Why Puzzles Are the Ultimate Brain Workout part 2

You technically can run WordPress without a .htaccess if:

• Your server is using LiteSpeed or Nginx with rewrites handled at the server level, and
• Pretty permalinks are already configured in the LiteSpeed admin (or a .conf file).

That’s why when you deleted .htaccess, your site still worked — LiteSpeed was already doing the URL rewriting in the background.

However…

• Without .htaccess, plugins that need extra rewrite rules (security, caching, redirects) won’t be able to add them.
• WordPress itself can’t update permalink rules automatically.
• If you ever move to Apache hosting, the site will break until you add it back.

So, you don’t need it right now if LiteSpeed is handling everything, but it’s usually kept for compatibility.

Since your current .htaccess was the broken multisite one, you could either:

• Leave it deleted (site will still work), or
• Replace it with a minimal safe version so you won’t run into this again.