General Settings enhancement

[iqbal-web]

What problem does this address?

Currently, when a user does not provide valid API credentials, they are still able to enable Experiments and view Available Experiments. As a result, when navigating to pages, the title generation button appears in the editor. However, clicking the Regenerate button triggers an error because the required AI credentials are missing or invalid.

This creates a confusing user experience and allows users to proceed through workflows that cannot function correctly without mandatory configuration.

ai-expremient.webm

What is your proposed solution?

Since AI credentials are mandatory for experiment-related functionality, the system should enforce credential validation as a prerequisite before enabling any dependent features.

The proposed behavior is as follows:

• The system must first verify that API credentials are provided and valid.
• Only after successful validation:
• The Enable Experiments checkbox should be activated.
• The Available Experiments options should become selectable.
• The Save Changes action should be enabled.
• If credentials are missing or invalid:
• All experiment-related options must remain disabled.
• Users should be prevented from proceeding to subsequent steps.
• Clear guidance should be provided to complete the mandatory credential setup.

This ensures a proper step-by-step flow, prevents invalid configurations, and avoids runtime errors by enforcing required prerequisites before allowing access to dependent features.

[dkotter]

Note we recently changed the settings behavior to not force valid AI credentials before Experiments can be enabled (see #173). The issue here is some Experiments (like the Abilities Explorer) do not require AI at all so we can't globally force those credentials.

I do agree that where we're at right now is not the ideal state. I think having individual Experiments disabled until valid AI credentials are entered is one possible approach that would allow us to have other Experiments always available (those that don't rely on AI credentials). Another approach would be a better onboarding flow that guides users through adding and validating credentials

[jeffpaul]

I think having individual Experiments disabled until valid AI credentials are entered is one possible approach that would allow us to have other Experiments always available (those that don't rely on AI credentials).

This is probably the easiest approach for now and will at least handle for how things are currently "working" in the plugin (or not working depending on your viewpoint). Perhaps we disable experiements that require credentials with a simple message+link directing them to the AI Credentials screen (e.g. "Add credential to enable this experiment")?