01 Introduction

BulkEngine runs AI across many WordPress items at once. Instead of opening each post and clicking an AI button, you select items in a standard WordPress list, choose a BulkEngine bulk action, and run the whole batch in the background.

BulkEngine is built on the WordPress 7.0 AI stack:

• It sends every prompt through the core AI Client.
• Each feature is a registered Ability with its own permissions.
• Your API keys live in core Connectors — BulkEngine never stores them.

This means you bring your own AI key (BYOK), choose your own provider, pay the provider directly, and keep full control of your data and your costs.

02 Requirements

Optional integrations that BulkEngine detects automatically when present: WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, WPML, Polylang.

03 Installation

You can install BulkEngine like any other plugin.

Option A — Upload through WordPress

1. In your admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
2. Choose the bulkengine.zip file and click Install Now.
3. Click Activate.

Option B — Manual (FTP/SFTP)

1. Unzip the package.
2. Upload the bulkengine folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
3. In Plugins, find BulkEngine and click Activate.

After activation you will see a new BulkEngine menu in the admin sidebar.

04 First-Time Setup

BulkEngine needs an AI provider before it can do anything. Setup takes about two minutes.

Step 1 — Open the Dashboard

Go to BulkEngine → Dashboard. The AI Providers panel shows which providers are installed and connected.

Step 2 — Install a provider plugin (1-click)

In the AI Providers panel, click Install next to the provider you want:

• Anthropic — Claude (text)
• OpenAI — GPT (text), DALL·E (images)
• Google — Gemini (text), Imagen (images)
• DeepSeek — DeepSeek-V3 chat & R1 reasoner (text only, lowest cost per token)

BulkEngine installs the official provider plugin for you. You can install more than one. Any other AI provider that ships a WordPress AI Client connector plugin will also appear in BulkEngine's settings automatically once it's active — no plugin update required.

Step 3 — Add your API key in Connectors

1. Go to WordPress → Connectors (a core WordPress screen).
2. Find the provider you installed.
3. Paste your API key from that provider's own dashboard and save.

Step 4 — Confirm the connection

Return to BulkEngine → Dashboard. The provider should now show as Connected. You are ready to run jobs.

05 Running Your First Bulk Job

Every ability runs the same way — from the bulk-action menu of a WordPress list screen.

1. Open a list screen: Posts, Pages, or (with WooCommerce) Products.
2. Tick the checkboxes for the items you want to process. You can select the whole page at once.
3. Open the Bulk actions dropdown at the top of the list. BulkEngine's actions are grouped and prefixed so they're easy to find (for example, BulkEngine: SEO Meta).
4. Choose the action and click Apply.
5. A confirmation panel appears showing how many items will be processed, the options for that ability, and an estimated cost.
6. Adjust any options, then click Run.

The job is now queued. You can leave the page — processing continues in the background. Track progress on BulkEngine → Jobs.

06 The Six Abilities

Each ability lists what it does, the options you can set, and what it writes.

07 Presets

Presets are saved instruction templates so editors can run jobs without writing prompts.

Using a preset: When you launch an ability, pick a preset from the dropdown in the confirmation panel instead of configuring options manually.

Built-in presets: BulkEngine ships with eight presets across five abilities (for example SEO Meta — E-commerce Product, Brand Voice — Friendly & Casual, Translate — European Languages). You can mark one preset as the default for each ability.

Default-preset auto-apply: When you launch an ability from a bulk action on the Posts, Pages, or Products list, BulkEngine automatically attaches the default preset for that ability — so editors get your house style every time without having to remember to pick one. The notice after the action confirms which preset was used and gives you a one-click View job link.

08 The Jobs Page

BulkEngine → Jobs is where you track and manage every bulk run.

For each job you see

• Status — queued, running, completed, failed, or cancelled.
• Progress — items processed out of total (e.g. 350 / 500).
• Ability and the provider + model that actually ran the job (recorded per call, so you'll still know in a year whether yesterday's batch was Claude, GPT, Gemini, or DeepSeek).
• Preset used, if any.
• Cost — estimated and actual.

Per-item activity log: Open a job to see every item's outcome — success, failed, or skipped — with input/output snippets for audit. This is how you find the exact items that didn't process and why.

Cancel a running job: Click Cancel. Items already processed keep their results; pending items are skipped.

Re-run failed items: When some items fail, you can re-run only those items rather than the whole batch.

Change Report — see exactly what the AI changed

Every successful item has a View changes link in its log row. Click it to expand a side-by-side before / after diff for each field the AI touched — meta description, SEO title, content, excerpt, product description, internal-link suggestions, and so on.

You don't have to open 500 posts to verify what changed. The diff is right in the log, per item.

