Ability Rules & the Handshake

Maxi AI Core ships with a rule for each type of action an AI agent can perform on your WordPress website. A rule is concise guidance on how that action should be carried out — formatting conventions, sensible defaults, and practices to avoid. Rules exist so the agent performs each task correctly and consistently without you having to specify the details every time.

Rules are built in and active from the start. There is nothing to configure.

The handshake

The first time an agent performs a given type of action in a conversation — creating a page, for example — it reads that action’s rule before proceeding. This is the brief pause you may observe. It occurs once per action type per conversation; subsequent actions of the same type proceed without it.

This is normal operation, not an error. The agent is confirming the correct procedure before making a change.

Reads vs. changes

Retrieving information — listing products, reviewing an order, reading a page — generally proceeds without a pause. The check applies primarily when the agent is about to modify something, where confirming the correct approach beforehand is worthwhile.

Adjusting how the agent works on your site

The built-in rules are maintained by Maxi AI Core team and kept current automatically; they are not something you edit. When you want the agent to follow your own preferences — saving new posts as drafts for review, applying a particular tone in product descriptions — you provide that direction through an operator note, covered in The Notes System.

In summary: Maxi provides built-in rules that guide the agent through each type of action correctly. The agent reads the relevant rule the first time it performs that action in a conversation — the brief pause you may see. None of this requires configuration. To direct the agent according to your own preferences, you use operator notes.