Chagency

Chagency — a portmanteau of chat and agency — is a deliberately small WordPress plugin that lets you have a conversation with your site through whichever AI provider you’ve configured. Today it’s a chatbot. As the WordPress AI framework matures, it grows into a true agent — one you talk to in the admin (and eventually on the front-end too) to either discuss or perform actions.

The name covers that arc on purpose: chat now, agency later, no rename needed.

🪨 Built on WordPress, period

Chagency relies entirely on what WordPress 7 ships in core:

• wp_ai_client_prompt() — the AI Client API.
• wp_get_connectors() — the Connectors API.
• wp_register_ability() / wp_get_ability() — the Abilities API.
• @wordpress/components, @wordpress/element, @wordpress/boot — the Gutenberg toolkit.

That’s it. No bundled AI vendor SDKs, no third-party JavaScript libraries beyond the Gutenberg stack, no telemetry, no phone-home. The plugin’s surface area is small on purpose — fewer moving parts means less friction, fewer security holes, less to break when WordPress, browsers, or providers change.

You will need at least one AI provider plugin (e.g. AI Provider for Anthropic, AI Provider for Google, or AI Provider for OpenAI) to talk to a model. That’s WordPress 7’s architecture — providers are separate plugins that register a Connector, not a Chagency dependency.

💡 Tip: For the smoothest setup, install AI Engine — it registers every AI provider it manages as a Connector, so a single configuration covers all your WordPress 7 AI plugins (including Chagency). Every request then flows through one clean, unified system.

🪄 What you get

• A floating chat panel pinned to the bottom-right of every admin page — one click, start typing.
• A single settings page under Settings → Chagency (right below Settings → Connectors) — enable toggle, greeting, system instruction, model preference. That’s it.
• Live on/off: flipping the enable toggle shows or hides the launcher immediately, no page reload.
• Per-provider Test buttons that fire a canary prompt and report round-trip time.
• Conversation persistence in your browser’s localStorage, scoped per user. Hit Reset to clear.
• Placeholder expansion ({user_name}, {site_name}, {current_page}, …) so the assistant always knows who and where it is.
• Exposed as an Ability — chagency/send-message — so other plugins, MCP clients, and AI agents can invoke Chagency directly.

🚀 Getting started

1. Install and activate Chagency.
2. Install and configure at least one AI provider plugin under Settings → Connectors (we recommend AI Engine, which exposes all its providers as Connectors at once).
3. Click the Chagency launcher in the bottom-right of any admin page and start talking.

Tune defaults under Settings → Chagency. Everything is reversible; nothing is precious.

🙋 Frequently Asked Questions

Why “Chagency”?

Chat + agency = Chagency. The plugin starts life as a minimal chatbot for the new WordPress 7 AI framework, but as the Abilities API matures it becomes an agent that can take actions on your behalf. The name covers both phases without a future rename.

Does it need WordPress 7?

Yes. It uses wp_ai_client_prompt(), wp_get_connectors(), and the Abilities API — all added in WordPress 7.0. On older versions it refuses to boot and tells you why.

Which AI providers are supported?

Whatever you configure under Settings → Connectors. Chagency is provider-agnostic — Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, or any third-party Connector are treated equally.

Can visitors on the front end use it?

Not yet. Today it’s admin-only and requires manage_options. A front-end build is on the roadmap and will arrive once the agent capabilities are mature enough to expose safely.

Does it store my conversations?

No. Conversations live only in your own browser (localStorage, per-user). Hit Reset in the widget to clear them. Nothing is stored server-side.

Can I use it as a building block in my own plugin?

Yes. The chagency/send-message Ability is registered on wp_abilities_api_init and can be called with wp_get_ability( 'chagency/send-message' )->execute( array( 'message' => '…' ) ).

Source code

The unminified React/JavaScript source is shipped inside the plugin folder under src/, alongside the compiled output in build/. Public source repository: https://github.com/jordymeow/chagency

To rebuild from source:

The build is @wordpress/scripts (webpack) with no custom plugins or transforms.