1. Create local site in LocalWP
2. Open the folder in Cursor
3. Teach Cursor how to log into the site as user to run WP-CLI
4. Save step 3 as a reusable (personal, not project) skill.
5. Teach Cursor how to log into my live server. (SSH keys never have to be exposed to Cursor)
6. Build script to pull all files and database from live to local.
7. Make script reusable enough to implement on other live sites.
8. Save steps 6 and 7 to a personal skill.
9. Pull live site directly into LocalWP in a single command.
10. Make a bunch of changes to the local site. (add a page, change the theme, add some plugins, delete something old, delete something new, add it back)
11. Export the DB of the local site
12. Use the local DB dump and the live DB dump to train cursor on making a script to make safe DB changes.
13. Create a new script to push file and db changes back to live.
14. Test thoroughly (your created scripts should have dry-run functionality, and do your first real tests on a site you can restore a backup to)
15. Cry a little bit that this is so easy now.
Yes, I just did this, and the entire process took me about an hour.
Does this mean that tools out there that do this for users are dead? Absolutely not. You still have to have my level of understanding for how-this-all-works.gif for this entire process to only take an hour (that will be 30 seconds on the next site).
But man, agentic AI is pretty darn powerful.