Safety

AI Integration System

Letting an AI agent work on your content is convenient, but agents can make mistakes. The MCP server is therefore designed in a way that keeps you in control over what goes live. This page explains which safeguards exist, what an agent can and can't do, and how to set up a safe workflow.

Drafts and Publishing

Pages that are created or updated by an agent are always saved as drafts. Visitors keep seeing the published version until the draft is published. That allows you to review all changes in the dashboard or using the preview before going live.

  • Publishing requires an explicit call of the page_publish tool. The tool descriptions instruct agents to ask for your confirmation first. Automad itself doesn't ask again, so it is up to your client to request your approval for tool calls.
  • Every update is also recorded in the page history, so that earlier versions can be restored.
  • When an agent changes a page that is currently open in the dashboard, saving that page in the dashboard is blocked and you are asked to reload it first. That way, changes are never overwritten unknowingly.

Immediate Changes

Some operations change the structure of your site or files and therefore take effect immediately without a draft:

  • Moving pages to another parent page using page_move, which also changes their URLs.
  • Reordering subpages using page_reorder_children.
  • Importing files using file_import. Existing files with the same name are overwritten.

Deleting Pages

Before a page is deleted, the MCP client has to ask you to confirm the deletion. Clients that don't support such confirmation requests can't delete pages at all. Deleted pages, including all of their subpages, are moved to the trash, where they can be restored in the dashboard.

Permissions

Automad doesn't use roles — all users share the same privileges and every user can create access tokens. A client that authenticates with a token acts on behalf of the user who created it. Tokens have no scopes and don't expire, so a token always grants access to all private tools until it is revoked.

The tools of the MCP server only cover pages and their files. Agents can't do any of the following:

  • Manage user accounts or access tokens.
  • Change system settings or the configuration.
  • Edit shared data or components.
  • Install, update or remove packages.
  • Delete files or empty the trash.
  1. Create a separate access token for each client and give it a descriptive name.
  2. Configure your client to ask for approval before running tools that change content, in particular page_publish.
  3. Let the agent work on drafts and review all changes in the dashboard before publishing them yourself.
  4. Revoke tokens that are no longer used.
  5. Optionally configure an encryption key on your server, so that secrets such as token hashes and API keys are stored encrypted. Learn more about encrypting secrets.

In case you only want to give agents read access to your published content, don't create any tokens at all and use the public MCP instead.

Private MCP Privacy & Data
Getting Started
Automad is a PHP application that runs on most standard web servers. The system requirements are intentionally minimal, and you can choose between several installation options depending on your setup. Alternatively you can also try out a live demo first.
Configuration
Automad is a flat-file content management system designed for performance and straightforward configuration. Configuration can be managed through several methods depending on the context and scope of the settings being configured.
Caching
Caching is essential for site performance and should generally be enabled. However, there are circumstances where you might want to disable or clear your cache. The dashboard provides an easy way to manage your cache behavior with just a few clicks.
Email Configuration
Automad requires proper email configuration on your server to send transactional emails using PHP. These emails are sent for user invitations, password resets, and when using the mail block on a page.
Debugging
Understanding what Automad is doing internally can be helpful during theme and extension development or when troubleshooting an installation. Debug logging can be enabled temporarily through System Setting → Debug.