Connect your WordPress site

Connecting tells an app which site it belongs to. Once connected, the builder reads your active plugins to decide which features you can place, and the preview renders against your real content.

There are two ways to do it. Authorising from the plugin is the one to use: your site creates its own credential and hands it over, so there is nothing to copy. Entering credentials by hand still works, and is the fallback for a site you cannot install the plugin on yet.

Authorise from the plugin

In WordPress, go to Memberside → Getting Started. A fresh install opens here on its own.
Check the Site checks list. Anything marked in red has to be fixed first — most often it is HTTPS, because WordPress switches off application passwords entirely on plain http://.
Select Authorize. You are taken to memberside.app to approve the site against your account. Sign up first if you have not already; connecting a site is free on every plan.
On the approve screen, check the domain being authorised and, if the screen names one, the address it will send you back to. Then approve.
You land back on Getting Started, connected. Select Create your app.

The credential is the administrator’s, so connect as the person who should own it. It is the identity the builder uses to configure the app — not the identity your members sign in as.

Create the app

With a site authorised, Create App offers it as a choice. Pick it, name the app, give it a bundle identifier, and the app arrives already connected.

If you have more than one authorised site — a staging domain alongside production, say — each is listed separately, named with the WordPress account the app will act as.

Next, Create App checks which plugins the site runs and offers starting layouts built from them. Each layout fills its screens from what is active: Chat becomes Ultimate Member - Private Messages, Better Messages or BuddyPress Messages, whichever the site has. Everything on your site adds the main screen of every integration it finds to the sidebar. See Starter templates.

The check needs the Site endpoint group. If it is switched off, Create App switches it on for you, as placing a feature would.

Connecting a WordPress site to an app

Connecting by hand

Use this when you cannot install the plugin on the site yet, or when you are connecting an app that already exists.

In WordPress, go to Users → Profile, scroll to Application Passwords, name one Memberside and select Add New Application Password.
Copy the value. It is shown once, and looks like six groups of four characters separated by spaces.
In the builder, open Settings → Connection and choose to enter credentials manually.
Enter your Site URL including https://, matching www or its absence exactly; your WordPress username, not your email; and paste the application password.
Select Test & continue.

A green Connected as… panel naming the user means the plugin answered and the credentials were accepted.

What the builder reads

On connecting, and on each reload afterwards, the builder asks your site for:

Active plugins, which decide which feature cards are available.
Plugin versions, checked against the range Memberside has been tested with.
Capabilities — whether push, OneSignal and Turnstile keys are configured.
Forms, directories and account tabs that have opted into the API.

Secrets are never returned. The capabilities response says whether a key is present, not what it is.

Changing or revoking access

Disconnect from Memberside → Getting Started in WordPress. That revokes the application password on your site and forgets it on ours, in one action. The domain stays on your account, so re-authorising later is one click.

Revoking the password directly under Users → Profile → Application Passwords works too, and is the thing to do if you have lost access to the builder. That row is labelled as the one Memberside uses, and WordPress asks you to confirm before revoking it, alone or with Revoke all application passwords. The app stops being able to read your site immediately; builds already downloaded keep working until they next need the API.

Once the password is gone, Memberside → Getting Started shows that the site was disconnected, who revoked the password and when. It shows the same if the WordPress account holding the password is deleted. Authorise again from there to reconnect.

To point an app at a different site, connect it again from Settings → Connection.

When it does not work

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Authorize is greyed out	A red item in Site checks	Read the item — usually HTTPS, or application passwords disabled by a security plugin
Application passwords are not available	The site is on plain `http://`	WordPress disables them outside HTTPS. Install a certificate
Approved, but WordPress shows an error	The exchange back to memberside.app did not complete	The reason is shown on Getting Started. If `WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL` is set, allow `api.memberside.app`
This site has moved	The site is answering on a different domain from the one authorised — usually a staging clone	Authorize again under the new address
Endpoint not found	The Memberside plugin is not active on the site you entered	Install the plugin, and check the URL for a typo
This version only serves the app on sites running Ultimate Member	Your site has no Ultimate Member and an older Memberside	Update Memberside on your site
Those credentials were rejected	Wrong username, or the application password was mistyped	Use the username rather than the email, and paste the password including its spaces
Connection failed or Could not reach that site	The URL is wrong, the site is not public, or it is behind HTTP auth	Open the URL in a browser from outside your network
Connects, but every feature card is greyed out	The Site endpoint group is off, so the plugin list cannot be read	Enable it under Memberside → REST API

A local site on localhost, or one reachable only over a VPN, cannot be connected. Memberside calls your site from its own servers.

Place your first features.