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Why the AI Assistant settings screen leads with one status, and what Reset does and does not touch

· 3 min read
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Senior Web Developer

The question: The AI Assistant should be easy enough that a newcomer can use it right away without tinkering. And how do you reset it?

Context​

The screen listed everything with equal weight: a status table of five technical rows, the model backend, a local AI address, MCP access, "Connect an agent" and 35 abilities. A person who clicked Create connection password reasonably believed they had connected the chat panel. They had not: that password is for an AI program outside WordPress, and the panel finds its AI a completely different way. "Last used: never" was the only hint, and nothing on the screen said which AI (if any) the panel would use.

Options considered​

  • Keep the layout, improve the help text. Cheapest, but the misleading button stays the most prominent action on the screen.
  • A setup wizard. Clear for the first run, but a modal flow is heavy for something done once, and it hides the state afterwards.
  • Status-first single screen with progressive disclosure. One live status at the top, one recommended way to connect, the panel position, and everything else under a collapsed "Advanced".

For Reset, the question was scope: settings only, or also connection passwords, saved conversations, and the AI's changes to the site.

Decision​

  • The screen opens with one status: Ready (naming the AI that answers, with Open the AI Assistant), Not connected yet, or Turned off. With local AI it runs the same check the chat panel runs, so it is never a guess.
  • Connect an AI shows one recommended path (the AI Dev Kit: an AI subscription, or a free model without one) as three real steps, and the provider key as the alternative. It collapses into "Other ways to connect" once the status is Ready.
  • The model choice, Outside AI programs (renamed from "Connect an agent", with a sentence saying the chat panel does not need it), the abilities list and Reset sit under Advanced.
  • Reset returns every setting on the screen to a fresh install (Automatic, default address and position, no agent command, outside access Off) and, if ticked, clears the user's saved conversations. It does not revoke connection passwords (each is revoked on its own, so a reset cannot silently sign out a working agent) and does not undo the AI's changes to the site (those have their own revisions and undo).
  • The "abilities" are not resettable: they are a read-only list generated from the active extensions.

Why​

The person's actual job on this screen is "make the chat work", so the answer to "is it working, and with what?" comes first, and the one action that gets there is the most visible one. Technical controls stay available but no longer compete for attention. Reset is scoped to what the screen owns: undoing a site's content or cutting off another program are different, more consequential actions, and each already has its own control.