Process lives in people’s heads
The senior person knows what to check. Nobody has written it down, so quality depends on who picked up the ticket.
Twenty sites. One process.
Without twenty times the hours.
Maintenance retainers are priced as if the work scales linearly, and it does. Twenty sites means twenty update reviews, twenty health checks and twenty reports. Talos runs the same process on every site with permissions scoped per install, so the labour stops scaling with the client list.
WNorthstar Studio+ New
Howdy, Alex
Where retainers lose money
Reporting eats the margin
The maintenance itself is an hour. Proving it happened, per client, per month, is the rest of the day.
Junior staff cannot safely touch production
You want them handling routine work, but not with unrestricted admin access to a client’s live site.
What actually happens.
Write the process down as a workflow
Your maintenance checklist becomes a prompt with a schedule and a locked scope. Install it on every site and the process is identical everywhere.
Scope access by role, per site
Chat access is restricted to the WordPress roles you choose, and the capability mapping still checks each user’s own capabilities — so nobody gains powers their role does not have.
Keep destructive actions gated
Set high-impact tools to always ask, or disable them entirely, so routine work can be delegated while plugin deletion and rollbacks stay senior-only.
Let the reports write themselves
A monthly workflow compiles each client’s report from real site data and emails it to a recipient list the agent cannot change.
The exact tools it uses.
Talos does not improvise. Each of these is a defined tool with validated inputs, a declared risk level and its own policy setting.
Each activation is a separate install with its own settings, policies and history. Nothing is shared between client sites unless you set it up that way.
See the full tool catalogget_site_context
ReadCompact site summary: versions, active theme, plugins, content counts and the current admin screen.
list_plugins
ReadList installed plugins with status, version and available updates.
inspect_site_health
ReadRuns bounded WordPress Site Health direct tests and returns structured findings.
compare_diagnostics
ReadDiff two diagnostic snapshots to show what actually moved.
manage_agent_workflow
ReadDraft and inspect scheduled or hook-triggered workflows. Drafting counts as a write.
send_workflow_email_report
WriteEmail a workflow report to its fixed recipients. The agent cannot change the To list.
create_report
ReadInline structured report cards for security, SEO, health and other audits, with file and line evidence.
manage_learned_skill
ReadDraft, approve, reject, search and inspect learned skills. Approve and replay escalate risk.
Or set it once and forget it.
Any of this can become a workflow. You write the prompt, choose the trigger, and lock the permissions before it ever runs.
How workflows workStandard client retainer check
WorkflowTrigger
Weekly · Mondays at 06:00 · site timezone
Prompt
“Run the standard retainer check: Site Health, pending plugin updates with security relevance, error log volume against last week, cron health and database growth. Email the internal team a short triage list of anything needing action.”
Pre-authorized scopes
- site:read
- plugins:read
- email:send
Delivery
An internal triage email per site, so someone only touches the ones that need it.
The outcome.
The same documented process running on every client site
Routine work delegable without unrestricted admin access
Client reports compiled from real data, not recollection
Per-site policy, history and restore points kept separate
Before you rely on it.
How many sites does a license cover?
Solo covers one site, Studio covers ten and Agency covers unlimited activations. Every plan includes the full agent, workflows, safety controls and rollback — scale is the only difference.
Can I share workflows across client sites?
Workflows are configured per install, so you set the same prompt and scopes on each site. Learned skills are deliberately site-scoped too, but they export as markdown so an approach can be carried across manually.
Does each client need their own AI provider key?
Keys are configured per install, so you can use one agency account across sites or give each client their own. Provider usage is billed by the provider against whichever key the site uses.
Can I let a client use the chat themselves?
Yes, and it is a genuinely useful upsell. Grant chat access to their role, set the default mode to Ask so it is inspect-only, and disable the tools you would rather they did not have. They get answers about their own site without the ability to change it.
Keep reading
Use case
Client reporting
Show clients what you actually did. Talos compiles maintenance reports from real site data and emails them to a fixed recipient list on a schedule.
Read moreUse case
Update plugins safely
Talos reviews what an update changes, applies it inside a tracked change set with checksums, verifies the site afterwards, and rolls back if it went wrong.
Read moreFeature
Safety controls
Modes, per-tool policy, approval gates, roles and budgets.
Read morePut an agent to work in WordPress.
Spend less time clicking through admin and more time moving your site forward.