What it does: Adds the GuardForge menu and starts the free protections. How to access: Plugins > Add New (search “Guard Forge”), or upload the zip from the purchase email. Free core first, then the Pro add-on. Free/PRO: Free installs alone. The Pro add-on refuses to run without the free core and says so in an admin notice rather than fataling. Step-by-step:

1. Install and activate guardforge. Sensible defaults are on from the first request — nothing to configure to be safer than before.
2. Open GuardForge > Settings and review the hardening switches.
3. For Pro: activate guardforge-pro, open GuardForge > License, paste the FRG-… key.

Common questions:

• Will hardening break my site? The REST allow-list ships with the entries the block editor and the other Forge plugins need. Turning REST off entirely is a separate switch and is off by default.
• Does it phone home? Free: the daily checksum lookup at wordpress.org, the daily advisory download, and “Explain this event” when pressed — see the Product Overview. Pro: licence check, the licensed feed, Cloudflare with your own token, and the AI verdict when enabled.