Andrew Wilkinson

<p>A lightweight plugin that <strong>forces login for backend access</strong> in a headless WordPress setup. Keeps your WordPress dashboard private while allowing your front end (e.g. Astro, Next.js) to pull content via GraphQL/REST.</p>
<h4>What it does</h4>
<ul>
<li>Requires authentication for <code>/wp-admin/</code> and other backend pages</li>
<li>Always allows the login page to avoid redirect loops</li>
<li>Leaves key endpoints open for headless use:
<ul>
<li><code>/wp-json/</code> (REST API)</li>
<li><code>/graphql</code> (WPGraphQL)</li>
<li><code>/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php</code> (AJAX)</li>
<li><code>/wp-cron.php</code> (cron)</li>
<li><code>/robots.txt</code></li>
<li><code>/sitemap*.xml</code> (sitemaps and indexes)</li>
<li><code>/wp-content/uploads/*</code> (media)</li>
<li><code>/favicon.ico</code></li>
<li><code>/newrelic</code> (New Relic monitoring)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Logged-in users visiting the backend root get redirected to the dashboard</li>
<li>Works with Bedrock layouts (handles root path vs <code>/wp/</code>)</li>
</ul>
<h4>Use case</h4>
<ul>
<li>WordPress is the content backend</li>
<li>Public site is built with Astro/Next.js/etc</li>
<li>Editors log in to WordPress. Visitors never see the backend</li>
<li>Front end builds and live pages can still query GraphQL/REST without authentication</li>
</ul>
<h4>Customization</h4>
<p>Developers can customize allowed endpoints using the <code>force_login_allowed_patterns</code> filter:</p>
<pre><code>add_filter('force_login_allowed_patterns', function($patterns) {
    $patterns[] = '#^/healthz$#';           // custom health check
    $patterns[] = '#^/status$#';            // uptime checks
    $patterns[] = '#^/wp-json/acf/v3/.*#';  // specific REST namespace
    return $patterns;
});
</code></pre>


Headless Login Guard

Forces login for backend access in headless WordPress setups while allowing GraphQL/REST API endpoints and essential paths.

Imran Sayed

<p>A WordPress plugin that adds following features to use WordPress as a headless CMS with any front-end environment using REST API<br />
This plugin provides multiple features and you can use the one’s that is relevant to your front-end application. You don’t necessarily need to use all.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ol>
<li>Custom REST API Endpoints.</li>
<li>Social links in customizer.</li>
<li>Image uploads for categories.</li>
<li>Custom header and footer menus.</li>
<li>Custom Widgets.</li>
<li>Custom Header and Footer GraphQL fields when using <a href="https://github.com/wp-graphql/wp-graphql" rel="nofollow ugc">wp-graphql</a> plugin</li>
</ol>
<h3>Feature Details</h3>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Adds option to add social links in customizer</li>
<li>Registers two custom menus for header ( menu location = hcms-menu-header ) and for footer ( menu location = hcms-menu-footer )</li>
<li>Registers the following sidebars</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>HCMS Footer #1 with sidebar id ‘hcms-sidebar-1’</li>
<li>HCMS Footer #2 with sidebar id ‘hcms-sidebar-2’</li>
</ol>
<h3>Available Custom REST API endpoints</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Get single post ( GET request ): <code>http://example.com/wp-json/rae/v1/post?post_id=1</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Get posts by page no: ( GET Request ) : <code>http://example.com/wp-json/rae/v1/posts?page_no=1</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Get header and footer date: ( GET Request )</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>* Get the header data ( site title, site description , site logo URL, menu items ) and footer data ( footer menu items, social icons )<br />
* `http://example.com/wp-json/rae/v1/header-footer?header_location_id=hcms-menu-header&footer_location_id=hcms-menu-footer“</p>
<ol>
<li>Get posts by page no: ( GET Request )</li>
</ol>
<p>* Get the posts by taxonomy<br />
* <code>http://example.com/wp-json/rae/v1/posts-by-tax?post_type=post&taxonomy=category&slug=xyz</code></p>
<h3>More Features</h3>
<ol>
<li>Registers the sections for socials icons in the customizer</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Social icons urls for ‘facebook’, ‘twitter’, ‘instagram’, ‘youtube’</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Image upload features for categories</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Provides Image upload features for categories.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Plugin Settings Page</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Settings for getting data for a custom page like Hero section, Search section, Featured post section, latest posts heading.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Installation and Use</h3>
<p>This section describes how to install the plugin and get it working.</p>
<ol>
<li>Upload the plugin files to the <code>/wp-content/plugins/plugin-name</code> directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.</li>
<li>Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress</li>
<li>Your can add social icons from customizer</li>
<li>You can set up custom header and footer menus.</li>
<li>You can add image to categories.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Demo of the Frontend applications that can be used with this plugin</h3>
<p>Please check the demo of an example React front-end application, where this plugin can be used.</p>
<p>[2020-07-02] Demo.</p>
<span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe class="youtube-player" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nYXL1KKjKrc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation"></iframe></span>
<p>Using This plugin with WordPress and GraphQl<br />
<span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe class="youtube-player" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=PLD8nQCAhR3tQSv-U_LNdiHEViB1kj6LrM" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation"></iframe></span></p>
<p>= Its not working.</p>
<p>Step 1. Check if your Plugin is activated.<br />
Step 2. Deactivate all plugins and reactivate headless-cms.</p>


Headless CMS

It has rest api endpoints for pagination as well that i can used in my React application which i like

Really useful plugin

A WordPress plugin that adds features to use WordPress as a headless CMS with any front-end environment using REST API.

Headless Login Guard vs Headless CMS