Secure RAG with private WordPress content enforces source permissions before retrieval and maintains provenance from WordPress record to generated answer. Indexing everything and filtering the final answer is unsafe because unauthorized text may already have reached the model. This guide supports the enterprise AI architecture cluster.
At a Glance
| Area | Control |
|---|---|
| Sources | Approved and owned |
| Ingestion | Versioned and traceable |
| Metadata | Site, role, tenant, sensitivity, and expiry |
| Retrieval | Filtered before prompting |
| Answer | Grounded with citations |
| Lifecycle | Update and deletion propagation |
| Audit | Query, sources, policy, and outcome |
Define Approved Sources
Inventory posts, pages, attachments, comments, custom types, external documents, and integrations. Exclude secrets and unsupported data classes.
Preserve Permission Metadata
Attach site, owner, role, tenant, post status, sensitivity, and expiry to every retrievable unit.
Filter Before Retrieval
Use authenticated context to constrain the search query and index partitions. Do not retrieve broadly and ask the model to ignore restricted results.
Maintain Provenance
Keep WordPress IDs, URLs, revision or checksum, timestamps, and chunk positions so answers can cite and operators can investigate.
Design Grounded Answers
Require citations where appropriate, distinguish source statements from inference, and allow the system to say evidence is insufficient.
Propagate Updates and Deletion
When content changes, access is revoked, or a record is deleted, update derived indexes within a defined window and verify removal.
Evaluate Security and Quality
Test restricted queries, prompt injection in documents, stale content, conflicting sources, missing evidence, and cross-tenant access.
Implementation Checklist
- Source inventory approved
- Sensitive classes excluded
- Permission metadata indexed
- Filtering occurs before retrieval
- Provenance preserved
- Citations available
- Deletion propagates
- Adversarial evaluation maintained
Frequently Asked Questions
What is RAG?
Retrieval-augmented generation supplies selected source content to a model so it can answer with relevant context.
Can private drafts be indexed?
Only when the use case requires it and retrieval enforces the same or stronger authorization as WordPress.
Why not filter the final response?
Unauthorized data may already influence or be exposed to the model. Prevent it from entering retrieval and prompts.
How are permissions kept current?
Propagate WordPress role, site, ownership, status, and content changes into the index, with expiry and verification.
Should answers include citations?
Citations improve verification and help users distinguish sourced information from model inference, though they do not guarantee correctness.
How is document prompt injection handled?
Treat retrieved text as untrusted data, constrain tools, separate instructions, validate actions, and test malicious source content.
Private WordPress RAG is an identity and information-governance system as much as a search feature.
