Title: VIP User Agents
Author: WordPress VIP Documentation
Published: February 21, 2023
Last modified: February 14, 2025

---

 1. [Infrastructure](https://docs.wpvip.com/infrastructure/)
 2. VIP User Agents

#  VIP User Agents

Incoming requests made by WordPress VIP Platform features and components can be 
identified by the [User Agents](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/User-Agent)
listed below.

User Agents can be a useful reference for identifying the source of a request, but
they should not be considered authoritative proof.

## Let’s Encrypt

Before [receiving a Let’s Encrypt TLS certificate](https://docs.wpvip.com/lets-encrypt-cert/),
a domain must complete [an “ACME challenge”](https://letsencrypt.org/docs/challenge-types/)
to verify its ownership and hosting location. The following User Agents are used
for some pre-flight validations to verify that the domain is [associated with a VIP-hosted application](https://docs.wpvip.com/map-a-domain/)
before a provisioning request is sent to the [Let’s Encrypt validation service](https://www.letsencrypt.org):

 * `WPVIP Let's Encrypt Certificates (+https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-user-agents)`:
   A User Agent related to preliminary validations for a domain.
 * `WordPress.com; https://acme.wordpress.com` and `WordPress.com; https://clitools.
   wordpress.com`: User Agents that perform secondary validations for the domain
   before the request is sent to Let’s Encrypt.

**Note:** Let’s Encrypt uses a separate user-agent for its validation service, which
looks similar to: `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Let's Encrypt validation server; +https://
www.letsencrypt.org)`.

## Media imports

`WPVIP Media (+https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-user-agents)`: A User Agent that fetches
the publicly accessible archive file provided via the `[vip import media](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-cli/commands/import/media/)`
VIP-CLI command when [importing media files](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-file-system/import-media-files/).

## Webhook notifications

An updated format (v1) for [the request body of webhook URLs](https://docs.wpvip.com/notifications/webhook-urls/)
was released on 2 February 2024. 

 *  `VIP Webhooks (+[https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-user-agents](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-user-agents))`:
   A User Agent that sends outbound [webhook Notifications](https://docs.wpvip.com/notifications/)
   with the v1 format to endpoints configured by customers to receive events.
 * `VIP Webhooks (+https://vip.wordpress.com)`: A User Agent that sends outbound
   webhook Notifications with the v0 legacy format to endpoints configured by customers
   to receive events. The v0 legacy format will be deprecated on 2 May 2024.

## Additional User-Agents

Additional known User Agents that will make requests to sites hosted on the WPVIP
Platform:

 * `Mozilla/5.0+(compatible; UptimeRobot/2.0; http://www.uptimerobot.com/)`: Uptime
   Robot is configured to monitor uptime for a site [launched](https://docs.wpvip.com/launched/)
   with a [primary domain](https://docs.wpvip.com/primary-domain/) on a production
   environment. Requests from Uptime Robot are made to the site’s home page URL.
 * `Jetpack by WordPress.com`: WordPress sites with an active Jetpack connection
   will receive incoming requests to a site’s home page URL, XML-RPC endpoint, and
   other URLs. The incoming requests are necessary to complete processes related
   to Jetpack features that are enabled on a site.

Last updated: February 14, 2025