How Claude Cowork handles this
You run several WordPress sites and one of them is slow, but you do not know which. Opening a dashboard per site is the chore you give an agent. In Cowork you ask for the sweep in one sentence: find the site where pages are not served from cache and tell me why. Cowork reaches xSpeed through the connector on your Claude account, so the Hub has to be added there first, and you open a new Cowork session afterward because Cowork loads connectors when a session starts.
The efficient first step is run_benchmark for every site at once. It times each site's home page cached and uncached and returns a result per site, so the one where the cached request was not a hit stands out. Then Cowork reads get_health for that site. get_health takes one site at a time and does not accept every site in one call, so a full health pass means one call per site. The answer is a short report: the site, the failing check, and what fixes it.
Cowork has three modes. Manually approve pauses and asks you to Allow or Deny each action, Automatically approve blocks what Claude judges unsafe, and Skip all approvals asks and checks nothing. Each Hub tool also has a permission under Customize, then Connectors: Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked. For a sweep, set the read tools to Always allow so Manual mode does not stop on every site, and leave the rest on Needs approval. Name the outcome you want: a report, not a fix. Cowork then finishes the sweep and hands you a list of sites with their causes, and you decide what to change afterwards. Remember that run_benchmark only times the home page, so a site can pass it and still have a deeper page that misses. For a site you doubt, ask for its health report as well.
Set up Claude Cowork once
Already connected? Skip to the prompts. Alternatives and troubleshooting are on the Claude Cowork 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.
2Add xSpeed Hub to your Claude account
Cowork does not keep its own connector list. In Claude, go to Customize > Connectors, click Add custom connector, name it xspeedhub, paste the URL, choose Sign in now and, if asked, Register automatically. The full steps, including the Team and Enterprise route, are on the Claude page: /agent/claude/.
https://app.xspeedcache.com/xspeed/mcp
3Connect, then start a new Cowork session
Click Connect on the connector and approve access on the xSpeed Hub page. Cowork loads the connectors enabled for your account when a session starts, so open a new Cowork session after you connect. You can also switch the connector on from the + menu in the chat box.
Customize > Connectors > xspeedhub > Connect
4Set tool permissions before the first task
Open the connector under Customize > Connectors and set each tool to Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked. A sensible start is Always allow for the read tools and Needs approval for purge_cache, toggle_cache, update_settings and the other writes. Then pick a Cowork mode; Manual is the one that shows you each request.
Tool permissions: get_cache_status = Always allow Tool permissions: purge_cache = Needs approval
Full Claude Cowork 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. Cowork has three modes. Manually approve (Manual) pauses and asks you to Allow or Deny each action. Automatically approve (Auto) keeps working and blocks what Claude judges to be unsafe. Skip all approvals (Skip) asks nothing and checks nothing. Each connector tool also has a permission, set under Customize > Connectors. In Manual mode, Always allow runs, Needs approval asks and Blocked is denied; in Skip mode only Blocked stops a call. xSpeed Hub has no confirmation step of its own, so under Skip, or for any tool set to Always allow, a write runs as soon as your connection allows writes. Auto relies on Claude's own judgement, which is not a lock.
What do I ask?
Three prompts written for Claude Cowork. More for this job are below.
Use xSpeed Hub to go through every site in my workspace, find any where pages are not served from cache, and write a short report with the cause for each.
With xSpeed Hub, benchmark all my sites, then read the health report for any site where the cached request was not a hit.
Using xSpeed Hub, check my sites for a second caching plugin running next to xSpeed and list which ones have one.
What happens, step by step
When a WordPress page is not served from cache, the cause is usually one of a few things: caching is off, the cache drop-in or the WP_CACHE constant is missing, another caching plugin is in the way, or the pages carry something that makes them uncacheable. Through xSpeed Hub an agent can read the cache status, run the site's full health diagnostics, time a cached request against an uncached one, and check which Pro features would help, all without changing anything.
01
Start with the quick summary
get_cache_status returns whether page caching is on, the stats (cached pages, size, hit ratio, last purge) and the web server xSpeed detected. It is a glance. If caching is off, or the hit ratio is far below what you expect, the agent moves on to the diagnostic.
02
Run the diagnostic
get_health is the tool for troubleshooting. It returns the environment checks with pass or warn tones (the advanced-cache.php drop-in, the WP_CACHE constant, rewrite rules, PHP and WordPress versions, caching plugin conflicts), the cache stats, 24 hourly hit and miss buckets and a 30-day hit-ratio series. The Hub tells the agent to use it, not get_cache_status, when you are troubleshooting rather than glancing.
