In short: The WordPress Agent is a small, safe plugin that connects your site to Maintena. It only ever reads and reports, it never changes anything, and it takes a couple of minutes to set up. Everything else in Maintena builds on it.
What it is
The WordPress Agent is a small companion plugin that you install on your WordPress site. Once connected, it is the bridge between your site and Maintena: it quietly gathers a snapshot of your site's health and sends it to your Maintena account on a schedule.
Almost everything Maintena shows you about what is happening inside your site comes through the Agent. Where our uptime and SSL checks reach in from the outside, the Agent reports from the inside, where it can see the details that an external check never could.
Why it exists
Some things simply cannot be seen from the outside. A visitor, or an external monitor, sees your homepage load. Only something running inside WordPress can tell you which plugins are out of date, whether a security setting has drifted, or that your error log has started filling up. The Agent exists to give Maintena that inside view safely, without ever handing over control of your site.
What it sends
| What it sends | In plain terms |
|---|---|
| Core versions | Your WordPress, PHP, and database versions, and your server software |
| Plugins and themes | The names and versions of what is installed, which are active, and which have updates waiting |
| Security signals | The results of standard hardening checks, for example whether SSL is on, whether file editing is locked down, and whether login security is in place |
| Performance signals | High-level indicators about database, caching, and site resources |
| Forms | Which contact-form tools are installed and whether they look healthy |
| Recent errors | A short summary of recent entries from your site's error log |
| Analytics IDs | Your Google Analytics and Tag Manager IDs, so your reporting lines up with the right property |
Just as important is what the Agent does not do:
- It does not make changes to your site. It reads and reports; it never edits your content, settings, plugins, or themes.
- It is not a remote-control tool. Maintena cannot reach in and act on your site through the Agent.
- It does not move your visitors' data around. It reports on the shape and health of your site, not your customer records.
- It does not slow your site down for visitors. Collection runs quietly in the background on a schedule.
How it works
The Agent works in three simple stages.
- You install the plugin on your WordPress site, the same way you would install any other plugin.
- You connect it with a secret key. Every site in Maintena has its own unique key. The Agent presents that key every time it reports in, so Maintena always knows exactly which site the data belongs to. The connection is authenticated: without the correct key, nothing is accepted.
- It syncs on a schedule. By default the Agent reports in twice a day. It also sends an update shortly after anything meaningful changes, for example when you activate, deactivate, or update a plugin or theme, so your dashboard reflects reality quickly rather than waiting for the next scheduled run.
Connection status, in plain terms
In Maintena, your site shows one of two states:
- Connected. Maintena has received a recent sync from the Agent. This is the normal, healthy state.
- Not connected. Either the Agent has not been set up yet, the connection was revoked, or the site has gone quiet for an extended period.
If a sync ever fails because of a temporary hiccup, for example a brief network problem, the Agent does not give up. It waits a few minutes and tries again, backing off gradually so it never hammers your server. Most blips resolve themselves without you doing anything.
What the Agent powers
The data the Agent sends is not just stored, it feeds the parts of Maintena you use every day:
- Health Score. Your overall score is recalculated from each fresh sync, and every sync adds a point to your history so you can see trends over time.
- Security. The first time the Agent reports in, Maintena records a baseline of your security settings. If a setting later slips from passing to failing, you get an alert, once, so a real change stands out instead of getting lost in noise.
- Insights and reporting. Your analytics IDs let Maintena tie its reporting to the right Google Analytics property and Tag Manager container.
Because of this, the freshness of everything you see depends on the Agent staying connected and syncing.
Installing and connecting
There are two ways to get connected. The one-click route is the easiest and is what we recommend.
Option A: One-click (recommended)
- In Maintena, add your site. A unique secret key is created for it automatically. You never have to type or generate anything.
- Download the pre-configured plugin from the setup flow. This download already has your site's key and your Maintena address built in.
- In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin, choose the file you downloaded, and install it.
- Click Activate. That is it. The Agent connects to Maintena on its own, with nothing to copy or paste, and sends its first sync within moments.
Option B: Manual
Use this if you prefer to install the plugin yourself, for example from a generic download.
- Add your site in Maintena and copy its secret key from the site's settings.
- Install and activate the Maintena Agent plugin in your WordPress admin.
- In WordPress, go to Maintena, Settings and enter two things:
- Your Maintena address, for example
https://app.yourmaintena.com - Your site's secret key, for example
a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890
- Your Maintena address, for example
- Click Save and Verify. Maintena confirms the key is valid and marks your site as connected.
Optional settings
Once connected, you can fine-tune a few things:
| Setting | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Sync frequency | Plugin settings in WordPress | Choose how often the Agent reports in: hourly, every 4 hours, every 6 hours, twice daily (the default), or daily |
| Plugin monitoring | Your site's settings in Maintena | On by default. Turn off to stop tracking your plugin inventory |
| Theme monitoring | Your site's settings in Maintena | On by default. Turn off to stop tracking your theme inventory |
You do not need to change any of these to get full value. The defaults are sensible for most sites.
What you need to do
To connect a site, you need:
- A WordPress site that is reachable on the public internet. The Agent reports out to Maintena, so a site that only exists on your local machine cannot connect.
- Administrator access to that WordPress site, so you can install and activate a plugin.
- A Maintena account with the site added, which gives you the secret key and the pre-configured download.
That is the full list. There is nothing to install on a server of your own, no command line, and no developer involvement required.
Good to know
Your connection is authenticated and private to your site. Each site has its own secret key, and the Agent presents it on every sync. A key belongs to one site only, so data can never cross over between sites.
You are always in control of the connection. You can revoke access at any time:
- Deactivate or remove the plugin in WordPress. The Agent stops reporting, and it lets Maintena know it has disconnected.
- Regenerate the key from your site's settings in Maintena. The old key stops working immediately. If you do this, remember to re-connect the Agent with the new key (the simplest way is to download the pre-configured plugin again).
Regenerating the key is the right move if you ever suspect a key has been exposed, or when handing a site over between teams.
The connection is encrypted in transit. The Agent sends its reports over a secure, encrypted connection by default, so your telemetry is protected on its way to Maintena.
If your site goes quiet, we notice. If the Agent stops reporting for an extended period, your site's status changes to "not connected" so that you, and your Success Manager, can see at a glance that something needs attention, for example the plugin was deactivated, the site moved, or the key was changed without re-connecting. Your historical data stays exactly where it is; only the live connection status changes.
If your site shows as not connected
If a site is not reporting when you expect it to, run through this quick checklist:
| Check | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Is the plugin active? | Confirm the Maintena Agent plugin is installed and activated in WordPress |
| Is the key correct? | If you connected manually, re-check the secret key matches the one in Maintena. If in doubt, download the pre-configured plugin again |
| Was the key regenerated? | If someone regenerated the key in Maintena, the Agent needs to be re-connected with the new one |
| Is the site reachable? | The site must be live on the public internet for the Agent to reach Maintena |
In most cases, re-installing the pre-configured plugin resolves it in one step. If you are still stuck, your Success Manager can help.
The Agent is designed to be safe under load. It sends one tidy report per sync rather than a constant stream, and it is built so that a problem gathering any single piece of information never stops the rest of the report from going through. If one collector cannot read something, the rest of your sync still succeeds.
Why this page matters. The Agent is the foundation everything else builds on. Your Health Score, your security drift alerts, and your business insights are all only as fresh as the Agent's last successful sync. Keeping it installed and connected is the single most important thing you can do to get the full value of Maintena.