Skip to main content
Docs navigation

Quickstart

From a fresh WordPress install to your first real NextWave API call in five steps.

What you need

A WordPress site with the NextWave Platform plugin active, and a user account with the right capabilities. That's it — there's no central key to request.

1. Create an Application Password

NextWave connects to your own site over HTTP Basic auth using a WordPress Application Password. This is the credential the CLI, MCP server, and skill all use. In WP Admin, go to Users → Profile → Application Passwords, name it something like nextwave-cli, and copy the spaced password shown once.

See Authentication for the full walkthrough, capability mapping, and rotation guidance.

2. Pick how you'll drive it

  • CLI — run nwp commands directly in a terminal or script.
  • MCP-connected agent — let Claude, Cursor, or Codex call the nwp_<resource>_<action> tools.
  • Direct REST — call /wp-json/nwp/v1 yourself with the same credentials.

This Quickstart uses the CLI, but every path shares the same connection.

3. Connect the CLI

Export your connection details, then verify them with whoami. A clean response confirms the site URL and credentials resolve:

bash
$ export WORDPRESS_SITE_URL=https://members.example.com$ export WORDPRESS_USERNAME=jane@example.com$ export WORDPRESS_APP_PASSWORD="xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx"$ npx @island-pitch/nextwave-cli whoami --output json

4. Make your first call

List your members to confirm read access works end to end:

bash
$ nwp members list --output json

Expected output — every response is wrapped in a { success, data } envelope:

json
{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    { "id": 1, "first_name": "Ada", "last_name": "Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com", "tier_id": 2, "status": "active", "expires_at": null }
  ]
}

5. Make a change

Now write something back. Creating a member is the canonical first mutation — it confirms the connected user has the nwp_manage_members capability:

bash
$ nwp members create --first-name Grace --last-name Hopper --email grace@example.com --tier-id 2 --output json

Where to go next