How to Use The Azure OpenAIClient Class

In this Azure OpenAI .NET SDK blog post we will show you how to use the OpenAIClient class and connect to an Azure OpenAI resource.

The Azure SDK for .NET (preview) allows us to connect, create, consume, and manage Azure resources using .NET applications like C#, ASP, Blazor, and more. The SDK also allows us to connect and consume OpenAI endpoints.

Use the OpenAIClient Class

We first need to install the Azure AI OpenAI package to use the class.

dotnet add package Azure.AI.OpenAI --version 1.0.0-beta.6

To use the package in a C# class or application, we use:


using Azure.AI.OpenAI;

Configure the OpenAI Client

Before connecting to Azure OpenAI, we must configure the client with the OpenAI endpoint, Access Key and deployment name.

var AOAI_ENDPOINT = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AOAI_ENDPOINT");
var AOAI_KEY = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AOAI_KEY");
var AOAI_DEPLOYMENTID = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AOAI_DEPLOYMENTID");

Use Client

To use the client using the client we use the following code.

var endpoint = new Uri(AOAI_ENDPOINT);
var credentials = new Azure.AzureKeyCredential(AOAI_KEY);
var openAIClient = new OpenAIClient(endpoint, credentials);

Configure Completion Options

The following code configures the completion options, which control the results of the OpenAI output.

var completionOptions = new ChatCompletionsOptions
{
    MaxTokens=100,
    Temperature=0.5f,
    FrequencyPenalty=0.0f,
    PresencePenalty=0.0f,
    NucleusSamplingFactor=1 // Top P
};

Configure Prompt

Once the OpenAIClient and completion options are ready, we can define the prompt sent to the endpoint and handle the reply (assistance).

The following code will define the prompt.

var systemPrompt = "You are a virtual agent that generates secure passwords.";

var userPrompt = 
    """
    generete a secure password with 20 characters that contains at least one number and one special character.
    """;

Generate Output

The following code block will generate the completions returned from the OpenAI endpoint.

completionOptions.Messages.Add(new ChatMessage(ChatRole.System, systemPrompt));
completionOptions.Messages.Add(new ChatMessage(ChatRole.User, userPrompt));
ChatCompletions response = await openAIClient.GetChatCompletionsAsync(AOAI_DEPLOYMENTID,completionOptions);
response.Choices.First().Message.Content