ruby-openai api gem in Ruby on Rails: how to implement a streaming conversation?

Openai provides an api which allows you to implement AI services such as ChaGPT or DAL-E.
For Ruby on Rails application, and there are couple of gems available, obe of them being ruby-openai.

It works very well, but the only problem is that it doesn't come with the stream conversation feature, meaning that you can only send one question request at a time without any history tracking of the conversation. In other words, the api forgets every question you asked after having sent the reply.

So how can we fix this?

Basically you need to implement the whole behaviour yourself. Here are all the implementation step, including the implementation of the dal-e ai with a response with several pictures rather then just one.

You can also find my whole repository HERE and clone the app!!!

IMPLEMENTING A STREAM CONVERSATION FEATURE

Basic implementation

Check out Doug Berkley's Notion Page for basic implementation of the API

Implement a streaming conversation

By default the openai gem does not come with that feature, hence having to implement it yourself

1. Create your database with 3 tables (conversations, questions, answers) with thw following sctructure:

# schema.rb
ActiveRecord::Schema[7.0].define(version: 2023_05_29_194913) do
  create_table "answers", force: :cascade do |t|
    t.text "content"
    t.integer "question_id", null: false
    t.datetime "created_at", null: false
    t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
    t.index ["question_id"], name: "index_answers_on_question_id"
  end

  create_table "conversations", force: :cascade do |t|
    t.text "initial_question"
    t.datetime "created_at", null: false
    t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
    t.text "historic"
  end

  create_table "questions", force: :cascade do |t|
    t.text "content"
    t.integer "conversation_id", null: false
    t.datetime "created_at", null: false
    t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
    t.index ["conversation_id"], name: "index_questions_on_conversation_id"
  end

  add_foreign_key "answers", "questions"
  add_foreign_key "questions", "conversations"
end

2. Routes

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  root "pages#home" # supposes that you have a pages controller with a home action
  resources :conversations, only: [:create, :show]
  post "question", to: "conversations#ask_question"
end

3. Home page view (with just a button that redirects to the create conversation action -- see bellow)

<h1>Let's talk</h1>
<%= button_to "Create New Conversation", conversations_path, method: :post, class: "btn btn-primary my-3" %>

4. Controller app/controllers/conversations_controller.rb

class ConversationsController < ApplicationController
  def create
    @convo = Conversation.create
    redirect_to conversation_path(@convo)
  end

  def show
    @convo = Conversation.find(params[:id])
  end

  def ask_question
    @question = Question.new(content: params[:entry])
    conversation = Conversation.find(params[:conversation])
    @question.conversation = conversation
    @question.save
    if conversation.historic.nil?
      response = OpenaiService.new(params[:entry]).call 
      conversation.historic = "#{@question.content}\n#{response}"
    else
      response = OpenaiService.new("#{conversation.historic}\n#{params[:entry]}").call
      conversation.historic += "\n#{@question.content}\n#{response}"
    end
    conversation.save
    @answer = Answer.create(content: response, question: @question)
    redirect_to conversation_path(conversation)
  end
end

5. Show page app/views/conversations/show.html.erb

<h1>This is your conversation</h1>
<p>Ask your question</p>
<form action="<%= question_path %>", method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="conversation" value="<%= @convo.id %>">
  <textarea rows="5" cols="33" name="entry"></textarea>
  <input type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">
</form>

<br>

<ul>
  <% @convo.questions.each do |question| %>
    <li>
      Q: <%= question.content.capitalize %> <%= "?" if question.content.strip.last != "?" %>
    </li>
    <li>
      A: <%= question.answers.first.content %>
    </li>
  <% end %>
</ul>

<%= link_to "Back", root_path %>

6. rails s and test

Resources:

• https://github.com/OGsoundFX/ruby-open-ai
• https://doug-berkley.notion.site/doug-berkley/Rails-ChatGPT-Service-Object-Setup-21748fc969514b978bf6345f897b6d3e
• https://github.com/alexrudall/ruby-openai

Going Further:

• https://gist.github.com/alexrudall/cb5ee1e109353ef358adb4e66631799d