Deprecated. Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript

Article
09/18/2024

Deprecation notice ⚠️: The Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript beta will be retired on January 14th, 2025. Please migrate to the stable OpenAI SDK for JavaScript using the migration guide before that date.

The Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript is an adaptation of OpenAI's REST APIs that provides an idiomatic interface and rich integration with the rest of the Azure SDK ecosystem. It can connect to Azure OpenAI resources or to the non-Azure OpenAI inference endpoint, making it a great choice for even non-Azure OpenAI development.

Key links:

Getting started

Currently supported environments

LTS versions of Node.js
Latest versions of Safari, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

Prerequisites

If you'd like to use an Azure OpenAI resource, you must have an Azure subscription and Azure OpenAI access. This will allow you to create an Azure OpenAI resource and get both a connection URL as well as API keys. For more information, see Quickstart: Get started generating text using Azure OpenAI Service.

If you'd like to use the Azure OpenAI Assistants JS client library to connect to non-Azure OpenAI, you'll need an API key from a developer account at https://platform.openai.com/.

Install the `@azure/openai-assistants` package

Install the Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript with npm:

npm install @azure/openai-assistants

Create and authenticate a `AssistantsClient`

To configure a client for use with Azure OpenAI, provide a valid endpoint URI to an Azure OpenAI resource along with a corresponding key credential, token credential, or Azure identity credential that's authorized to use the Azure OpenAI resource. To instead configure the client to connect to OpenAI's service, provide an API key from OpenAI's developer portal.

Using an API Key from Azure

Use the Azure Portal to browse to your OpenAI resource and retrieve an API key, or use the Azure CLI snippet below:

Note: Sometimes the API key is referred to as a "subscription key" or "subscription API key."

az cognitiveservices account keys list --resource-group <your-resource-group-name> --name <your-resource-name>

Key concepts

See OpenAI's "how assistants work" documentation for an overview of the concepts and relationships used with assistants. This overview closely follows OpenAI's overview example to demonstrate the basics of creating, running, and using assistants and threads.

To get started, create an AssistantsClient:

const assistantsClient = new AssistantsClient("<endpoint>", new AzureKeyCredential("<azure_api_key>"));

With a client, an assistant can then be created. An assistant is a purpose-built interface to OpenAI models that can call Tools while allowing high-level instructions throughout the lifetime of the assistant.

The code to create an assistant:

const assistant = await assistantsClient.createAssistant({
  model: "gpt-4-1106-preview",
  name: "JS Math Tutor",
  instructions: "You are a personal math tutor. Write and run code to answer math questions.",
  tools: [{ type: "code_interpreter" }]
});

A conversation session between an Assistant and a user is called a Thread. Threads store Messages and automatically handle truncation to fit content into a model’s context.

To create a thread:

const assistantThread = await assistantsClient.createThread();

Message represent a message created by an Assistant or a user. Messages can include text, images, and other files. Messages are stored as a list on the Thread. With a thread created, messages can be created on it:

const question = "I need to solve the equation '3x + 11 = 14'. Can you help me?";
const messageResponse = await assistantsClient.createMessage(assistantThread.id, "user", question);

A Run represent an invocation of an Assistant on a Thread. The Assistant uses it’s configuration and the Thread’s Messages to perform tasks by calling models and tools. As part of a Run, the Assistant appends Messages to the Thread. A run can then be started that evaluates the thread against an assistant:

let runResponse = await assistantsClient.createRun(assistantThread.id, {
   assistantId: assistant.id,
   instructions: "Please address the user as Jane Doe. The user has a premium account." 
});

Once the run has started, it should then be polled until it reaches a terminal status:

do {
  await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 800));
  runResponse = await assistantsClient.getRun(assistantThread.id, runResponse.id);
} while (runResponse.status === "queued" || runResponse.status === "in_progress")

Assuming the run successfully completed, listing messages from the thread that was run will now reflect new information added by the assistant:

const runMessages = await assistantsClient.listMessages(assistantThread.id);
for (const runMessageDatum of runMessages.data) {
  for (const item of runMessageDatum.content) {
    if (item.type === "text") {
      console.log(item.text.value);
    } else if (item.type === "image_file") {
      console.log(item.imageFile.fileId);
    }
  }
}

Example output from this sequence:

2023-11-14 20:21:23 -  assistant: The solution to the equation \(3x + 11 = 14\) is \(x = 1\).
2023-11-14 20:21:18 -       user: I need to solve the equation `3x + 11 = 14`. Can you help me?