03
Time cached against uncached
run_benchmark requests the home page once with the cache bypassed and once normally, after a warm-up request, and returns the timings. If the second request still is not a cache hit, the page cache is not serving the home page, and the result says so. It measures xSpeed's own response time. It does not return a Lighthouse score.
04
Read what the checks mean
A warn is a lead, not always a fault. A static-file rewrite warning, for example, can mean the nginx snippet is not in your server config yet, or that xSpeed could not verify it, which is not evidence the config is wrong. The agent reads the detail line and tells you which one it is.
05
Fix it or hand it over
If caching is simply off, toggle_cache turns it on. If another caching plugin owns the drop-in, the site refuses to enable xSpeed and says why; removing the other plugin is yours to do. If nothing explains it, contact_support emails xSpeed support with the agent's summary, after the agent has confirmed the message with you.
Reference
| Quick check | get_cache_status (read): cache on or off, stats, detected web server |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic | get_health (read): environment checks, 24 hourly buckets, 30-day hit-ratio series, recent activity |
| One site per call | get_health does not accept site: "all"; call it for each site you care about |
| Benchmark | run_benchmark (read): home page only, cache bypassed against cache served, timings in milliseconds |
| Benchmark on every site | run_benchmark accepts site: "all" or a list of handles, one result per site |
| Benchmark history | get_benchmark_history reads past runs and the settings changes on the same timeline |
| Pro suggestions | get_pro_audit (read): which Pro features would help this site, from its settings and stats |
| Hit ratio scope | Counts requests that reach your server; pages answered by a CDN or Cloudflare edge are not counted |
| Support | contact_support emails xSpeed support with your account email and site list attached; classed read |
| Turning caching on | toggle_cache (write); refused by the site when another plugin owns the cache drop-in |
Rules worth keeping
- Diagnose with the read tools first. get_cache_status, get_health, run_benchmark and get_pro_audit change nothing on the site, so a read-only connection can run all of them. For clients that send the connection token, that means Read-only everywhere on; an OAuth sign-in gets the scopes the client asks for, unless the member is a Viewer.
- Do not answer a PageSpeed question with run_benchmark. It measures cached against uncached response time and returns no Lighthouse score; for a score, use the speed test or scan jobs.
- toggle_cache is a write. It runs as soon as your connection allows writes, and the Hub tells the agent to confirm the target site first. That is guidance to the agent, so your client's approval prompt is the gate that matters.
- contact_support sends a real email. The Hub tells the agent to confirm the message with you before sending, but the tool is classed read, so even a read-only connection can send one.
- The agent cannot edit your server configuration or another plugin's settings. When a check needs an nginx snippet or a conflicting plugin removed, it tells you what to do and you do it.
Good to know with Claude Cowork
If Cowork says it has no xSpeed tools, the fix is in Claude, not in Cowork: add the xSpeed Hub connector to your Claude account first, then open a new Cowork session. And keep contact_support out of unattended sweeps. The Hub counts it as a read, so a read-only connection does not stop it, and its request that the agent confirm the message with you is guidance that a sweep nobody is watching cannot follow. Under Skip all approvals only a Blocked setting stops a call, so block contact_support and the write tools before you use that mode.
More prompts for this job
They work in any client connected to xSpeed Hub.
Using xSpeed Hub, why is the cache hit ratio so low on shop? Run the full health check and tell me the most likely cause.
Using xSpeed Hub, is page caching actually working on blog? Benchmark cached against uncached and tell me if the second request was a hit.
xSpeed Hub's get_health on docs shows a warning about the static-file rewrite. What does it mean and do I need to act?
Use xSpeed Hub to check whether another caching plugin is conflicting with xSpeed on shop.
Caching looks off on the staging site. Use xSpeed Hub to turn it on and tell me if the site refuses.
Using xSpeed Hub, which Pro features would help the shop site, based on how it is set up now?
With xSpeed Hub, compare the last few benchmark runs on blog and tell me whether my settings changes helped.
Frequently asked questions
Keep going
Find out why pages are not cached with other agents
More with Claude Cowork
Documentation
- How to read your cache diagnostics
- Understanding cache hits and misses
- How to check your site health
- Common problems and troubleshooting
- How to enable Page Cache
- How to write prompts for xSpeed Hub
- Claude Cowork + xSpeed
- Every AI agent that works with xSpeed
From the blog