Quick-Start — your first site in 2 minutes

3 min readUpdated 2026-05-18

Quick-Start — Connect your first WordPress site

This guide assumes you have a Hubbee account (sign up free at hubbee.io/register) and one WordPress site you want to connect. Total time: ~2 minutes.

Step 1 — Get a connection code

In your Hubbee dashboard:

  1. Click Add Site in the top-right of the sites list
  2. Enter a friendly name (e.g., client-foo) — purely for your own overview, not visible on the WP site
  3. Click Generate Code → a one-time onboarding token appears, valid for 1 hour
  4. Click Copy (the token looks like hb_onb_… — keep it on the clipboard)

Note: Onboarding tokens are single-use. If you don’t paste it within an hour, generate a fresh one.

Step 2 — Install the Hubbee plugin

Option A — from wordpress.org (recommended, auto-updates):

  1. WP Admin → Plugins → Add New
  2. Search for Hubbee
  3. Install NowActivate

Option B — manual ZIP (e.g., for staging without internet):

  1. Download hubbee.zip from the dashboard’s Add Site dialog
  2. WP Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → choose ZIP → Install → Activate

Step 3 — Connect

  1. In WP Admin, navigate to Hubbee → Settings (left sidebar)
  2. Paste the connection code into the Connection Code field
  3. Click Connect

Within 2-3 seconds, the page reloads showing Connected, your site_id, and the SaaS endpoint. The plugin has:

  • Created two tables: wp_bz_tokens + wp_bz_processed_requests
  • Stored an encrypted api_secret for future HMAC signing
  • Started a hubbee_heartbeat cron job (every 5 minutes by default)
  • Registered the bz/v1 REST namespace for inbound pushes

Step 4 — Verify in the dashboard

Switch back to app.hubbee.io. The site should now appear:

  • Status: Online (green dot)
  • Last heartbeat: a few seconds ago
  • WP version, PHP version, plugin version: filled in

If status stays grey for more than 30 seconds → see Plugin shows offline.

Step 5 — Push your first token

In the dashboard:

  1. Click your site → Tokens tab
  2. Click + New Token Definition
  3. Key: hero_title (lowercase, snake_case)
  4. Label: Hero Title (human-readable)
  5. Field type: text (or richtext for HTML)
  6. Section: general (organizational grouping)
  7. Click Save Definition

Now set a value:

  1. Click the new token → Add value
  2. Locale: leave empty (or de_DE for German-only)
  3. Value: Welcome to my Hubbee-powered site!
  4. Click Save & Push

The push runs immediately. The Activity stream shows the result:

  • Site: client-foo
  • Result: processed: 1, skipped: 0, errors: []
  • Latency: typically <1 second

Step 6 — Render the token on your WordPress site

In Elementor (or any theme that supports shortcodes):

[bz_text key="hero_title"]

Or as Elementor Dynamic Tag: choose Hubbee → Text Token and select hero_title.

The token renders the latest pushed value on the frontend. Every future push updates the rendered value within seconds (cache-permitting — see Caching plugins).

What now?

  • Add more sites: repeat Steps 1-3 for each site. Each gets its own connection code + api_secret.
  • Bulk push: select multiple sites in the dashboard → Push to selected. One source-of-truth, many sites.
  • Multi-locale: add per-locale values (e.g., de_DE, en_US) — the plugin selects based on get_locale() at render-time.
  • Rich text + components: see Token Management Best Practices.
  • Multi-workspace agency setup: see Multi-Workspace for agencies (Agency plan).

Troubleshooting

If something doesn’t work:

  • Plugin won’t activate: PHP < 7.4? Upgrade PHP.
  • Connection code rejected: token expired or already used. Generate a new one.
  • Site won’t appear in dashboard: see Plugin shows offline for the 5-step diagnostic.
  • Push errors: see Token push failed.

Stuck? info@hubbee.io with the diagnostic output from those FAQs.

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