Working with files for retrieval

Files can be uploaded and then referenced by assistants or messages. First, use the generalized upload API with a purpose of 'assistants' to make a file ID available:

const filename = "<path_to_text_file>";
await fs.writeFile(filename, "The word 'apple' uses the code 442345, while the word 'banana' uses the code 673457.", "utf8");
const uint8array = await fs.readFile(filename);
const uploadAssistantFile = await assistantsClient.uploadFile(uint8array, "assistants", { filename });

Once uploaded, the file ID can then be provided to an assistant upon creation. Note that file IDs will only be used if an appropriate tool like Code Interpreter or Retrieval is enabled.

const fileAssistant = await assistantsClient.createAssistant({
  model: "gpt-4-1106-preview",
  name: "JS SDK Test Assistant - Retrieval",
  instructions: "You are a helpful assistant that can help fetch data from files you know about.",
  tools: [{ type: "retrieval" }],
  fileIds: [ uploadAssistantFile.id ]
});

With a file ID association and a supported tool enabled, the assistant will then be able to consume the associated data when running threads.

Using function tools and parallel function calling

As described in OpenAI's documentation for assistant tools, tools that reference caller-defined capabilities as functions can be provided to an assistant to allow it to dynamically resolve and disambiguate during a run.

Here, outlined is a simple assistant that "knows how to," via caller-provided functions:

Get the user's favorite city
Get a nickname for a given city
Get the current weather, optionally with a temperature unit, in a city

To do this, begin by defining the functions to use -- the actual implementations here are merely representative stubs.

// Example of a function that defines no parameters
const getFavoriteCity = () => "Atlanta, GA";
const getUserFavoriteCityTool = { 
  type: "function",
  function: {
    name: "getUserFavoriteCity",
    description: "Gets the user's favorite city.",
    parameters: {
      type: "object",
      properties: {}
    }
  }
}; 

// Example of a function with a single required parameter
const getCityNickname = (city) => { 
  switch (city) { 
    case "Atlanta, GA": 
      return "The ATL"; 
    case "Seattle, WA": 
      return "The Emerald City"; 
    case "Los Angeles, CA":
      return "LA"; 
    default: 
      return "Unknown"; 
  }
};

const getCityNicknameTool = { 
  type: "function",
  function: {
    name: "getCityNickname",
    description: "Gets the nickname for a city, e.g. 'LA' for 'Los Angeles, CA'.",
    parameters: { 
      type: "object",
      properties: { 
        city: {
          type: "string",
          description: "The city and state, e.g. San Francisco, CA"
        } 
      }
    }
  }
};

// Example of a function with one required and one optional, enum parameter
const getWeatherAtLocation = (location, temperatureUnit = "f") => {
  switch (location) { 
    case "Atlanta, GA": 
      return temperatureUnit === "f" ? "84f" : "26c"; 
    case "Seattle, WA": 
      return temperatureUnit === "f" ? "70f" : "21c"; 
    case "Los Angeles, CA":
      return temperatureUnit === "f" ? "90f" : "28c"; 
    default: 
      return "Unknown"; 
  }
};

const getWeatherAtLocationTool = { 
  type: "function",
  function: {
    name: "getWeatherAtLocation",
    description: "Gets the current weather at a provided location.",
    parameters: { 
      type: "object",
      properties: { 
        location: {
          type: "string",
          description: "The city and state, e.g. San Francisco, CA"
        },
        temperatureUnit: {
          type: "string",
          enum: ["f", "c"],
        }
      },
      required: ["location"]
    }
  }
};

