Looking to use OpenAI's Assistant?

So, lately I was working on experimenting with OpenAI’s SDK to use an OpenAI Assistant. So I went ahead, built my assistant which used a PDF file as a basis to analyse and summarize it, based on additional input that I send via the userprompt - I was happy with the outcome in the playground so went ahead and started writing a simple UI in Razor where you can upload a file and add the user prompt and got everything ready for the OpenAI interaction.

So being the trustworthy developer I am, I followed OpenAI’s documentation down to the bone - but then! 500 happend. No-matter what I did, the only thing I got: 500 Server errors left and right. Then I used their playground to figure out in what order which calls were made to run the assistant:

Create a “blank” thread:

var thread = assistantClient.CreateThread(
    new ThreadCreationOptions()
    {
        // literally BLANK
    }
);

Create your messages you need to add:

assistantClient.CreateMessage(thread.Value.Id,
                              MessageRole.User,
                              new List<MessageContent>() { MessageContent.FromText(Userprompt)}.AsEnumerable()
                             );

Have a file to add? Here we go:

var fileRef = await fileClient.UploadFileAsync(fileStream, $"File-{Guid.NewGuid()}.pdf", OpenAI.Files.FileUploadPurpose.Assistants);
assistantClient.CreateMessage(thread.Value.Id,
                              MessageRole.User,
                              new List<MessageContent>() { MessageContent.FromText("File to read") }.AsEnumerable(),
                              new MessageCreationOptions {
                                Attachments = new List<MessageCreationAttachment>(){
                                    new MessageCreationAttachment(
                                        fileRef.Value.Id,
                                        new List<ToolDefinition>(){ToolDefinition.CreateFileSearch()}
                                        )}
                                  }
                            );

Run it!

await foreach (var update in assistantClient.CreateRunStreamingAsync(thread.Value.Id, "asst_IDYouFindInThePlayground"))
{
    if (update is MessageContentUpdate contentUpdate)
    {
        Output += contentUpdate?.Text ?? "";
    }
}

There we go! We got a working assistant, using C# and the OpenAI SDK! I just hope that the OpenAI / Microsoft updates their documentation and/or their API soon. But until then here is the full code:

// Used **NuGet**: Azure.AI.OpenAI@2.0.0

var assistantClient = openAiClient.GetAssistantClient();

// step 1 - create a blank thread
var thread = assistantClient.CreateThread(
    new ThreadCreationOptions()
    {
        // literally BLANK
    }
);

// step 2 - create the messages you need
assistantClient.CreateMessage(thread.Value.Id,
                              MessageRole.User,
                              new List<MessageContent>() { MessageContent.FromText(Userprompt)}.AsEnumerable()
                             );

// step 3 - upload a file
var fileClient = openAiClient.GetOpenAIFileClient();
var fileRef = await fileClient.UploadFileAsync(fileStream, $"File-{Guid.NewGuid()}.pdf", OpenAI.Files.FileUploadPurpose.Assistants);
assistantClient.CreateMessage(thread.Value.Id,
                              MessageRole.User,
                              new List<MessageContent>() { MessageContent.FromText("File to read") }.AsEnumerable(),
                              new MessageCreationOptions {
                                Attachments = new List<MessageCreationAttachment>(){
                                    new MessageCreationAttachment(
                                        fileRef.Value.Id,
                                        new List<ToolDefinition>(){ToolDefinition.CreateFileSearch()}
                                        )}
                                  }
                            );

// step 4 - run it
await foreach (var update in assistantClient.CreateRunStreamingAsync(thread.Value.Id, "asst_IDYouFindInThePlayground"))
{
    if (update is MessageContentUpdate contentUpdate)
    {
        Output += contentUpdate?.Text ?? "";
    }
}

Oh, one last thing: you might need to format the output here and there due to reference tags, that the AI adds.

So it is not really a quick-post, but I hope it helps! Don’t forget to C# too! 👋