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Read Mode

Read Mode is for the sessions where an AI agent should only look at a site: an audit, a content inventory, a question about how the site is put together. While Read Mode is on, an agent connected through Novamira can use read abilities only. Everything that changes content, files and settings is not offered, and refused if something calls it anyway. It is made for production sites.

Read Mode is part of Novamira Pro. It requires Novamira 1.12.9 and Novamira Pro 1.12.0 or newer, both active, and an active Novamira Pro license to turn it on or change its choices. Turning it off never needs Novamira Pro or a license.

What the agent can use

The read abilities come in three groups.

  • Always available: reading files and folders of the WordPress installation, basic site information, and discovering which abilities exist. These are what makes an inspection session work.
  • Novamira Pro reads, on by default: posts, terms, users and comments with their meta, options and transients, the database schema, read-only SQL queries, the read abilities of the Novamira Pro specializations (Elementor, Bricks, WooCommerce and more), and memories.
  • Other plugins’ reads, off by default: abilities that other plugins register as read only. Novamira cannot verify what they really do, so allowing them is your call.

You make the last two choices when you turn Read Mode on, and you can change them while it is on. In the Abilities Hub you can also turn single read abilities on or off, except the ones Read Mode itself needs.

What is not offered

PHP execution and WP-CLI, writing, editing or deleting files, upload links and admin access links, skills, Novamira Design and the Block Editor Queue. Novamira Visual does not work while Read Mode is on.

The check applies wherever an ability can be called: the MCP connection, the WordPress Abilities API and Novamira Chat.

Read Mode is not a security feature

It limits what Novamira offers an agent, not what an administrator can do. The agent still connects with an administrator’s credentials, so it can read everything an administrator can read, and it could still write outside Novamira, for example through wp-admin or the WordPress REST API. Read Mode applies to Novamira: it does not turn off the other tools in your AI client, such as a browser or another MCP server, if they are left enabled. Any plugin runs with the same privileges as Novamira and can work around it.

Some things can still change

A read ability may change some of the site’s temporary data as part of reading, for example by clearing an expired transient, rebuilding a cache or a generated file, or updating a counter. Other plugins can also react to a read through their own hooks, for example by emptying a page cache. The abilities Read Mode allows do not change content, files or settings.

Turning Read Mode on

Go to Novamira, then Read Mode. Choose whether to allow the Novamira Pro reads and the read abilities other plugins declare, tick the confirmation and click Turn on Read Mode.

Changes apply to new agent sessions. An AI client session that is already open, especially one served over STDIO, needs a restart to see a change.

What you see in wp-admin

While Read Mode is on, the admin bar says so, Novamira’s pages (Novamira Chat included) show a notice, the Abilities Hub lists only the read abilities the agent can use, and the Features page cannot be changed. The agent’s instructions list only the abilities it can use.

SQL queries

Read-only SQL queries run inside a database transaction that is always rolled back, so nothing a query does is kept. On setups where Read Mode cannot run a query in its read-only transaction, for example HyperDB, SQLite or certain database connection settings, SQL queries are not available in Read Mode: the agent receives a message saying so instead of an error.

If Novamira Pro is deactivated or the license expires

Read Mode stays on, and the agent is told. An administrator can turn Read Mode off at any time, because turning it off is part of Novamira itself.

Turning Read Mode off

Go to Novamira, then Read Mode, tick I understand that Novamira will offer AI agents its write abilities again, then click Turn off Read Mode. Every enabled ability is offered to agents again. No Novamira Pro and no license are needed.

Multisite

On a multisite network, Read Mode is set per site: turning it on for one site does not turn it on for the others, and it does not stop an agent connected to another site of the network, where Read Mode is off, from writing to the shared database.

WP-CLI

Read Mode can also be managed from the command line.

wp novamira read-mode status
wp novamira read-mode enable
wp novamira read-mode disable

status shows whether Read Mode is on and who changed it last. enable turns it on with the current choices and needs Novamira Pro with an active license; it asks for confirmation first. disable turns it off after a confirmation and is part of Novamira, so it always works. Add --yes to enable or disable to skip the confirmation, and --url to target one site of a multisite network.

If the setting cannot be read

If the site cannot read the Read Mode setting, for example after a database problem, Read Mode stays on until an administrator turns it off.