#buildinpublic #respira
983 pages edited. 28,045 lines of code written. 14 early adopters trusting me with their WordPress sites.
Three weeks ago, I launched Respira with a simple promise: let AI edit your WordPress sites without the fear of breaking things. The duplicate-before-edit workflow. Safety first. Always.
Today I'm sharing what we've built together based on your feedback, your edge cases, your “hey this broke” messages, and your “could it also do this?” questions.
What's New
Breakdance Support (Builder #11)
Requested by three separate people in the first week. Breakdance is now fully supported with complete builder intelligence.
All 11 major page builders covered: Divi, Elementor, Gutenberg, Bricks, Oxygen, WPBakery, Beaver Builder, Breakdance, Visual Composer, Brizy, Thrive Architect.
The pattern is clear from usage data:
Gutenberg: 44% of sites
Elementor: 20%
Divi: 8%
Bricks: 4%
Everyone else: scattered
But every builder matters when it's your builder.
WooCommerce Integration (New Add-on)
Running a WooCommerce store? You can now manage products, orders, and inventory through AI coding assistants.
€7/month add-on. Same duplicate-before-edit safety. 7-day free trial.
If you're running a WooCommerce store, you're making sales - it's only natural that a small portion of those returns helps us cover the cost of building and supporting the tools that manage your products and orders.
Create products. Update prices in bulk. Process orders. Track inventory. Generate sales reports. All through natural language with Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex.
The safety workflow extends to e-commerce:
Products duplicated before editing
Variations preserved exactly
Limited order modifications (no financial accidents)
Read-only for payment gateways
7-day grace period if subscription expires
WordPress Abilities API
Respira is now registered as an official WordPress Ability. Discoverable through the MCP Adapter. Part of the WordPress AI ecosystem.
This matters because it means other AI tools can find and use Respira automatically. No manual configuration. Just works.
Based on Your Feedback
The improvements that came directly from early adopters:
Better error messages - [redacted] hit an edge case with nested Divi modules. Error message was cryptic. Now it tells you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it.
Faster page detection - [redacted]'s site has 200+ pages. Initial scan was slow. Now it's cached and instant.
Multi-site handling - [redacted] manages 8 client sites. Switching between them was clunky. Now it's one command.
Variation preservation - [redacted] duplicated a variable product and variations didn't copy. Fixed. Now all variation data (prices, stock, images, attributes) copies perfectly.
Low-stock alerts - [redacted] requested this for WooCommerce. Before bulk stock updates, you now get warned if products will drop below threshold.
These weren't on my roadmap. They came from you using this in production and telling me what broke or what was missing.
New logo for Respira for WordPress
Validation From Unexpected Places
A Reddit thread about AI agents and WordPress safety mentioned Respira as “the smart safety net that sandboxes ai edits on elementor/divi/gutenberg before they nuke your live pages.”
That caught the attention of danieliser, an WordPress Core Contributor, who's building similar safety tooling for WordPress. His response:
“Two things that really landed:
‘Duplicate-before-edit workflow' - stealing this immediately. I've used that pattern in other agentic tools but somehow didn't wire it into this one. Obvious in hindsight.
‘Sandboxing is the product' - perfect framing. In just a few days I went from fully trusting the AI to building structured, testable tooling the agent operates through instead.”
He's building with WebMCP (browser-based, admin-side editing). We're building with remote MCP (cloud-based, duplicate-first). Different trust models, same core insight: psychological safety matters as much as technical safety.
The fact that someone at WordPress, validated the approach and immediately adopted the pattern? That's the kind of feedback that tells you you're solving a real problem correctly.
The Documentation We Built
Three comprehensive guides released this week:
1. Safety Philosophy Documentation
Why duplicate-before-edit beats staging sites, git rollback, and admin-side editing. Comparison tables. Technical details. Real examples.
Includes the quote from danieliser (Anthropic engineer) who said: “Duplicate-before-edit workflow - stealing this immediately. Sandboxing is the product - perfect framing.”
2. WooCommerce Add-on Complete Guide
Everything about managing e-commerce with AI. Product management, order processing, inventory control, reports. What's safe, what's limited, what's read-only. Example workflows that actually work.
