Paul

<p>WordPress Application Passwords prove identity. They do not limit what an authenticated request can do. If the user behind a password is an admin, every tool that authenticates as that user has admin-level access — with no native way to narrow it.</p>
<p>Today, REST clients, automation platforms, AI agents, management tools, and MCP connectors all authenticate with Application Passwords. Any of them, if misconfigured or compromised, can do anything that user can do.</p>
<p>Mandate App Security adds the missing layer: a capability policy per Application Password. You define what each credential is allowed to do. Mandate App Security enforces it on every request. Normal wp-admin sessions and user roles are unaffected.</p>
<p>Instead of treating every Application Password as equally trusted, Mandate App Security lets administrators and password owners save a capability allowlist per password.</p>
<p>An administrator can choose:</p>
<ul>
<li>a WordPress user</li>
<li>one of that user’s Application Passwords</li>
<li>the capabilities that password should be allowed to use</li>
<li>an optional expiration date for that password</li>
<li>whether the scope is locked so the password owner can view it but not edit it</li>
</ul>
<p>Users can scope their own Application Passwords when WordPress allows Application Passwords for their account. Only administrators can edit another user’s scope or lock a scope against owner edits.</p>
<p>When a request is authenticated with that Application Password, Mandate App Security checks the saved allowlist and removes capabilities that are not allowed for that password.</p>
<p>Mandate App Security never grants new permissions. It only narrows an Application Password to capabilities the selected user already receives from assigned roles. If the selected Application Password is past its saved expiration date, Mandate App Security removes all capabilities for that request. Normal browser and wp-admin sessions for the same user are not changed.</p>
<h4>Example scopes</h4>
<p>A reporting dashboard that only needs to read posts and media should never be able to edit settings or manage users. A content automation tool that publishes posts has no reason to access WooCommerce orders. An AI writing assistant does not need plugin management access.</p>
<p>With Mandate App Security, each of those tools gets a dedicated Application Password scoped to exactly what it needs. Nothing more.</p>
<h3>Source Code</h3>
<p>Mandate App Security is available at https://wpmandate.com.</p>
<p>The public development repository, release packages, and build documentation are at https://github.com/FernleafSystems/Mandate-for-WordPress.</p>


Mandate App Security

WordPress Application Passwords carry the full access of their user. Mandate App Security adds per-credential policies to limit what each one may do.

George Stephanis

Brandon Kraft

Kaspars

Arslan Kalwar

Derek Herman

<p><strong>⚠️ IMPORTANT: This plugin has been merged into WordPress core version 5.6 and doesn’t have to be installed separately. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/11/05/application-passwords-integration-guide/" rel="nofollow ugc">View the integration guide <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span></a></strong></p>
<p>Use Application Passwords to authenticate users without providing their passwords directly. Instead, a unique password is generated for each application without revealing the user’s main password. Application passwords can be revoked for each application individually.</p>
<p><strong>Important:</strong> Application Passwords can be used only for authenticating API requests such as <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/" rel="nofollow ugc">REST API</a> and <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_WordPress_API" rel="nofollow ugc">XML-RPC</a>, and they won’t work for regular site logins.</p>
<h4>Contribute</h4>
<ul>
<li>Translate the plugin <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/application-passwords/" rel="nofollow ugc">into your language</a>.</li>
<li>Report issues, suggest features and contribute code <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/application-passwords" rel="nofollow ugc">on GitHub</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Creating Application Password Manually</h4>
<ol>
<li>Go the User Profile page of the user that you want to generate a new application password for.  To do so, click <em>Users</em> on the left side of the WordPress admin, then click on the user that you want to manage.</li>
<li>Scroll down until you see the Application Passwords section.  This is typically at the bottom of the page.</li>
<li>Within the input field, type in a name for your new application password, then click <em>Add New</em>.<br />
<strong>Note:</strong> The application password name is only used to describe your password for easy management later.  It will not affect your password in any way.  Be descriptive, as it will lead to easier management if you ever need to change it later.</li>
<li>Once the <em>Add New</em> button is clicked, your new application password will appear.  Be sure to keep this somewhere safe, as it will not be displayed to you again.  If you lose this password, it cannot be obtained again.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Two Factor Support</h4>
<p>Application Passwords can be used together with the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/two-factor/" rel="ugc">Two Factor plugin</a> as long as you bypass the API acccess restrictions added by the Two Factor plugin. Those protections disable API requests with password authentication <em>for users with Two Factor enabled</em>.</p>
<p>Use the <code>two_factor_user_api_login_enable</code> filter to allow API requests authenticated using an application passwords:</p>
<pre><code>add_filter( 'two_factor_user_api_login_enable', function( $enable ) {
    // Allow API login when using an application password even with 2fa enabled.
    if ( did_action( 'application_password_did_authenticate' ) ) {
        return true;
    }

