AI API Explorer

When to Use

Use ai_api_explorer for interactive testing of AI operations during development. Do not enable on production. Use Operation Types for the actual PHP API.

Developer-only UI for testing AI operations interactively. Do not enable on production.

Decision

Situation	Choose	Why
Test a provider/model	Chat Explorer	Most feature-rich; supports streaming, tools, vision
Test tool/function calling	Tools Explorer	Lists all FunctionCall plugins; dynamic form per tool
Test any operation type	Specific explorer	16 explorers for all operation types
Get copy-paste code	Any explorer	Every explorer generates a PHP snippet

Features

Interactive form per operation type (16 explorers)
Provider/model selection
Response display with streaming support
Copy-paste PHP code examples
Supports file uploads (images, audio, documents)

Available Explorers (16 total)

Chat, Text-to-Image, Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text, Speech-to-Speech, Audio-to-Audio, Embeddings, Moderation, Image-to-Image, Image Classification, Object Detection, Rerank, Summarize, Translate, Image-and-Audio-to-Video, Tools

Explorer Feature Matrix

Feature	Chat	Text-to-Image	Speech-to-Text	Tools	Others
Streaming (SSE)	Yes	No	No	No	No
File uploads	Yes (images, docs)	No	Yes (audio)	No	Varies
Tool/function calling	Yes	No	No	Yes (primary)	No
Guardrail set selection	Yes	No	No	No	No
Structured output (JSON schema)	Yes	No	No	No	No
Code example generation	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	All

The Chat Explorer is the most feature-rich: 3-column layout (input, response, code), streaming support, vision model image upload, document upload, tool calling, guardrail selection, and structured output.

The Tools Explorer tests function calling tools directly: lists all registered FunctionCall plugins grouped by FunctionGroup, dynamically generates form fields from tool context definitions, and supports property constraints (allow all, only certain values, force value).

Code Example Generation

Every explorer generates a copy-paste PHP code example showing how to call the AI provider programmatically with the same settings used in the form. The addProviderCodeExample($provider) method on the base class generates this snippet.

Custom Explorer Plugin

#[AiApiExplorer(
  id: 'my_explorer',
  title: new TranslatableMarkup('My Explorer'),
  description: new TranslatableMarkup('Tests my operation.'),
)]
class MyExplorer extends AiApiExplorerPluginBase {
  public function isActive(): bool {
    return $this->providerManager->hasProvidersForOperationType('my_type');
  }
  // buildForm(), getResponse(), etc.
}

Route auto-registered at /admin/config/ai/explorers/{plugin_id}.

Permission

access ai prompt — required for all explorers

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Why it's wrong
Enabling `ai_api_explorer` on production	Developer tool only — it exposes every configured provider and model to anyone holding `access ai prompt`
Using explorer responses directly in production code	Use the generated PHP snippet as a starting point, not the rendered response