Suggest Reply

Summary

The Suggest Reply experiment adds a "Suggest reply" action to the classic Comments admin screen and the Activity widget on the Dashboard. When activated, moderators can generate AI-suggested replies to comments and customize the tone. The ability also automatically applies any site-wide editorial guidelines. The experiment exposes one WordPress Ability (ai/suggest-reply) that can be used from the UI or via REST API.

Overview

When enabled, each comment in the Comments list and the Dashboard Activity widget gets an additional Suggest reply action link. Clicking it automatically opens the inline reply editor, generates a context-aware reply, and inserts it into the textarea.

Key Features:

Adds a "Suggest reply" action to comments in the list table and the Dashboard Activity widget
Injects in-editor controls for regenerating replies with a different Tone (friendly, professional, casual)
Uses one shared ability (ai/suggest-reply) exposed via REST API

Input Schema

The ai/suggest-reply ability accepts:

array(
    'type'       => 'object',
    'properties' => array(
        'comment_id' => array(
            'type'        => 'integer',
            'description' => 'The ID of the comment to generate a reply for.',
        ),
        'tone'       => array(
            'type'        => 'string',
            'enum'        => array( 'professional', 'friendly', 'casual' ),
            'default'     => 'friendly',
            'description' => 'The tone for the reply.',
        ),
    ),
    'required'   => array( 'comment_id' ),
)

Output Schema

The ability returns:

array(
    'type'        => 'string',
    'description' => 'The generated reply suggestion.',
)

Permissions

ai/suggest-reply requires current_user_can( 'moderate_comments' )

Using the Ability via REST API

Endpoint

POST /wp-json/wp-abilities/v1/abilities/ai/suggest-reply/run

Authentication

You can authenticate using either:

Application Password (Recommended)
Cookie Authentication with Nonce

See TESTING_REST_API.md for detailed authentication instructions.

Request Example

curl -X POST "https://yoursite.com/wp-json/wp-abilities/v1/abilities/ai/suggest-reply/run" \
  -u "username:application-password" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "input": {
      "comment_id": 1,
      "tone": "professional"
    }
  }'

Response:

"Thank you for your valuable feedback! We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts."

Error Responses

The ability may return:

missing_comment_id: comment_id was not provided
comment_not_found: no comment exists for the given ID
insufficient_capabilities: current user lacks moderation permissions
post_not_found: post of the comment is not found

Testing

Manual Testing

Enable the experiment:
- Go to Settings -> AI
- Enable global AI features and toggle Suggest Reply
- Ensure valid AI connector credentials are configured
Suggest reply:
- Go to Comments admin page.
- Hover over a comment and click Suggest reply
- Verify that the inline reply form opens, disables temporarily, and populates with the AI-generated reply
- Use the Tone dropdown to change the tone and Suggest Reply button in the inline reply form to regenerate the reply.
REST API:
- Call POST /wp-json/wp-abilities/v1/abilities/ai/suggest-reply/run with a valid comment_id
- Verify response shape and error handling for invalid IDs or insufficient permissions

Notes & Considerations

Requirements

Requires valid AI credentials and text-generation-capable models
Requires users with comment moderation capabilities for ability access

Limitations

Works on the classic comments list and the Dashboard Activity widget (no block-based comments UI integration here)

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suggest-reply.md

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