Offer Manual Editor and Plugin Creator as Equal Editing Options

GPT builders Plugins / Actions builders
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1

Title: Offer Manual Editor and Plugin Creator as Equal Editing Options

With the migration from Custom GPTs to Plugins, the new conversational Plugin Creator is a useful and flexible way to build and modify plugins. However, for more complex configurations, it does not fully replace the precision and transparency of the previous manual editor.

I would therefore like to suggest offering both editing modes in parallel and treating them as equal options:

  1. Plugin Creator — for conversational, AI-assisted creation and modification.

  2. Manual Editor — for direct access to the complete plugin configuration, including instructions, skills, reference files, description, capabilities and other relevant settings.

The conversational approach works very well for quick changes, less technical users and early-stage creation. For advanced users and complex plugins, however, a manual editor provides important advantages:

  • The complete current configuration is visible at a glance.

  • Individual passages can be edited precisely without relying on an AI interpretation of the requested change.

  • It is easier to compare versions and track modifications.

  • Users can verify exactly what is stored and active.

  • Large and carefully structured instruction sets are easier to maintain.

  • Debugging unexpected plugin behavior becomes much easier.

This is especially important for users who have developed sophisticated Custom GPTs over a long period of time and are now migrating them to Plugins. In these cases, the configuration itself is often a carefully maintained piece of work.

Ideally, both editing methods would operate on the same underlying plugin configuration, so users could freely switch between:

“Edit with Plugin Creator”

and

“Edit manually”

The Plugin Creator would remain available for users who prefer a conversational workflow, while advanced users would retain the transparency and precision of a traditional editor.

This would combine the strengths of both approaches instead of forcing users to choose between convenience and control.

2

I just joined this community because of issues with the migrated GPTs to Plugins.

The new editing workflow creates unnecessary workflow friction. My most recent frustration is with a migrated GPT plugin I use to review annotated bibliographies (a tedious task) for a class I teach. I regularly make very small calibration changes to its instructions based on student work.

With Custom GPTs, I could open the instructions, change one or two sentences, save, and immediately retest. Now I have to ask the Plugin Creator to interpret the change, wait for it to make the edit, verify that it changed only what I intended, and then retest. In several cases, the actual instruction change would have taken me less time to make manually than it took the editor to process the request.

Conversational editing is useful for people who want help building or revising instructions, but it should not replace direct editing for users who already know exactly what they want to change.

The ideal system would let users choose between:

  • direct text editing for precise changes
  • conversational editing for users who want assistance

For calibration-heavy tools, direct editing is faster, more transparent, and reduces the risk of unintended changes elsewhere in the instructions.

Please, return access to direct editing.

3

Hey @max-ids, I appreciate you sharing this. @Swtpea, your example shows how useful direct editing would be for small, frequent changes.

ChatGPT already has a Skills editor for managing individual skills, as covered in Skills in ChatGPT. What you’re asking for goes further: being able to edit the full plugin configuration manually and switch to Plugin Creator whenever you want help.

I’ll pass this on internally, including your points about seeing exactly what’s saved and making precise changes. There’s no timeline to share, but I’ll make sure those details are included in the feedback.

~ GG