{"id":502,"date":"2023-07-24T11:10:49","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T18:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/semantic-kernel\/?p=502"},"modified":"2024-01-11T22:01:24","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T06:01:24","slug":"semantic-kernel-planners-actionplanner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/semantic-kernel-planners-actionplanner\/","title":{"rendered":"Semantic Kernel Planners: Action Planner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Action Planner is no longer supported. See how to migrate legacy code<\/a> away from it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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This will be the first of a series of blog posts which will ‘step through’ (no pun intended) the generation and evolution of planners available in Semantic Kernel; Action Planner, Sequential Planner, and Stepwise Planner. <\/span>Planners are a critical element of Semantic Kernel, each has its own strengths, so it\u2019s important to understand how each planner works so you can pick the best one for your needs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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In Semantic Kernel, you can easily build custom plugins or import ones you have already. Once you have all these plugins registered in the kernel, you now need a way to orchestrate them to accomplish user goals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Semantic Kernel Planners provide a way to manually orchestrate plugins using the RunAsync function. Or a key superpower of Semantic Kernel comes from having AI automatically combine your plugins to address the needs of your users via planners. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this blog we will look at the Action Planner. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Action Planner works by identifying the most relevant plugin that achieves the user\u2019s goal. What makes it different from other planners is that it only chooses a <\/span>single<\/span><\/i> plugin to run. See below example of Chat Copilot<\/a> leveraging the Action Planner with the Klarna plugin to generate a response. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This planner is helpful in scenarios where you have already defined higher-order plugins (or plans!) that accomplish a user\u2019s intent and you merely need a mechanism to choose the right one. This makes the action planner highly efficient and get in low latency scenarios. If your requests can only be achieved by multiple<\/i> plug-ins, you may need to define your own planner or use a more complex planner like Sequential Planner or Stepwise Planner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Action Planner<\/span>\u00a0works by <\/span>implement<\/span>ing<\/span> an i<\/span>ntent detection pattern<\/span>, which <\/span>identifies<\/span> a user\u2019s intent and compares it to the available plug-in functions loaded into the kernel<\/span>.<\/span> Once it finds a plug-in that most aligns with a user\u2019s goal, it uses AI to populate the necessary input parameters.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s an example of how you can use Action Planner in your project:<\/p>\n

\/\/ Initialize a new instance of the ActionPlanner class\r\nActionPlanner planner = new ActionPlanner(kernelInstance);\r\n\r\n\/\/ Use ActionPlanner to select the most appropriate function for a specific goal\r\nPlan result = await planner.CreatePlanAsync(goal);\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
After running <\/span>CreatePlanAsync<\/span>, you can inspect the plan and then <\/span><\/span>run your plan<\/span> with the <\/span>InvokeAsync<\/span> function.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\/\/ Execute the selected function with the provided instructions and rationale\r\nawait plan.InvokeAsync();\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Below is an example of a constructed Action Plan using the Klarna plugin.<\/p>\n
{\r\n  \"proposedPlan\": {\r\n    \"state\": [\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"INPUT\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"\"\r\n      }\r\n    ],\r\n    \"steps\": [\r\n      {\r\n        \"state\": [\r\n          {\r\n            \"Key\": \"INPUT\",\r\n            \"Value\": \"\"\r\n          }\r\n        ],\r\n        \"steps\": [],\r\n        \"parameters\": [\r\n          {\r\n            \"Key\": \"INPUT\",\r\n            \"Value\": \"\"\r\n          }\r\n        ],\r\n        \"outputs\": [],\r\n        \"next_step_index\": 0,\r\n        \"name\": \"productsUsingGET\",\r\n        \"skill_name\": \"KlarnaShoppingSkill\",\r\n        \"description\": \"\"\r\n      }\r\n    ],\r\n    \"parameters\": [\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"q\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"Canon Digital Camera\"\r\n      },\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"countryCode\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"US\"\r\n      },\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"INPUT\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"\"\r\n      },\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"size\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"1\"\r\n      },\r\n      {\r\n        \"Key\": \"server_url\",\r\n        \"Value\": \"https:\/\/www.klarna.com\/us\/shopping\"\r\n      }\r\n    ],\r\n    \"outputs\": [],\r\n    \"next_step_index\": 0,\r\n    \"name\": \"\",\r\n    \"skill_name\": \"Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Planning.Plan\",\r\n    \"description\": \"Given the following context, accomplish the user intent.\\nINPUT: How much is a Canon Digital Camera?\\nUser Intent:User intent: How much does a Canon Digital Camera cost?\"\r\n  },\r\n  \"type\": 0,\r\n  \"state\": 0\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n
In conclusion, Action Planner is an essential planning object within Semantic Kernel .Net that leverages an Intent Detection pattern to efficiently select and execute a suitable function based on a specific goal. Its ability to adapt and prioritize actions intelligently makes it a powerful tool in achieving desired outcomes.<\/p>\n
Next Steps:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Learn more about planner concept here<\/a> and view an example<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Join the community<\/a> and let us know what you think.<\/p>\n
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The Action Planner is no longer supported. See how to migrate legacy code away from it. This will be the first of a series of blog posts which will ‘step through’ (no pun intended) the generation and evolution of planners available in Semantic Kernel; Action Planner, Sequential Planner, and Stepwise Planner. Planners are a critical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116113,"featured_media":834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-semantic-kernel"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
The Action Planner is no longer supported. See how to migrate legacy code away from it. This will be the first of a series of blog posts which will ‘step through’ (no pun intended) the generation and evolution of planners available in Semantic Kernel; Action Planner, Sequential Planner, and Stepwise Planner. Planners are a critical […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}