpens in a new window. An AI assistant or any other client that can call abilities can use them to check progress, run Bulk Optimize, optimize a single image and change settings, without anyone opening the admin screens.

The Bulk Optimize screen doesn’t need to stay open. When the background queue is on, queued images are converted by WP-Cron, the same as when you start a run from Media → Bulk Optimize and close the tab.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.9 or later. The Abilities API ships with 6.9; on earlier versions the plugin registers nothing and nothing changes.
• A client that can discover and call abilities. MCP clients, such as Claude Desktop or Claude Code, connect through the WordPress MCP AdapterOpens in a new window. Every Image Optimizer ability is marked public for MCP, so the adapter can expose it to your client.
• A user account with the right capability. Every ability except wzio/optimize-attachment requires manage_options, which administrators have. Optimizing one image requires upload_files and permission to edit that attachment.

The abilities are also available over REST at /wp-json/wp-abilities/v1/abilities, in the Image Optimizer (wzio) category.

wzio/get-status

Reports how much of the media library has WebP or AVIF copies. Read-only.

It takes no input. The result includes:

• candidates: attachments the plugin can convert, and optimized: those with a conversion record.
• remaining and queue: images waiting in the queue, with pending, processing, done, failed and skipped counts.
• bytes: source bytes, bytes saved and the percentage, with a per-format breakdown of the space optimized copies use.
• formats: the formats you configured and the formats this server can encode.
• background: whether the background queue is on, and its status: healthy, disabled (WP-Cron is turned off) or stalled (queued work hasn’t been picked up for a while).
• failures: the five most recent failures, each with the attachment ID, the error, the number of attempts and when it last ran.

Example prompt:

How much of my media library is optimized, and are any images failing?

wzio/queue-bulk

Adds images that need WebP or AVIF copies to the queue, the same as starting Bulk Optimize. Queued images are converted in the background.

Large libraries are scanned in time-limited passes. The result returns queued (images added in this pass), after_id, done and remaining. While done is false, the client calls again with the returned after_id. Assistants handle this loop themselves.

If the background queue is off, or WP-Cron isn’t running, the images stay queued until wzio/run-batch works through them.

Example prompts:

Start Bulk Optimize for the whole media library.

I changed the WebP quality. Re-optimize only the images made with the old settings.

Retry the images that failed last time.

wzio/run-batch

Converts the next batch of queued images now, instead of waiting for the background queue. Useful when WP-Cron is disabled or stalled.

Each call is limited to about 20 seconds. The result reports processed, converted, failed, skipped, deferred, saved (bytes saved by this batch) and remaining. The client calls it repeatedly until remaining is 0.

If locked is true, another worker, such as the background queue, is already processing. The client waits a few seconds and tries again.

Example prompt:

WP-Cron is off on this site. Work through the image queue until it's empty.

wzio/optimize-attachment

Creates WebP or AVIF copies of one media library image now.

The result has a status of done, skipped, failed, or pending when the work was deferred, plus saved (bytes) and error. If locked is true, another worker is busy; try again shortly. An attachment that isn’t a JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP image returns an error.

Example prompt:

Optimize the image with attachment ID 7214 again, even if it already has copies.

wzio/get-settings

Returns the settings that wzio/update-settings can change, with their current values. Read-only, no input.

Example prompt:

What quality and formats is Image Optimizer using right now?

wzio/update-settings

Changes one or more settings. Settings you leave out keep their values. At least one setting is required.

The input accepts these settings, named as on the settings screen at Media → Image Optimizer:

Values are checked against these types and ranges before anything is saved. An out-of-range value, such as a quality of 150, an unknown setting name or an empty request is rejected with an error, and nothing changes. A setting that is disabled on the settings screen is left out of the input.

A list or text setting is replaced as a whole, so to add an excluded path or an image size, the client reads the current value with wzio/get-settings and sends the full new list.

Requesting a format the server can’t encode drops it. If none of the requested formats can be encoded, the ability returns an error and leaves the setting alone. Check formats.supported in wzio/get-status first.

New quality and format settings apply to images converted from then on. To redo existing images, follow up with wzio/queue-bulk and outdated set to true.

Changing Lossless for PNG sources or PNG lossy fallback quality also queues the PNG images skipped under the old settings, so they get another try.

The result lists the settings you sent in updated, and returns all current values in settings.

Some settings are deliberately not available here. Compressing originals, the optimized file naming setting and the uninstall clean-up options change or delete files, so they stay on the settings screen.

Example prompts:

Turn on AVIF as well as WebP.

Set WebP quality to 78 and AVIF quality to 45, then re-optimize the images made with the old settings.

Add /private/ to the excluded paths, keeping the ones already there.