How ChatGPT handles this
You are in a ChatGPT conversation with the xspeedhub app selected from the plus menu in developer mode, and you have just pushed a change to your store. You write "start the cache preloader on shop". ChatGPT picks the site, calls start_preloader, and the plugin on the site begins requesting the pages in your sitemap in the background. By the time a customer opens the sale page, the page is already stored and loads from the cache.
Later in the same conversation you ask for progress. ChatGPT calls get_preloader_status and tells you whether a run is active and how many of the URLs are done. Because the status call is a read, you can ask as often as you want. If the crawl needs to stop, ask for that and ChatGPT calls stop_preloader. Warmed pages stay cached, so a stop does not undo the work already done.
What differs for ChatGPT is how it decides to ask. The app is set up through developer mode on the web, and ChatGPT asks you to confirm write actions. It respects a read-only annotation on a tool and treats a tool without one as a write, and xSpeed Hub's tools carry no such annotation. Expect a confirmation for get_preloader_status as well as for start_preloader and stop_preloader. You can expand a call to read the JSON it will send, and you can tell ChatGPT to remember Approve for a tool for the rest of the conversation. That confirmation belongs to ChatGPT, not to xSpeed Hub: the Hub runs a start as soon as your connection allows writes, so once you remember Approve for start_preloader, it stops asking for the rest of that conversation. The Hub's Read-only everywhere switch applies only to the connection token, which ChatGPT cannot send, because ChatGPT signs in with OAuth and gets the scopes it asks for. For read-only access, sign in as a Viewer member of the workspace, or keep ChatGPT's own confirmations on. A Viewer sign-in is always read-only, and get_preloader_status keeps working on it.
Set up ChatGPT once
Already connected? Skip to the prompts. Alternatives and troubleshooting are on the ChatGPT guide.
1Put your sites in xSpeed Hub
Sign in at app.xspeedcache.com with Google or email; the Hub is free and has no site cap. Then connect each WordPress site from its own dashboard: click Connect Hub in the xSpeed Cache top bar, then Connect via xSpeed Hub. Each site needs the free xSpeed Cache plugin.
2Turn on developer mode
In ChatGPT on the web, open Settings, then Security and login, and turn on Developer mode. On a Business workspace only admins and owners can use it. On Enterprise and Edu an admin grants access first, and you then turn it on under Settings, Apps, Advanced settings.
Settings > Security and login > Developer mode
3Create the app from the Hub URL
Open ChatGPT Plugins, select the plus button and create a developer-mode app. Name it xspeedhub, paste the MCP server URL and choose OAuth. Click Scan Tools, approve access on the xSpeed Hub page that opens, wait for the scan to list the tools, then click Create. Workspace admins can also start from Workspace settings, Apps, Create.
https://app.xspeedcache.com/xspeed/mcp
4Select the app in a chat
The app appears under Drafts in your app settings with a Dev label. In a new chat, open the plus menu in the composer, choose Developer mode and select xspeedhub. In a workspace, only an admin or owner can publish the app for other members.
+ > Developer mode > xspeedhub
Full ChatGPT setup, sign-in options and FAQ
Before you send a prompt that changes something
Reads change nothing on your sites, though contact_support emails xSpeed support. Writes run once your connection allows them, so your client's approval prompt and a read-only connection (the token's Read-only everywhere switch, or a Viewer sign-in) are the gates that matter. ChatGPT asks you to confirm write actions by default. You can expand a tool call to read the JSON it will send, and you can choose to remember an approve or deny choice for a tool for the rest of that conversation. ChatGPT respects a tool's read-only annotation and treats a tool without one as a write action; xSpeed Hub's tool definitions do not declare that annotation today, so expect confirmations on reads as well. OpenAI says confirmation also depends on app permissions and context, and some especially risky actions can be blocked. xSpeed Hub has no confirmation step of its own, so once you tell ChatGPT to remember Approve for a tool, that tool runs without a prompt for the rest of the conversation, as soon as your connection allows writes.
What do I ask?
Three prompts written for ChatGPT. More for this job are below.
Use xSpeed Hub to start the cache preloader on shop and tell me when you see it running.
Using xSpeed Hub, is the preloader still running on blog? Give me the number of pages done.
With xSpeed Hub, stop the preloader on shop, I need the server for a bulk import.
What happens, step by step
The first visitor to an uncached page pays for building it. The preloader fixes that by visiting your pages first. Through xSpeed Hub an agent can start the crawl on one site or on every site in a workspace, watch how far it has got, and stop it. The crawl runs inside WordPress in the background; the agent only starts it, reads its progress and stops it.
01
Check the cache and the preloader
get_cache_status tells the agent whether page caching is on, because there is nothing to fill when it is off. get_preloader_status shows whether a crawl is already running, so the agent does not start a second one.
