June 6th, 2024

Announcing the official OpenAI library for .NET

.NET Team
.NET Team

At Microsoft Build 2024, we announced new investments that expand the AI ecosystem for .NET developers. We’re excited to share more detailed plans around Microsoft’s collaboration with OpenAI on their official .NET library.

Today, the OpenAI team released their first beta, version 2.0.0-beta.1, of the official OpenAI library for .NET. Features include:

  • Support for the entire OpenAI API, including Assistants v2 and Chat Completions
  • Support for GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest flagship model
  • Extensibility to enable the community to build libraries on top
  • Sync and async APIs for ease of use and efficiency
  • Access to streaming completions via IAsyncEnumerable<T>

This official .NET library ensures a smooth and supported integration with OpenAI and Azure OpenAI. It also complements OpenAI’s official libraries for Python and TypeScript/JavaScript developers.

The .NET library is developed and supported on GitHub and will be kept up to date with the latest features from OpenAI. Work will continue over the next few months to gather feedback to improve the library and release a stable NuGet package.

Thank you to the .NET community

We’d like to thank and recognize the work of Roger Pincombe on his library that was published under the OpenAI v1.x NuGet package name. Roger initially published the library in June 2020, making it the first known OpenAI package for .NET. He volunteered countless hours of personal time ever since to maintain the project on GitHub. Roger has worked closely with OpenAI and Microsoft on our plans for the official .NET package for OpenAI. Roger is also helping with a migration guide from his package to the new official one.

Of course, developers may choose to continue using their favorite community libraries, like:

OpenAI and the .NET team also thank these project maintainers for their extraordinary efforts in filling a void within the community. Even with the release of the official package from OpenAI, there are opportunities for community libraries to add significant value on top. We look forward to collaborating with the community in this space.

Next steps

Here’s how you can get involved:

  • Try the library: Install the OpenAI .NET library and start experimenting with its features.
  • Join the community: Engage with us and other developers on GitHub. Share your experiences, report issues, and contribute to discussions.
  • Attend the live stream: Join us live at 10:00 AM PDT on June 19 for the .NET AI Community Standup. Ask questions, learn more about the library, and see demos of its capabilities.
Category
.NETAIAzure
Topics
AIannouncementopenai

Author

.NET Team

.NET is the free, open-source, cross-platform framework for building modern apps and powerful cloud services.

21 comments

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  • Ahmed Masmoudi

    Quick question
    does this library supports the new gpt 4o-mini?

    • Scott AddieMicrosoft employee

      Yes, it does. You should be able to do something like this:

      ChatClient client = new(model: "gpt-4o-mini", Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("OPENAI_API_KEY"));

ChatCompletion completion = client.CompleteChat("Say 'this is a test.'");
      • Attila Fodor

        Well, no, we can’t. What you copied is really on the github readme of the openai nuget, but if oyu try to add that package from gui or from console, you wil got a totally different one, which has zero relevance with the documentation.

  • Scott AddieMicrosoft employee · Edited

    For those following along, we discussed and demonstrated the official library on today’s .NET AI Community Standup. View the recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUV2p_9QUo8. Special guest Roger Pincombe joined us!

  • Reelix · Edited

    Official .NET libraries requiring API keys for third-party services to use?

    That’s a new one.

    Maybe in 2030 we’ll require the user having a Microsoft account to run a program that has using System; :p

    • saint4eva · Edited

      It is required in whatever programming platform or language you are using. Lol. You are consuming their pretrained models or services through their endpoints, so you need the OPENAI keys. When consuming AI services on Azure or AWS, you would need their keys also.
      But if you want to consume a SLM or MLM locally or on edge (on device), you can use Semantic Kernel library to do that. SK library supports C#, Python and...

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    • Martin Richards

      Its OpenAI’s official api, they require a key like a million other services do. Or do you expect them to provide everything unlimited completely free?

  • Jeff Jones

    How does this affect those using the ML.NET package from Microsoft? Are the two packages related, or does is this package a “next version” of ML.NET?

    • Luis QuintanillaMicrosoft employee

      Hi Jeff,

      This has no effect on ML.NET set of packages. The OpenAI library announced in this post and ML.NET are unrelated. However, if there’s any integrations folks would like to see between ML.NET and OpenAI models, feedback is always welcome.

      https://github.com/dotnet/machinelearning/issues

      • Jeff Jones

        I appreciate the reply. Unfortunately, this is another example of MS having one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing. ML.NET has been around, and been updated, for years. MS should have provided a clear path of transition or map of interaction of the two. ML.NET does not require any subscriptions (and thus no revenue stream for MS), whereas "OpenAI library for .NET" does require a subscription and incurs...

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      • Luis QuintanillaMicrosoft employee

        Hi Jeff,

        Thanks for the feedback.

        MS should have provided a clear path of transition or map of interaction of the two. ML.NET does not require any subscriptions (and thus no revenue stream for MS), whereas “OpenAI library for .NET” does require a subscription and incurs cost for the developer and end user.

        At a high-level, the intents of the libraries are different.

        OpenAI services can be thought of like any other (Azure) AI Service, for which...

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  • Sergiu Perju

    Interesting

  • José Luis Latorre Millás

    Does this include support for the latest GPT-4o features? audio stream in & out as well as image & video recognition?

  • Thomas Ardal · Edited

    What does this mean for the Azure.AI.OpenAI package?

    • Thomas Ardal

      A quick update on this for anyone interested in making the switch. I migrated my code to the new prerelease of the package. Everything is running great. As already mentioned in this thread, you use when communicating with a model hosted on Azure and when communicating with a model on OpenAI. One thing you should be aware of is that the new clients now throw instead of . So, if you...

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    • Travis WilsonMicrosoft employee

      Hello, Thomas! That's a great question. We've worked closely with OpenAI for overall .NET convergence and that existing package is being converted into the Azure OpenAI Service "companion library" that will provide a dedicated for connecting to Azure OpenAI resources, together with extensions for Azure-specific concepts like Responsible AI content filter results and On Your Data integration. All of the common capabilities between OpenAI and Azure OpenAI will share the same scenario clients,...

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      • Thomas Ardal · Edited

        Thank you for the detailed answer. So, to make sure I understand the split here. Previously, we would use an to communicate with both ChatGPT from OpenAI and Azure OpenAI Service. With different endpoints and settings, of course. But going forward, we will use from the package to communicate with Azure OpenAI Service and from the package to communicate with OpenAI?

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      • Travis WilsonMicrosoft employee · Edited

        is from the predecessor OpenAI library prior to the package name being graciously transferred; please be sure you're using for the official library!

        The OpenAI library has ; the package adds , which derives from and specifically configures things for Azure OpenAI. With either, you then instantiate scenario clients from the factory-like top-level client, e.g. . From there, the (or other scenario client instance) is used the same way whether...

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      • Thomas Ardal

        Makes sense. Thanks!

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