Excerpt Generation: Move generation into its own sidebar panel with a review modal by ntsekouras · Pull Request #1139 · WordPress/ai

ntsekouras · 2026-10-08T09:43:18Z

What?

Alternative to #1129, following the suggestion in #1129 (comment) to match the Meta Description experience.

Replaces the two buttons the Excerpt Generation experiment injected into core's excerpt UI with a single "Excerpt generation" panel in the document sidebar, registered via PluginDocumentSettingPanel. Generation happens in a modal where the suggestion can be reviewed and edited before it is applied to the post.

Why?

Gutenberg's DataForm-based inspector (see the linked issue) replaces the post summary and never renders the __experimentalPluginPostExcerpt slot, so the popover button would stop appearing there.

Independently of that, relying on a deprecated slot and injecting markup next to core's excerpt field by targeting class names was never a sound integration. PluginDocumentSettingPanel is the supported extension point and renders below the summary in both inspectors.

Compared to #1129, the modal keeps the experience consistent with Meta Description and lets the user edit and approve the suggestion before anything is written to the excerpt, instead of applying it automatically.

How?

One PluginDocumentSettingPanel replaces the inline button and the popover fill. It follows core's Excerpt panel preference, so it hides when that panel is disabled or removed.
The panel holds a single "Generate excerpt" / "Regenerate excerpt" button that opens a modal mirroring MetaDescriptionModal: an editable textarea with Apply, Regenerate, Copy to clipboard and Cancel. Closing the modal cancels an in-flight request. The hook only writes the excerpt to the store on Apply.
The panel does not repeat the excerpt text, since core's Summary already shows and edits it.

Testing Instructions

Enable the Excerpt Generation experiment and connect a provider.
Create a post with under 250 characters of content. Open the document sidebar: the "Excerpt generation" panel below Summary shows a disabled button with the too-short reason as a hint.
Add more content. The hint disappears and the button is enabled. Click "Generate excerpt".
A modal opens in a busy state, then the suggestion lands in the textarea. Edit it if you like and click "Apply": the Summary's excerpt row shows the text and the panel button reads "Regenerate excerpt".
Click "Regenerate excerpt" and then "Cancel" in the modal: the excerpt is unchanged.
Preferences → Panels: turn off "Excerpt". The "Excerpt generation" panel disappears too.
With the Gutenberg plugin and the "Editor Inspector: Use DataForm" experiment enabled, repeat steps 2 to 4. The panel renders below the DataForm summary and the Excerpt field updates.

Screenshots or screencast

Before and after, same flow:

excerpt-generation-modal-before-after.mp4

Same flow with the DataForm inspector experiment:

excerpt-generation-modal-dataform-inspector.mp4

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Claude Code
Model(s): Claude Fable 5.1
Used for: Implementation, e2e tests, docs and changelog drafts; reviewed, directed and edited by me.

… review modal

github-actions · 2026-10-08T09:43:29Z

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

If you're merging code through a pull request on GitHub, copy and paste the following into the bottom of the merge commit message.

Co-authored-by: ntsekouras <ntsekouras@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: dkotter <dkotter@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: jeffpaul <jeffpaul@git.wordpress.org>

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.

ntsekouras · 2026-10-08T09:45:38Z

+	onClose: () => void;
+}
+
+function CopyButton( {


Not for this PR, but some components could be reused across experiments. I think it would help with UI consistency without the risk of drifting.

codecov · 2026-10-08T09:55:57Z

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 81.67%. Comparing base (775f152) to head (2d6c377).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             develop    #1139   +/-   ##
==========================================
  Coverage      81.67%   81.67%           
  Complexity      3103     3103           
==========================================
  Files            129      129           
  Lines          12334    12335    +1     
==========================================
+ Hits           10074    10075    +1     
  Misses          2260     2260

Flag	Coverage Δ
unit	`81.67% <100.00%> (+<0.01%)`	⬆️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.
📦 JS Bundle Analysis: Save yourself from yourself by tracking and limiting bundle sizes in JS merges.

dkotter

Code looks good and tests well and I do think this is the better approach compared to #1129. One minor thing around the changelog but otherwise is good for me.

@jeffpaul Still worth your eyes on this as this is a fairly significant change to how excerpt generation currently works.

dkotter · 2026-10-09T17:02:08Z

+### Changed
+- Move Excerpt Generation into its own document sidebar panel instead of injecting buttons into the core excerpt field ([#1139](https://github.com/WordPress/ai/pull/1139)).


