The in-admin AI builder · Pro · Lights up May 20, 2026
Build apps with AI without leaving WordPress.
Riff lives inside wp-admin. Describe what you want in plain English, watch it draft the app live, review the permissions in human terms, install it with one click. It uses your site’s configured AI provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google), so we never hold your keys and never bill for inference.
25 seconds, prompt to live URL. Same runtime, same bundle format, same Gutenberg / Elementor / shortcode embed paths as a CLI-deployed app.
How it works
Three steps. No terminal.
Open DSGo Apps → New app in wp-admin. The rest is a conversation.
Describe it.
“A booking widget for my consultation slots that emails me each booking and shows the visitor their next appointment.” Plain English, the way you’d brief a junior developer. No code required, no separate tool to learn.
Riff drafts it.
Live preview in the admin while the AI writes the app. The permissions it’s asking for surface as plain English (“wants to read your posts”), not OAuth scopes. Iterate by chatting: “make the result bigger,” “add a save button,” “use my brand colors.”
One-click install.
Live at /apps/your-thing instantly. Drop it into any post or page via the DSGo App Gutenberg block, Elementor widget, or [dsgo_app] shortcode. No deploy step, no zip download, no FTP. Same sandbox a CLI-deployed app runs in.
What you can build with it
Real apps for the kind of site you already run.
Paste any of these into Riff. The AI writes the app, the plugin runs it, you embed it where you want it. Browse use cases for more by vertical.
A booking widget
“A class booking widget that reads my upcoming sessions and emails me each booking.”
Reads your sessions from a WordPress CPT, books visitors in via per-user storage, drops a notification email in your inbox on every booking.
A mortgage calculator
“A mortgage calculator with PMI, taxes, and HOA. Show the amortization in a table.”
Standalone interactive widget, lives at /apps/mortgage, embeddable as a Gutenberg block, Elementor widget, or shortcode on any listing page.
A lead-magnet quiz
“A 6-question quiz that recommends one of my services and captures the email at the end.”
Saves the lead under the visitor’s WordPress account, shows you the answers in wp-admin, no third-party form service.
A members-only portal
“A members area: login-gated, shows the visitor’s saved recipes and a button to add new ones.”
Reads the visitor’s current WP login, uses per-user storage for their saved list, gated by a permission you approve on install.
Your AI provider, your bill
We never hold your keys.
Riff is a harness, not a reseller. It writes prompts, picks tools, validates output, and orchestrates the build. The actual model calls go through the provider account you configured in WordPress.
Configure once, in WordPress.
Site admin sets up Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google credentials once at Settings → Connectors (new in WordPress 7.0). Every AI feature on the site, Riff included, inherits that configuration.
Riff calls through your provider.
When you prompt Riff, the request goes from wp-admin to WordPress’s AI client to your configured provider. DSGo sees the prompt template and the response; we never see your API key, and the inference bill lands on your provider account, not ours.
No usage caps, no markup.
Because we don’t pay for inference, we don’t cap it. Use as much of your provider quota as you want. The Pro subscription is for the authoring stack (Riff, CLI deploy, Pro runtime features), priced like a tool, not a meter.
Requires WordPress 7.0, which ships May 20, 2026. The plugin runs on WordPress 6.9 and up for everything else (drop-HTML upload, CLI deploy, bridge runtime), but Riff itself depends on the Connectors API and WP AI Client that arrive with 7.0.
Why this is safe
Sandboxed by default. Permissioned by you.
Apps Riff builds run in the same browser-level sandbox as CLI-deployed apps. Nothing the AI writes can touch your theme, your other plugins, or the rest of your site.
Apps see only what you allow.
Every Riff app declares what it needs (read posts, read the current user, save preferences) and you approve it on install in plain English. “This app wants to: read your posts.” Not OAuth scopes, not JWT permissions.
A broken app shows a broken app.
Not a broken site. The rest of the post, the theme, the menu, the checkout, all keep working. Worst case: that one widget shows an error. Delete it from wp-admin and move on.
No code in your theme.
Riff doesn’t paste code into your functions.php or your theme files. The app is its own bundle on disk, served at its own URL, isolated from the WordPress runtime. More on the sandbox →
Riff or the CLI?
Same runtime, different doorway.
Riff and the CLI produce the same bundle format, the same manifest, the same sandboxed app at /apps/<slug>. Pick whichever fits where you already work.
You live in wp-admin.
You think about the app in plain English, not code. You want to ship it without opening a terminal, an editor, or a new tab. You want the permissions surfaced in human terms before you click install. You iterate by chatting, not by editing files.
wp-admin → DSGo Apps → New app You live in Claude Code or Cursor.
You already have an AI coding agent open. You want to deploy the bundle you’re building from your editor, push updates atomically, and version-control the project. CLI flow →
npx @designsetgo/cli apps deploy FAQ
The honest questions.
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Do I pay for AI usage separately? +
Yes, but not to us. Riff calls through whatever provider you configured in WordPress atSettings → Connectors(Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google). Your provider bill is your provider bill; we never hold your API key and never mark up the inference calls. The Pro subscription covers the authoring stack, not the model usage. -
What happens to apps I built in Riff if I cancel Pro? +
They stay installed and keep running. You lose the ability to iterate them inside wp-admin (Riff itself goes away with the subscription), but the apps themselves are just bundles on disk. They keep their URLs, their permissions, and their data. If an app depended on Pro-only runtime features (scheduled jobs, webhooks, dynamic routes, abilities-publishing), those go inert until you upgrade again, but the rest of the app continues to work. -
Can I edit a Riff-built app in Claude Code later? +
Yes. Every Riff app is the same bundle format as a CLI-deployed app: a manifest, an entry HTML, and the assets it references. Export the bundle from wp-admin, open the folder in Claude Code or Cursor, iterate, and push the next version withnpx @designsetgo/cli apps deploy. Same app id, same URL, same data, atomic update. -
Does Riff work before May 20, 2026? +
Not yet. Riff depends on the WordPress 7.0 Connectors API and WP AI Client, which ship in core on May 20, 2026. The plugin itself works on WordPress 6.9, but the in-admin AI builder lights up when you upgrade to 7.0. Until then: build apps with Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, or v0, then drop the saved HTML into wp-admin (free, unlimited) or push from the CLI (Pro).
Riff is included on every Pro plan.
From $99/yr. 14-day free trial; cancel before day 14 and you won't be charged. Riff itself lights up when your site upgrades to WordPress 7.0 on May 20, 2026.