@vfontj Thanks for the report. I have not seen this myself so wondering if you can provide a few more details? Which OpenAI Connector plugin are you using? And which experimental features did you enable? Did you run any of those features after enabling or take any other action or did the API key get deleted immediately after enabling features? Are there any other plugins that you’re running?
I’m using the AI Provider for OpenAI by the WordPress team v.1.03. I enabled all Experimental features. With the experimental features enabled, it immediately disconnects the Open AI connector. I cannot reconnect the connector unless I disable the experimental features. I did not test individual experimental features.
I suspect it may be the Connector Approval. I just enabled the Abilities Explorer and AI Logging. I have no need for Comment Moderation. I don’t allow comments on this site.
@vfontj so disabling Connector Approval and things are working as expected?
I did not reenable Connector Approval or Comment Moderation. It has to be one or the other.
@vfontj if you activate Connector Approval then you’ll need to approve access for the AI plugin to use the Open AI provider so that almost certainly would be a problem for you if you didn’t approve that usage of the Open AI provider by the AI plugin.
Thanks, Jeff. Let me make sure I understand the intended workflow.
- The OpenAI Connector must already be connected before enabling the AI plugin’s features.
- If Connector Approval is enabled, the AI plugin loses access to the existing OpenAI Connector until I explicitly approve that connection.
- There is currently no prompt or indication that approval is required. Instead, the only feedback I receive is an error stating that the API key cannot be used, which led me to believe the key itself was invalid.
If that’s the expected behavior, I think the user experience could be improved significantly. From a user’s perspective, it appears that enabling an experimental feature breaks an otherwise working configuration. A simple notice explaining that connector approval is now required—or automatically directing the user to the approval screen—would have made the workflow much clearer and avoided a fair amount of confusion.
For context, I’ve spent more than 40 years developing enterprise software, and my initial assumption was that the feature had introduced a regression rather than intentionally changing the authorization flow.
1. The OpenAI Connector must already be connected before enabling the AI plugin’s features
You’ll get prompted with an admin notice if you don’t have a AI connector in place when going to the AI settings page but technically you don’t have to have a Connector in place before enabling a feature. Just note that most features do require an AI Connector and so they won’t fully work until that is in place.
2. If Connector Approval is enabled, the AI plugin loses access to the existing OpenAI Connector until I explicitly approve that connection.
Yes, this is by design. The Connector Approvals experiment requires approval for all AI interactions, including ours.
3. There is currently no prompt or indication that approval is required. Instead, the only feedback I receive is an error stating that the API key cannot be used, which led me to believe the key itself was invalid.
Appreciate this feedback and I can understand the confusion here. Certainly more we can do here to make this more clear
FYI I opened https://github.com/WordPress/ai/issues/815 to account for that last item. We’ll pick up over on GitHub to track this to resolution. Thanks @vfontj for the report and feedback!
