Let visitors ask better questions of your website

Niche Clever Interactive connects a WordPress site to an existing OpenAI File Search vector store. The owner decides what belongs in that store and what is suitable for the site to use.

Core does not upload documents, build the corpus, decide which source is authoritative or certify the accuracy of the underlying material. The separation is deliberate. A useful question interface still depends on good editorial judgement before a visitor asks anything.

Core supports one public question-and-answer profile and can be placed with the WordPress block or the [ncli_interactive] shortcode.

The owner can set the panel’s title, headline, introduction and unavailable message; choose its style, width and accent colour; configure response guidance, model, reasoning effort, retrieval depth, answer length and timeout; and use an administrator-only connection test after relevant configuration changes, before enabling public answers.

Each Core question stands alone. Earlier-turn context, cached answers and approved evidence links are Premium capabilities rather than partly exposed Core features.

The administrator screens follow the practical setup sequence: Setup for the connection and checklist; Profile for visitor-facing wording; AI & Corpus for model and retrieval behaviour; Conversation for optional records; Appearance & Limits for presentation and traffic controls; Diagnostics for troubleshooting; and the Help Centre for plain-language guidance.

The OpenAI API key belongs in server configuration (NCLI_OPENAI_API_KEY_DEFAULT in wp-config.php), not in an ordinary WordPress option. The interface can report connection state without exposing the secret.

Core includes per-visitor and whole-site daily question limits, fail-closed behaviour and a server-side switch that can prevent provider requests.

Conversation recording is optional and off by default. When enabled, Core records the question, the answer, a random conversation identifier and the time. It does not store the visitor’s IP address, account or browser identity for this purpose. Administrators can set a retention period, review records and remove one, several or all conversations, with an optional clean-up on uninstall.

Each provider question is charged by OpenAI to the owner’s account. Questions and the relevant retrieved material are processed through OpenAI under the site owner’s account; nothing is sent to Niche Clever. See OpenAI’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Some sites need more than one knowledge profile, governed evidence links, authored question collections, chronology, coherent follow-up context or stronger conversation-governance tools. Those capabilities belong to a separate NCI Premium companion.

Keeping them separate lets Core stay understandable and useful on its own, while Premium adds more complex publishing and governance behaviour without taking over Core’s public request route, secret handling or provider transport.

Core 1.0.0 is GPLv2-or-later software. It requires WordPress 6.5 or later and PHP 8.1 or later, and is tested up to WordPress 7.1. It uses the owner’s own OpenAI API account and an existing File Search vector store.

Download: a verified release ZIP and checksum are not yet available. Core 1.0.0 is built and tested locally. No WordPress.org approval, directory listing or public download has been recorded, and this page will say so when that changes.

Niche Clever Interactive grew out of the question interface created for the Interactive Professional Portfolio, passed through two earlier versions, and was then independently rebuilt around a complete Core and a separate Premium companion.

The full case study tells that history, including the corrections along the way.