What is the MCP protocol and what is it used for with Joomla?

MCP at a glance

Until now, working with AI on a Joomla site has almost always meant copying and pasting: you ask the assistant for some text, copy it into the editor, set the category, metadata and dates, then start all over again. The AI gives advice, but you do the work.

The Model Context Protocol changes this relationship. Launched by Anthropic in late 2024 and now adopted by the leading assistants on the market, it defines a common way for an application to expose tools to an AI: each tool has a name, a description and parameters. The assistant discovers these tools, understands what they are for and calls them when your request requires it.

You can think of it as a universal plug: an MCP-compatible application can be connected to any compatible assistant, without specific development for each one.

How does MCP work with Joomla?

Three parties are involved:

• the AI assistant (the MCP client): Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot, or an automation tool such as n8n, Make or Zapier;
• the MCP server: your Joomla site, equipped with Senso MCP, which exposes its tools (articles, categories, menus, media, modules, SEO and more);
• you, who make the request and authorise the connection.

In practical terms, when you write “Create an article in the Blog category, dated 1^st November, as a draft”, the assistant identifies the relevant tools, checks the list of categories to find the right one, then creates the article with the correct settings. It reports the result back to you, and you can check it in the Joomla administrator.

What can you actually do?

Anything Joomla administration allows, within the limits of the available tools and your permissions. Here are a few examples of common requests:

• Content: write and publish articles, organise them, add tags and schedule publication dates;
• SEO: audit missing meta descriptions, rewrite titles and add Schema.org structured data;
• Navigation: create a menu item and reorder a hierarchy;
• Multilingual: translate an article and associate it with its original version;
• Maintenance: check internal links, list extensions that need updating and clear the cache.

The benefit is not simply saving time on an individual task, but chaining several operations together in a single request, rather than having to navigate between numerous screens.

Is it safe to connect an AI to your Joomla site?

Security is built on the mechanisms Joomla already provides:

• OAuth authorisation: you approve the connection from your site, and no password is sent to the assistant;
• Joomla permissions (ACL): the assistant acts on behalf of a user account and cannot do anything that account cannot do. An “Editor” account will not be able to install an extension;
• Access scopes: you choose which tool domains are made available (read-only, content, menus and so on);
• Auditability: changes go through Joomla, with its version history.

Best practice: create a dedicated account for the assistant, with only the permissions it needs, and ask it to create content as drafts so that you can review it before publication.

Senso MCP: a native MCP server for Joomla

Senso MCP is an extension that turns a Joomla 5 or 6 site into an MCP server, without an intermediary service: the tools are exposed by your own site. The free pack provides the MCP engine together with content and site tools; the Pro and Premium plans add media, menus, SEO, multilingual features, modules, templates, extensions and users, while an add-on supports YOOtheme Pro. Full details are provided in the tool matrix by plan.

Connection instructions are provided for each assistant: ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot and n8n, Make and Zapier.

Getting started

The free pack is available now. The quick start guide takes you through the process step by step: install the extension, check the Settings, connect your assistant and run your first command. The full documentation is available online.