    return $enable;
} );
</code></pre>
<p>This is not required if the user associated with the application password doesn’t have any of the Two Factor methods enabled.</p>
<h4>Requesting Password for Application</h4>
<p>To request a password for your application, redirect users to:</p>
<pre><code>https://example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=auth_app
</code></pre>
<p>and use the following <code>GET</code> request parameters to specify:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>app_name</code> (required) – The human readable identifier for your app. This will be the name of the generated application password, so structure it like … “WordPress Mobile App on iPhone 12” for uniqueness between multiple versions. If omitted, the user will be required to provide an application name.</li>
<li><code>success_url</code> (recommended) – The URL that you’d like the user to be sent to if they approve the connection. Two GET variables will be appended when they are passed back — <code>user_login</code> and <code>password</code> — these credentials can then be used for API calls. If the <code>success_url</code> variable is omitted, a password will be generated and displayed to the user, to manually enter into your application.</li>
<li><code>reject_url</code> (optional) – If included, the user will get sent there if they reject the connection. If omitted, the user will be sent to the <code>success_url</code>, with <code>?success=false</code> appended to the end. If the <code>success_url</code> is omitted, the user will be sent to their dashboard.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Testing an Application Password</h4>
<p>We use <a href="https://curl.haxx.se" rel="nofollow ugc">curl</a> to send HTTP requests to the API endpoints in the examples below.</p>
<h4>WordPress REST API</h4>
<p>Make a REST API call to update a post. Because you are performing a <code>POST</code> request, you will need to authorize the request using your newly created base64 encoded access token. If authorized correctly, you will see the post title update to “New Title.”</p>
<pre><code>curl --user "USERNAME:APPLICATION_PASSWORD" -X POST -d "title=New Title" https://LOCALHOST/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/POST_ID
</code></pre>
<p>When running this command, be sure to replace <code>USERNAME</code> and <code>APPLICATION_PASSWORD</code> with your credentials (curl takes care of base64 encoding and setting the <code>Authorization</code> header), <code>LOCALHOST</code> with the hostname of your WordPress installation, and <code>POST_ID</code> with the ID of the post that you want to edit.</p>
<h4>XML-RPC</h4>
<p>Unlike the WordPress REST API, XML-RPC does not require your username and password to be base64 encoded. Send an XML-RPC request to list all users:</p>
<pre><code>curl -H 'Content-Type: text/xml' -d '<methodCall><methodName>wp.getUsers</methodName><params><param><value>1</value></param><param><value>USERNAME</value></param><param><value>PASSWORD</value></param></params></methodCall>' https://LOCALHOST/xmlrpc.php
</code></pre>
<p>In the above example, replace <code>USERNAME</code> with your username, <code>PASSWORD</code> with your new application password, and <code>LOCALHOST</code> with the hostname of your WordPress installation. This should output a response containing all users on your site.</p>
<h4>Plugin History</h4>
<p>This is a feature plugin that is a spinoff of the main <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/two-factor/" rel="nofollow ugc">Two-Factor Authentication plugin</a>.</p>


Application Passwords

Straightforward and nicely executed. Thank you for creating this. 

Excellent

This plugin saved me a bunch of time and concern when trying to lock down a couple of scripts. I was initially concerned that I was going to be in for some hoop-jumping to get it set up. But once I jumped in, I had it working in no time.

Simple setup, super handy!

Creates unique passwords for applications to authenticate users without revealing their main passwords.

Mandate App Security vs Application Passwords