Upgrading the UI to the new verawood sidebar for studio

[felipemontoya]

This PR updates the UI to match the new pattern of having an icon and a sidebar that is the default in verawood.

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 95.45%. Comparing base (518ac25) to head (ab52325).
⚠️ Report is 6 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #253      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   95.42%   95.45%   +0.03%     
==========================================
  Files          71       71              
  Lines        8516     8558      +42     
  Branches      451      453       +2     
==========================================
+ Hits         8126     8169      +43     
+ Misses        292      291       -1     
  Partials       98       98              

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	95.45% <ø> (+0.03%)	⬆️

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[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

AIUnitSidebarPanel currently drops a provided locationId and only forwards blockId, which can break context/scoping when the host passes locationId as expected by ConfigurableAIAssistance.

Once you've addressed the issues Copilot identified, you can request another Copilot review.

Pull request overview

This PR updates the Studio unit sidebar integration to match Verawood’s redesigned “icon rail + paged sidebar” pattern by wrapping the default sidebar and injecting an AI page when the host supports sidebar pages, while preserving a legacy fallback path for earlier releases.

Changes:

• Add AIUnitSidebarPanel to extend Studio’s unit sidebar pages (or append below legacy sidebar when pages aren’t available).
• Gate the authoring-only UnitSidebarPagesContext import behind a Tutor-version-based setting (AI_EXTENSIONS_ENABLE_UNIT_SIDEBAR_PAGE).
• Export the new panel + defaults from the UI package, add i18n message(s), tests, and changelog entries.

File summaries

File	Description
tutor/openedx_ai_extensions/plugin.py	Adds Tutor-version-gated setting and changes the authoring slot contribution from Insert to Wrap to support the new sidebar layout.
tutor/openedx_ai_extensions/patches/mfe-env-config-runtime-definitions-authoring	Conditionally imports Studio’s UnitSidebarPagesContext only when enabled, otherwise provides null for legacy behavior.
frontend/src/messages.ts	Adds the new unit sidebar page title message descriptor.
frontend/src/index.tsx	Exports AIUnitSidebarPanel, DEFAULT_UNIT_SIDEBAR_BOXES, and AISidebarBox type from the package entrypoint.
frontend/src/AIUnitSidebarPanel.tsx	Implements the wrapper that adds an AI page to the sidebar pages registry, with a legacy append fallback.
frontend/src/AIUnitSidebarPanel.test.tsx	Adds unit tests for both “no pages context” and “has pages context” behaviors.
frontend/package-lock.json	Updates lock metadata to match the UI package version.
CHANGELOG.rst	Documents the new panel, setting, and sidebar integration change in Unreleased.

Review details

Files not reviewed (1)

• frontend/package-lock.json: Generated file

Suppressed comments (1)

frontend/src/AIUnitSidebarPanel.tsx:108

• The panel currently maps locationId to blockId unconditionally, and the destructuring omits locationId. If the host already provides locationId, it will be dropped and ConfigurableAIAssistance will see locationId=null, which can break selector scoping. Prefer locationId ?? blockId and include both in the memo dependencies.

const AIUnitSidebarPanel = ({
  children = null,
  PagesContext = null,
  boxes = DEFAULT_UNIT_SIDEBAR_BOXES,
  icon = AutoAwesome,

• Files reviewed: 7/8 changed files
• Comments generated: 1
• Review effort level: Lite

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[dcoa]

there not a good idea to loose the types, if we do really need to pass title I will suggest to update the local version of frontend platform to 8.7.1 that has i18n typed so we can do

import type { IntlShape } from '@edx/frontend-platform/i18n';

type MessageDescriptor = Parameters<IntlShape['formatMessage']>[0];

Suggested change

	title?: any;
	/** Formatted by Studio's Sidebar for the page heading and icon label. */
	title?: MessageDescriptor;

[dcoa]

ConfigurableAIAssistance is imported but not used

[dcoa]

I checked this behavior and turned off ENABLE_UNIT_PAGE_NEW_DESIGN in Verawood, however it does not insert the component in the legacy sidebar. Studio mounts UnitSidebarPagesProvider regardless of the flag (CourseUnit.tsx), so existingPages is always defined and the fallback branch never runs.

[felipemontoya]

@dcoa thank you for the review. I have accepted the modification you made and updated the code with the rest of the comments

[dcoa]

thank you @felipemontoya for addressing my comments. The PR looks great. there is only one more thing I would like to address and it is user feedback:

Empty AI panel (AIUnitSidebarPanel.tsx:159): the sparkle icon shows on every unit even when no scope is configured, and opens an empty panel. The old widget hid itself.

To solve that I suggest to show a message that explains the unit does not have an AI tool configured (that is also the cheapest change):

Changes needed

1. ConfigurableAIAssistance has to report "no config". Right now it returns null silently: onConfigLoad only fires when a config comes back, and onConfigError only on errors. Add an optional onNoConfig callback, called where it currently returns null. It's optional, so the learning MFE and other plugin users aren't affected.
2. AIExtensionsSidebarPage tracks each box's state (loading / configured / none / error). It shows the empty state only when every box reports none. Waiting for all boxes avoids a flash of the empty state while they load.
3. New i18n message for the box empty state.
4. Tests:
   • all boxes none shows the empty state
   • one box configured shows no empty state
   • still loading shows no empty state
   • onNoConfig fires on both the 404 and the no_config responses

What the author sees

• Sparkle icon: always on the rail, as now.
• Opening the page: while the boxes load, a spinner, as now. Once they've all loaded:
  • If at least one box has a scope, those boxes show, as now.
  • If none do, an empty state shows instead of a blank panel. Something like: "AI Extensions is enabled" / "No AI tools are configured for this unit. Contact your platform administrator to enable one for this course or unit."
  • If loading the config fails, the box's existing error Alert shows, and no empty state.