No need for this entry. Changelog is built at release time so as long as this changelog entry is in the PR description, that's good enough

jeffpaul

My biggest concern is that there's nothing around the primary excerpt location for this, only a new sidebar panel below. Not sure moving the excerpt generation away from the excerpt field improves the authoring/editing workflows. I'm open to the amended excerpt generation modal approach, but would wildly prefer that injected into the existing excerpt modal than how this PR currently works.

dkotter · 2026-10-09T21:51:03Z

My biggest concern is that there's nothing around the primary excerpt location for this, only a new sidebar panel below. Not sure moving the excerpt generation away from the excerpt field improves the authoring/editing workflows. I'm open to the amended excerpt generation modal approach, but would wildly prefer that injected into the existing excerpt modal than how this PR currently works.

So you can read the original PR (#1129) and particularly my comment and the follow ups. It seems the hook we were using to inject into that excerpt panel is being removed, likely in WP 7.2, and so this is an alternative that will still work once 7.2 goes out.

I agree though that this seems like a downgrade from what we have but if this WordPress/Gutenberg isn't going to give us* a better entry point, we don't have many options.

* Worth maybe an upstream issue/comment to see if we can get hooks in place? I know we had some traction on similar requests (though still waiting changes) so this may be another one we can ask on?

jeffpaul · 2026-10-09T21:57:55Z

@oandregal as the one working on the upstream changes in Gutenberg, what's your advice on the most optimal user experience here?

ntsekouras · 2026-10-19T12:21:29Z

JFYI the PR in GB to stabilize the DataForm inspector is up and is aimed to land today (and for 7.2).

Excerpt Generation: Move generation into its own sidebar panel with a…

09ae4b7

… review modal

ntsekouras requested a review from a team October 8, 2026 09:43

ntsekouras requested a review from jeffpaul as a code owner October 8, 2026 09:43

ntsekouras mentioned this pull request Oct 8, 2026

Excerpt Generation: Move the generate button into its own document sidebar panel #1129

Closed

ntsekouras commented Oct 8, 2026

View reviewed changes

changelog

2d6c377

dkotter assigned ntsekouras Oct 9, 2026

dkotter approved these changes Oct 9, 2026

View reviewed changes

dkotter added this to the 1.5.0 milestone Oct 9, 2026

jeffpaul added this to WordPress AI Roadmap Oct 9, 2026

jeffpaul moved this from Triage to Needs review in WordPress AI Roadmap Oct 9, 2026

jeffpaul requested changes Oct 9, 2026

View reviewed changes

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

Excerpt Generation: Move generation into its own sidebar panel with a review modal - #1139

Excerpt Generation: Move generation into its own sidebar panel with a review modal#1139
ntsekouras wants to merge 2 commits into
WordPress:developfrom
ntsekouras:update-excerpt-gen-like-meta-description

ntsekouras commented Oct 8, 2026 •

edited by github-actions Bot

Loading

Uh oh!

github-actions Bot commented Oct 8, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

ntsekouras Oct 8, 2026

Uh oh!

codecov Bot commented Oct 8, 2026

Uh oh!

dkotter left a comment

Uh oh!

dkotter Oct 9, 2026

Uh oh!

jeffpaul left a comment

Uh oh!

dkotter commented Oct 9, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

jeffpaul commented Oct 9, 2026

Uh oh!

ntsekouras commented Oct 19, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

		### Changed
		- Move Excerpt Generation into its own document sidebar panel instead of injecting buttons into the core excerpt field ([#1139](https://github.com/WordPress/ai/pull/1139)).

Conversation

ntsekouras commented Oct 8, 2026 • edited by github-actions Bot Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

What?

Why?

How?

Testing Instructions

Screenshots or screencast

Use of AI Tools

Uh oh!

github-actions Bot commented Oct 8, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

ntsekouras Oct 8, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

codecov Bot commented Oct 8, 2026

Codecov Report

Uh oh!

dkotter left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

dkotter Oct 9, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

jeffpaul left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

dkotter commented Oct 9, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

jeffpaul commented Oct 9, 2026

Uh oh!

ntsekouras commented Oct 19, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

ntsekouras commented Oct 8, 2026 •

edited by github-actions Bot

Loading

github-actions Bot commented Oct 8, 2026 •

edited

Loading

dkotter commented Oct 9, 2026 •

edited

Loading

ntsekouras commented Oct 19, 2026 •

edited

Loading