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Core AI: Excerpt generation produces meta/explanatory content instead of clean excerpt after multiple attempts #398
Description
Description
While testing the Core AI excerpt generation in WordPress 7.0 RC, I observed inconsistent and incorrect output after multiple generations.
Expected behavior:
Each generation should return a clean, ready-to-use excerpt
Output should be concise and directly usable
No explanations, formatting notes, or metadata should be included
Actual behavior:
After multiple attempts, the AI generates meta-style content instead of a proper excerpt
The output I got:
Here's an excerpt that captures the key points concisely:
"Managing multiple WordPress sites manually is time-consuming and risky..."
This excerpt:
- Highlights the core problem
- Explains the automation solution concept
- Mentions features
The response includes:
Explanation of the excerpt
Bullet points describing it
Quotes around the content
Why this is an issue:
Not production-ready output
Breaks UX expectations (users expect direct content, not explanation)
SEO risk if saved without editing
Indicates possible prompt leakage or improper output sanitization
Step-by-step reproduction instructions
- Opened a post in the editor
- Clicked on “Generate excerpt” multiple times (3–4 times)
- Observed the generated output
Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet
Environment info
WordPress Version: 7.0 RC (Beta)
Feature: Core AI (Excerpt Generation)
Browser: Chrome (latest)
Setup: Local/Development environment
Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.
- Yes
Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except the AI plugin.
- Yes
Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.
- Block
- Classic
- Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
- Not sure
Activity
jamesgiroux commentedon Apr 9, 2026
Root Cause Analysis
The system prompt for excerpt generation (
includes/Abilities/Excerpt_Generation/system-instruction.php) doesn't explicitly instruct the LLM to return only the excerpt text. Without that constraint, models (especially via the HuggingFace fallback router) will sometimes include meta-commentary like "Here's an excerpt that captures the key points:" followed by the actual excerpt, bullet-point explanations, and quoted text.The output sanitization at
Excerpt_Generation.php:127only trims surrounding whitespace and quote characters — it doesn't strip preamble or trailing commentary.Current system prompt (trimmed):
Nothing tells the model to respond with only the excerpt and nothing else.
Proposed fix
Add an explicit output-format constraint to the system instruction, before the requirements list:
And add one more requirement:
This is a common pattern with LLMs — they default to being "helpful" by explaining their output unless explicitly told not to. The title generation prompt (
Title_Generation/system-instruction.php) has the same gap but gets away with it more often because titles are inherently short and less prone to commentary.Happy to open a PR with this fix if helpful.
dkotter commentedon Apr 9, 2026
This is a fairly common thing to see when using smaller models, like those you may run locally. Definitely open to reviewing a PR that updates our system instructions to try and prevent this
Takshil-Kunadia commentedon Apr 17, 2026
Hi @jeffpaul this seems like a duplicate of #395