One-Click WordPress Login and Credentials

Overview

For sites paired with the StretchWP dashboard plugin, you can open wp-admin without a password. StretchWP asks your site to mint a short-lived, single-use login link and opens it in a new tab. The Credentials tab always shows your WordPress admin URL as a fallback.

This is the fastest way to get into WordPress to publish a post, change a setting, or install a theme — no password manager required, and every login is recorded on the site's timeline.

Steps

1. Open the site from the Sites launcher.
2. Click Log in. Use the primary Log in button in the panel header, or open the Login tab and click Log in there. The button shows Issuing… while StretchWP requests the link.
3. Land in wp-admin. StretchWP sends a signed request to your paired site, which returns a one-time login URL. Your browser opens it in a new tab and you're signed in as an administrator.
4. Use the fallback if needed. If one-click login isn't available (for example the site isn't paired yet), StretchWP opens the WordPress admin URL shown on the Login and Credentials tabs so you can sign in normally.

What's on the Credentials tab

• WP admin URL — the direct wp-admin address for the site; your always-available fallback.
• WP admin username — shown as your admin username, or SSO managed when the account is managed through the dashboard plugin.
• WP admin email — the administrator email on file.
• Login mode — indicates whether one-click SSO or the WP admin URL fallback is in effect.

About the login link

• The link is short-lived — it expires within about two minutes of being issued and is single-use.
• Login requests are rate-limited (roughly six per minute per site) to prevent abuse.
• Every issuance is audited — a wp_admin_login_url_issued event is recorded on the site's timeline (visible under Events).

Example

You need to publish a blog post. Open the site, click Log in, and a new tab opens directly on the WordPress dashboard — no username or password prompt. You write and publish the post, then close the tab; the link is already expired and can't be reused. Later, on the Events tab, you can see the exact time the login link was issued.

Tips

• Keep the Credentials tab handy. Even on a paired site, the WP admin URL is your reliable fallback if you're ever offline from the workspace or the plugin is temporarily unreachable.
• One click per person at a time. Because links are rate-limited per site, avoid having several teammates (or several open tabs) all click Log in for the same site at once.
• Links can't be shared. Each link is single-use and expires quickly, so forwarding one to a colleague won't work — have them open the site and click Log in themselves.

Troubleshooting

• "This StretchWP site is not paired with the hub plugin." One-click login requires the StretchWP dashboard plugin to be connected so it can mint a secure link. Until pairing completes, use the WP admin URL on the Credentials tab with your WordPress account, and contact the Stretch team if the site should already be paired.
• Log in opened wp-admin but asked for a password. That's the fallback. When a one-click link can't be issued — usually because the site isn't paired or is briefly unreachable — StretchWP opens the standard admin URL so you can sign in with your WordPress credentials.
• "Too many login URL requests." You've hit the per-site rate limit (about six per minute). Wait a minute and try again; check for duplicate tabs or multiple people requesting logins for the same site.
• The button stays on "Issuing…". The site may be temporarily unreachable. Check the Health tab; if the site isn't responding, use the fallback admin URL and review Health for the cause.