You can absolutely use WordPress for Cowork against a local-only WordPress install — useful for dry-runs before touching production. There’s one piece of plumbing to set up.
Cowork has to reach your local URL
Your local .local domain isn’t reachable from the internet, and Claude connects to your site from Anthropic’s servers over HTTPS — not from your computer. LocalWP solves this with Live Link.
- In LocalWP, open the site you want to connect.
- Click Settings → Live Link.
- Click Enable. LocalWP gives you an ngrok-style URL like
https://random-words.localwp.io. - Open wp-admin → Cowork through that Live Link URL, copy the connection address shown there, and add it in Claude as a custom connector.
Rate limits
Live Link is rate-limited on the LocalWP free plan but more than enough for testing — you’ll only notice a slowdown if you blast hundreds of API calls in a few minutes.
Install the WordPress for Cowork plugin as usual
Inside your LocalWP site’s wp-admin: Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload wordpress-for-cowork.zip, Activate.
When you’re done
Disable Live Link to stop exposing your local site. If Live Link gives you a different URL next time, add the site to Claude again with the new address.