Read Mode: let your AI look around.
Read Mode makes Novamira ready for production sites: turn it on and 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.
Read Mode is not a security feature. It limits what Novamira offers an agent, not what an administrator can do.
Why
For the sessions where nothing should change.
Some sessions are about understanding, not building: an audit of a production site, a content inventory, a performance question, a "what is going on with this site". The agent only needs to read, but it still carries every tool that writes.
Read Mode keeps the abilities that change content, files and settings out of the session, through every door of Novamira, and brings abilities made for inspecting a site: posts, users, options, the database schema, SQL queries.
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Read abilities only.
What stays available
Three groups of read abilities.
The essentials
Reading files and directories, the site's details, and discovering which abilities are available. These are what makes an inspection session work.
Novamira Pro reads
Posts, terms, users and comments with their meta, options and transients, the database schema, read-only SQL queries, the reads of the specializations (Elementor, Bricks, WooCommerce and more), and memories.
Other plugins' reads
Abilities that other plugins declare as read only. Novamira cannot verify what they really do, so allowing them is your call.
You choose the second and third group when you turn Read Mode on, change them later on the Read Mode page, and switch single abilities off and on in the Abilities Hub.
Where it applies
The same rule at every door.
● posts, terms, users, comments, options
● database schema, read-only queries
● specialization reads, memories
× writing, editing or deleting files
× upload and admin access links
× skills, Novamira Design, the Block Editor Queue and Novamira Visual
SQL queries run inside a read-only transaction that is always rolled back.
Plain words
It limits Novamira, not the administrator.
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.
While it is on, the site says so: the admin bar shows Read Mode, Novamira's pages carry a notice, and the Abilities Hub lists only what the agent can actually use.
Control
Novamira Pro turns it on. Any administrator turns it off.
You turn Read Mode on from the Read Mode page under Novamira in wp-admin, or with WP-CLI. That part takes Novamira Pro with a valid license.
An administrator can turn it off from the same page, or with wp novamira read-mode disable, with no Novamira Pro and no license needed. If Novamira Pro is deactivated or the license expires, Read Mode stays on until an administrator turns it off, and the agent is told.
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.
The Read Mode documentation has the full picture.
FAQ
Questions worth answering.
Is Read Mode a security feature?
No. It limits what Novamira offers an agent while it only needs to look. It does not limit what an administrator, or the agent's own credential, can do.
Can a read still change something?
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.
When does switching it take effect?
For new agent sessions. An MCP session that is already open, especially one served over STDIO, needs a restart to see a change.
What happens if the database cannot be read?
If the site cannot read the Read Mode setting, Read Mode stays on.
Look around.
Get Novamira ProRead Mode ships with Novamira Pro 1.12.0 and needs Novamira 1.12.9 or newer.