AI Assistant

ClimWeb can add AI-powered writing tools (drafting, rewriting, correcting and summarising text) directly inside the rich text editor, powered by Wagtail AI.

The assistant is optional and off by default.

What you need

• An account and API key with one of the supported providers:

  • OpenAI — get a key at https://platform.openai.com/api-keys

  • Anthropic (Claude) — get a key at https://console.anthropic.com/

There is a cost per request charged by the provider. If your service cannot take on a provider subscription, simply leave the assistant disabled — the rest of the CMS works exactly as before.

Turning it on

1. In the CMS, go to Settings → AI Assistant.

2. Tick Enable AI assistant.

3. Choose your Provider (OpenAI or Anthropic/Claude).

4. (Optional) Model — leave blank to use a sensible default (gpt-4o-mini for OpenAI, claude-haiku-4.5 for Claude). Only set this if you specifically want a different model. Note: provider model names change over time — if you get a “model not found” (404) error, enter a current model id here (for Claude, run llm models to list the available ones).

5. Paste your API key.

6. Save.

The AI tools will now appear in the rich text editor toolbar. Editors select some text, pick an action (for example rewrite or correct spelling), and the suggested text is returned.

About the API key

Your API key is encrypted before it is stored in the database,, and it is write-only in the form: after saving, the field shows blank rather than displaying the key back. To change it, paste a new key and save; to keep the current one, leave the field blank.

Notes for administrators / deployment

• The wagtail_ai app is only loaded if the wagtail-ai package is present in the image. It is included in requirements/base.in (wagtail-ai, plus llm-anthropic for the Claude models). OpenAI models are built into the underlying “LLM” library; the llm-anthropic plugin is what makes the Claude option work.

• The provider, model and API key are read at request time from the AISettings CMS setting by a custom backend (climweb.base.ai.backend.CMSConfiguredLLMBackend), so no OPENAI_API_KEY / ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable is required.

• If the assistant is enabled but no valid key is configured, the editor will show a clear error when an AI action is used, rather than failing silently.

• Beyond the editor wand, Wagtail AI’s “agent” features — content feedback, image title/description, and the search-description suggestion on the page Promote tab — are also wired to the same per-site CMS key (via a small override of wagtail-ai’s provider resolver in climweb.base.ai.agent_provider). No environment variable is needed. The agent path uses a different library (any_llm) whose model names differ slightly from the editor’s; if an agent feature reports a “model not found”, set an explicit, current model id in the Model field. The AI page-title panel is not enabled globally (title panels are defined per page type in ClimWeb); it can be added per model with wagtail_ai.panels.AITitleFieldPanel.