.Net: API support for multiple chat roles for Chat completion APIs

[nacharya1]

Important

Labeled Urgent because it will require a breaking change.

This issue should just provide API-level support. Another issue will be created (and linked) for the actual template support. This API support should be exposed to the template engine so that it can call those APIs and return an array of chat messages.

name: Feature request
about: Suggest an idea for this project
We currently have a lack of SK Functions based on Chat prompts (e.g. instead of a single text prompt, a function is based on a mix of chat messages, where each message needs to be rendered, before calling the LLM.
Needed by Devis and memory service.

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1. 1 - POC

[matthewbolanos]

You should be able to author a semantic function that has multiple messages with arbitrary roles (system, assistant, and user)

[matthewbolanos]

In Prompt flow, they achieve this by having role tags in the template file (e.g., "system:", "user:", "assistant"). SK should do something similar.

[matthewbolanos]

This is how Guidance does it

[matthewbolanos]

There needs to be a second issue with "high" priority for the actual template language.

[matthewbolanos]

We believe the only "net new" work is allowing the template engine to return an array of messages if the connection is "chat". If the connection is "text" then the template engine does not need to break it up into multiple messages.

[SergeyMenshykh]

The feature requires a few SK components to be changed, so it has been split into three smaller ones to tackle each component separately:

• .Net [ChatRoles] 1. Convert SK templating engine chat role syntax to intermediate SK format #3250
• .Net [ChatRoles] 2. Completion service (ChatCompletion / TextCompletion) selection by SemanticFunction #3256
• .Net [ChatRoles] 3. Map SK chat roles to Chat Completion API model #3254

[matthewbolanos]

Marking as complete because the intermediate template now supports chat messages