Progressive enhancement
WordPress REST remains authoritative. If the realtime service is unavailable, messages, activity, and notification actions continue through normal requests. The companion improves immediacy; it does not become a second community database.
Private deployment boundary
- Administrator-configured WebSocket URL
- Allowed-origin policy
- WordPress-authenticated connection contract
- No member credentials in builder markup
- No-store member responses
- Health and reconnect behavior
Cache and proxy configuration
Terminate TLS at the normal reverse proxy, allow WebSocket upgrades, preserve the public origin, and exclude authenticated community routes from shared page caches. Verify reconnect, fallback REST, and multi-tab behavior before production.