With the functions defined in their appropriate tools, an assistant can be now created that has those tools enabled:

  const weatherAssistant = await assistantsClient.createAssistant({
  // note: parallel function calling is only supported with newer models like gpt-4-1106-preview
  model: "gpt-4-1106-preview",
  name: "JS SDK Test Assistant - Weather",
  instructions: `You are a weather bot. Use the provided functions to help answer questions.
    Customize your responses to the user's preferences as much as possible and use friendly
    nicknames for cities whenever possible.
  `,
  tools: [getUserFavoriteCityTool, getCityNicknameTool, getWeatherAtLocationTool]
});

If the assistant calls tools, the calling code will need to resolve ToolCall instances into matching ToolOutputSubmission instances. For convenience, a basic example is extracted here:

const getResolvedToolOutput = (toolCall) => {
  const toolOutput = { toolCallId: toolCall.id };

  if (toolCall["function"]) {
    const functionCall = toolCall["function"];
    const functionName = functionCall.name;
    const functionArgs = JSON.parse(functionCall["arguments"] ?? {});

    switch (functionName) {
      case "getUserFavoriteCity":
        toolOutput.output = getFavoriteCity();
        break;
      case "getCityNickname":
        toolOutput.output = getCityNickname(functionArgs["city"]);
        break;
      case "getWeatherAtLocation":
        toolOutput.output = getWeatherAtLocation(functionArgs.location, functionArgs.temperatureUnit);
        break;
      default:
        toolOutput.output = `Unknown function: ${functionName}`;
        break;
    }
  }
  return toolOutput;
};

To handle user input like "what's the weather like right now in my favorite city?", polling the response for completion should be supplemented by a RunStatus check for RequiresAction or, in this case, the presence of the RequiredAction property on the run. Then, the collection of ToolOutputSubmissions should be submitted to the run via the SubmitRunToolOutputs method so that the run can continue:

const question = "What's the weather like right now in my favorite city?";
let runResponse = await assistantsClient.createThreadAndRun({ 
  assistantId: weatherAssistant.id, 
  thread: { messages: [{ role: "user", content: question }] },
  tools: [getUserFavoriteCityTool, getCityNicknameTool, getWeatherAtLocationTool]
});

do {
  await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 500));
  runResponse = await assistantsClient.getRun(runResponse.threadId, runResponse.id);
  
  if (runResponse.status === "requires_action" && runResponse.requiredAction.type === "submit_tool_outputs") {
    const toolOutputs = [];

    for (const toolCall of runResponse.requiredAction.submitToolOutputs.toolCalls) {
      toolOutputs.push(getResolvedToolOutput(toolCall));
    }
    runResponse = await assistantsClient.submitToolOutputsToRun(runResponse.threadId, runResponse.id, toolOutputs);
  }
} while (runResponse.status === "queued" || runResponse.status === "in_progress")

Note that, when using supported models, the assistant may request that several functions be called in parallel. Older models may only call one function at a time.

Once all needed function calls have been resolved, the run will proceed normally and the completed messages on the thread will contain model output supplemented by the provided function tool outputs.

Troubleshooting

Logging

Enabling logging may help uncover useful information about failures. In order to see a log of HTTP requests and responses, set the AZURE_LOG_LEVEL environment variable to info. Alternatively, logging can be enabled at runtime by calling setLogLevel in the @azure/logger:

const { setLogLevel } = require("@azure/logger");

setLogLevel("info");

For more detailed instructions on how to enable logs, you can look at the @azure/logger package docs.

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Deprecated. Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript

Getting started

Currently supported environments

Prerequisites

Install the `@azure/openai-assistants` package

Create and authenticate a `AssistantsClient`

Using an API Key from Azure

Key concepts

Working with files for retrieval

Using function tools and parallel function calling

Troubleshooting

Logging

Additional resources

Share via

Deprecated. Azure OpenAI Assistants client library for JavaScript

Getting started

Currently supported environments

Prerequisites

Install the @azure/openai-assistants package

Create and authenticate a AssistantsClient

Using an API Key from Azure

Key concepts

Working with files for retrieval

Using function tools and parallel function calling

Troubleshooting

Logging

Additional resources

Install the `@azure/openai-assistants` package

Create and authenticate a `AssistantsClient`