Rollback — undo AI changes safely

Two scopes are available from a job's detail screen:

• Rollback per item. Each successful row has a Rollback button that restores the original value. Use it to undo a single suggestion you don't like while keeping the rest.
• Roll back entire job. The button at the top of the job page reverts every item in the batch in one click.

BulkEngine snapshots the original value before writing — rollback restores the exact previous state, not a guess.

Items that were rolled back show a Rolled back badge in the activity log so the audit trail stays clear.

Refine — edit AI output inline (no extra tokens)

If you like 90% of what the AI wrote and want to tweak the rest, click Refine on any successful item. The activity log row expands into an editable form with one field per AI-written value. Save, and your edit is applied directly to the item — no second AI call, no extra token cost.

The before/after diff updates to reflect your refined value, so the change history stays accurate.

09 Usage & Costs

BulkEngine → Usage shows what your AI spend looks like.

• Month-to-date total estimated cost.
• Breakdown by ability — which features cost the most.
• Breakdown by provider and model.
• Recent records of individual calls.

10 Settings

BulkEngine → Settings controls defaults used across the plugin.

Per-ability provider: Each ability can pin its own provider/model — for example a cheaper model for SEO meta, a stronger one for long WooCommerce descriptions.

11 How Your Data & Keys Are Handled

This matters, so it's stated plainly:

• API keys live in WordPress Connectors (core). BulkEngine never reads, writes, or transmits them.
• Your content is sent only to the AI provider you configured (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or DeepSeek) for processing. Nothing is sent to the plugin author's servers. The provider's privacy policy applies to that processing.
• Billing is between you and your provider. BulkEngine adds no markup and takes no subscription.
• Multisite: each site keeps its own jobs, presets, settings, and Connectors.

12 Troubleshooting

The BulkEngine bulk actions don't appear in the dropdown.

Confirm you're on a supported list screen (Posts, Pages, or Products) and that your user role has edit capability for that item type. Products only appear if WooCommerce is active.

A job is stuck at "queued" and never starts.

Background jobs run on WordPress cron via Action Scheduler. On low-traffic sites cron can be slow. Visit the site front-end to trigger cron, or set up a real server cron. Check Tools → Scheduled Actions if available.

A job shows "failed" for many items.

Open the job's activity log to read the per-item reason. Common causes: the provider isn't connected (check Connectors), the key has no credit/quota, or the items were skipped because they already had content and Regenerate existing was off.

A job stalled and won't finish.

If a job hangs for more than two hours, BulkEngine automatically marks it failed so you can re-run only the failed items.

Auto Featured Image does nothing.

This ability needs an image-capable provider (OpenAI or Google) connected. Anthropic alone cannot generate images.

The cost estimate blocked my job.

The estimate exceeded your Cost Warning Threshold. Confirm to proceed, or raise/disable the threshold in Settings.

Translations aren't linked in my language switcher.

Make sure WPML or Polylang is active and configured before running the translator, and that the target language is set up in that plugin.

13 FAQ

Is there a subscription?

No — one-time purchase. You pay your provider directly.

Do you store my API key?

No. Keys live in core Connectors.

Which providers work?

Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and DeepSeek (1-click install). Any other provider with a WordPress AI Client connector plugin works automatically — it appears in BulkEngine's settings the moment it's active, no BulkEngine update required.

Does it work with my SEO/translation plugins?

Yoast and Rank Math meta are detected automatically; WPML and Polylang are supported by the translator.

Can I run AI on custom post types?

Yes — SEO Meta runs on CPTs as well as posts and pages.

Can I undo what the AI changed?

Yes. Each item has a per-row Rollback button in the activity log; the job page also has a Roll back entire job button at the top. BulkEngine snapshots the original value before every AI write, so rollback restores the exact previous state. If the item was edited by hand after the AI ran, BulkEngine warns you before overwriting that edit.

Can I tweak the AI output without re-running the job?

Yes — click Refine on any successful item, edit the value inline, and save. No second API call, no extra token cost.

Can I cancel mid-job?

Yes, from the Jobs page. Processed items are kept.

Does my server staying on matter?

No — jobs persist and resume after a reboot via Action Scheduler.

Multisite?

Yes, per-site. No cross-site network dashboard in v1.0.

14 Getting Support

Open a support ticket from the link on the plugin's item page. To get help fastest, include:

• Your WordPress version and PHP version
• The ability you used
• The Job ID from BulkEngine → Jobs
• A description of what you expected vs. what happened

15 Screenshots

A quick visual tour of BulkEngine inside the WordPress admin. Click any screenshot to view it full-size.

Dashboard Jobs & Activity Log Usage & Costs Presets Connectors Settings