Change our AI connector check from looking at configuration to looking at if authentication is set

[dkotter]

What?

Adds new helper functions that check if a connector has authentication in place, going from ENV var to constant to API key in the database. Use this in place of our new is_connector_configured check.

Why?

In #537 we added a new is_connector_configured function and use that when determining if we have AI credentials. In testing something else, I was seeing lots of extra requests being made and realized that the $registry->isProviderConfigured( $connector_id ) check that we run in is_connector_configured makes an actual API request to validate credentials.

While this can be great in some circumstances, by attaching that to our has_ai_credentials function, this ends up running all the time (basically every admin page load).

The original code here never verified credentials, it just checked if we had an API key set. As reported in #536, the issue with that check is it didn't consider ENV vars or constants and we fixed that with this new is_connector_configured function.

But I don't think it's ideal to make all of these requests so this PR adds new functions that are now used instead of is_connector_configured that bring us back to just checking for the existence of credentials, though now checking ENV var, constants and API keys in the database to resolve the original issue. This matches the original intent discussed here.

How?

• Adds a new has_connector_authentication and get_connector_api_key_source, the latter mirroring what WordPress Core does in _wp_connectors_get_api_key_source and the former being used as a replacement for is_connector_configured
• We retain the is_connector_configured function in case we want to use this at some point in the future. For example, likely could replace our has_valid_ai_credentials with this, or use it within that

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Cursor
Model(s): GPT-5.5
Used for: Investigating the issue and researching a few approaches to resolving. Execution and testing done by me

Testing Instructions

See testing instructions on #537 to ensure that issue is still resolved

Changelog Entry

Added - New helper functions that are used to determine if we have valid AI Connector credentials.
Changed - Use the new has_connector_authentication instead of is_connector_configured to avoid unnecessary API requests.

[github-actions]

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 75.86207% with 7 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 73.20%. Comparing base (3624c91) to head (a7e035d).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
includes/helpers.php	78.57%	6 Missing ⚠️
includes/Admin/Dashboard/AI_Status_Widget.php	0.00%	1 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@              Coverage Diff              @@
##             develop     #603      +/-   ##
=============================================
+ Coverage      73.18%   73.20%   +0.01%     
  Complexity      1731     1731              
=============================================
  Files             85       85              
  Lines           7473     7500      +27     
=============================================
+ Hits            5469     5490      +21     
- Misses          2004     2010       +6     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unit	73.20% <75.86%> (+0.01%)	⬆️

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[dkotter]

@LukasFritzeDev wondering if you might have time to review this and ensure it still resolves your reported issue in #536? In testing some other things, realized the approach we took in #537 introduced some unintended side effects so I've switched things to the approach you mentioned here