3. Implementation Prompts for Developers
If you're building similar tools or want to understand how this works under the hood: complete technical specifications for the WooCommerce integration, safety architecture, and multi-builder support.
Technical Support is Included
Every license includes technical support. This was always true but not emphasized enough.
Starter (€19/year): Email support at word@respira.press
Agency (€199/year): Priority email support
WooCommerce add-on (€7/month): Support included
You email me directly. I respond, typically within 24 hours. No ticket systems. No support bots. Just: you have a problem, I help you solve it.
This isn't a feature. It's how I'm learning what needs fixing.
By The Numbers
Real stats from WordPress sites using Respira:
983 pages edited through AI assistants 17 posts created or updated 28,045 lines of code written by AI (page builder JSON, shortcodes, HTML)
Builder distribution:
Gutenberg: 95 sites (44%)
Elementor: 43 sites (20%)
Not detected: 40 sites (18%)
Divi: 18 sites (8%)
Bricks: 8 sites (4%)
Everyone else: scattered small numbers
Launch offer progress:
14 licenses sold (12 Starter, 2 Agency)
86 lifetime-price seats remaining
Early adopters lock in €19/year forever (vs €19/month after launch)
Personal Thanks
To the first 14 who trusted me with their WordPress sites:
Brad, Wayne, Domenico, geoff, Eric, Keith, Harald, Fabio, Lucas, Martijn, Shon, Stephen, Scott - and M (whoever you are with just the initial).
You're not just customers. You're co-builders. Every bug report, edge case, feature request, and “this is confusing” message makes Respira better for everyone who comes after.
Your feedback shaped:
Which builders to prioritize (Breakdance came from you)
How error messages should read (clear, not cryptic)
What safety features matter most (variation preservation, low-stock alerts)
Where documentation was missing (hence the three new guides)
You're getting 92% off because you're helping me figure this out. That's the deal. And it's working.
What's Next
Lite Version on WordPress.org - Free version is ready, just needs submission to the WordPress directory. Gutenberg support only, 30 edits per month, perfect for trying AI editing risk-free before upgrading to the full version with all 11 builders.
Theme Builder Support - Headers, footers, archive templates. Most requested feature for Divi and Elementor users.
Visual Diff Tool - See changes visually, not just code. Side-by-side comparison of duplicates vs originals.
Pattern Recognition - AI learns your common layouts and replicates them more accurately.
More WooCommerce Features - Subscription support, booking support, bundle support (if you use these extensions, let me know).
If you're thinking about it: the free trial exists specifically so you can test on real sites before deciding. Use it.
The Philosophy
I'm building Respira solo. 44 years old. Father of two. Based in Brașov, Romania. 24 years building on WordPress.
The approach is simple: ship fast, learn from real use, improve based on actual feedback, stay transparent about what works and what doesn't.
“Sandboxing isn't overhead, it's the product.” That quote from the Anthropic engineer captured it perfectly. The duplicate-before-edit workflow isn't a feature - it's the entire point. It's what makes you trust AI with your production sites.
Everything else (the builder intelligence, the 50+ MCP tools, the WooCommerce integration, the WordPress Abilities API) exists to make that safe workflow actually useful.
Try It
7-day free trial. No credit card required. Technical support included.
Launch pricing: €19/year for 1 site. €199/year for 20 sites. Lock in these rates forever.
86 lifetime-price seats left. After that, same features become monthly pricing.
If you're already using Respira: thank you. Tell me what's breaking, what's confusing, what's missing. I'm listening.
-mihai
p.s. If you're one of the 14 early adopters and I got your name wrong in the thanks section, email me. I pulled these from the customer list and some just show initials.
i created a new section on my Substack for Respira for WordPress updates.
this will be product development stories, technical insights, early adopter feedback, and building-in-public progress on making AI safely edit WordPress sites.
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if you're interested in following this journey, no action needed.
if you'd rather not get Respira for WordPress updates:
uncheck “respira.press”
you'll keep getting everything else i write
no hurt feelings either way. this section will be technical and product-focused. not for everyone.