02
Make sure the preloader is switched on
The preloader module is off on a fresh install, and the site refuses start_preloader until it is on. The agent can read the module with get_settings and, if you agree, switch it on with update_settings on the preloader module. The Hub tells the agent to briefly confirm intent before an update_settings call, but that is guidance to the agent, not a lock.
03
Start the crawl
start_preloader makes the site read its sitemap, follow any nested sitemap indexes, drop URLs that your cache exclusion rules skip, and queue the rest. The call returns once the queue is built; the pages are then fetched in the background, a few per run. For every site at once the agent passes site: "all", and the Hub starts the sites one after another with a one-second pause.
04
Watch the progress
get_preloader_status reports whether a crawl is running, how many URLs it has processed out of the total, the last URL it visited and the most recent errors. It works on one site at a time, so for several sites the agent calls it once per site.
05
Read what failed
A page that answers 403 or 406 usually means a server firewall is blocking the warmer by its user-agent, not that the page is broken. The status message names the user-agent to allow. A crawl that queues no URLs is reported as an error with the reason, not as a success.
06
Stop it if the server struggles
stop_preloader ends a running crawl. It is safe mid-run: pages already warmed stay cached. The agent can stop one site or every site in the workspace.
Reference
| Start and stop | start_preloader and stop_preloader (write) |
|---|---|
| Progress | get_preloader_status (read): running or not, processed out of total, last URL, recent errors |
| What gets crawled | The sitemap (the WordPress one at /wp-sitemap.xml unless you set another), nested indexes followed, excluded URLs skipped |
| Needs | The preloader module switched on (it is off by default) and page caching on |
| Pages per run | 5 by default, 1 to 50, set in the preloader module |
| Schedule setting | manual, hourly, daily or weekly, set in the preloader module |
| Every site at once | start_preloader and stop_preloader accept site: "all"; get_preloader_status does not |
| Fan-out pacing | Sites start one after another with a 1 second pause, one result per site |
| Warmer user-agent | xSpeed-Warmer/1.0, the string a firewall rule would need to allow |
| Stopping | Safe mid-run; warmed pages stay cached |
| Read-only access | A Viewer member's sign-in, or the connection token with Read-only everywhere on: start_preloader and stop_preloader are refused; get_preloader_status works. An OAuth sign-in by anyone else gets the scopes the client asks for. |
| Confirmation | None on the Hub; your client's prompt is the gate |
Rules worth keeping
- Warm after a purge, not instead of one. The Hub tells the agent that starting the preloader after a purge saves the next visitor from paying for the rebuild.
- A crawl requests every page in the sitemap, so it adds load to the origin. Start with one site, and on a small host keep Pages per run low or stop the crawl if the site slows.
- start_preloader and stop_preloader are write tools. The Hub calls the preloader low-risk and only asks the agent to confirm when the target site is unclear or the call covers every site, so your client's approval prompt and read-only access (a Viewer sign-in, or the connection token with Read-only everywhere on) are the gates that matter.
- A fan-out only starts the crawls. Check each site with get_preloader_status afterwards, and treat some sites failing to start as a partial result, not a failure of the whole call.
Good to know with ChatGPT
OpenAI's pages differ on plan limits. The developer-mode guide lists Pro, Plus, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts on the web, while the help center describes full MCP with write actions as a beta for Business, Enterprise and Edu and says Pro connects with read and fetch permissions. If ChatGPT can read the preloader status but cannot start a crawl, that difference is the likely reason. Custom MCP apps are web only, agent mode does not use them, and deep research uses them for reads only. A Viewer member's sign-in is always read-only, so it also refuses the start, and the message says so.
More prompts for this job
They work in any client connected to xSpeed Hub.
Use xSpeed Hub to start the preloader on shop and tell me how many URLs it queued.
Using xSpeed Hub, how far through its crawl is blog? Show processed against total and any errors.
With xSpeed Hub, purge the cache on docs, then warm it again.
Use xSpeed Hub to start the preloader on every site in my workspace and tell me which ones refused.
Use xSpeed Hub to stop the preloader on shop. It is slowing the server down.
The preloader on shop says it is disabled. Use xSpeed Hub to turn the module on, then start the crawl.
Using xSpeed Hub, which of my sites has no running crawl and a low hit ratio?
Frequently asked questions
Keep going
Warm the cache with other agents
More with ChatGPT
Documentation
- How to warm your cache ahead of visitors
- How to crawl your sitemap
- How to enable Page Cache
- Managing your fleet with xSpeed Hub
- How to write prompts for xSpeed Hub
- ChatGPT + xSpeed
- Every AI agent that works with xSpeed
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