The @palico-ai/react helps you communicate with your Palico agents, manage message history, and handle client-side tool calls in your React application.

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Setup and Installation

The following guide assumes you are using NextJS for your React application.

1

Install Packages

Get started by installing the required packages:

npm install @palico-ai/client-js @palico-ai/react
2

Add API URL and Service Key to `.env`

Generate a service key

You can generate a service key from your Palico App project directory

npm run palico generate apikey

Add the entries to your NextJS .env file:

# replace with your Palico API URL
PALICO_AGENT_API_URL=http://localhost:8000
# replace with your Palico service key
PALICO_SERVICE_KEY=<your-service-key>
3

Setup Server-Side Authorization

We want to handle calling our Palico application in a server-side environment. To do this, we’ll create an API route in NextJS.

Create a new file in src/app/api/palico/route.ts in your NextJS application and add the following code:

You should authorize the request before calling your Palico app.

import { createClient } from "@palico-ai/client-js";

export const maxDuration = 120;

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  await verifyUser(); // replace with your authorization logic
  const agentAPIURL = process.env.PALICO_AGENT_API_URL;
  const serviceKey = process.env.PALICO_SERVICE_KEY;
  if (!agentAPIURL || !serviceKey) {
    throw new Error("Missing Palico environment variables");
  }
  const request = await req.json();
  const client = createClient({
    apiURL: agentAPIURL,
    serviceKey: serviceKey,
  });
  const responseStream = await client.agent.chat({
    ...request,
    stream: true,
  });
  return responseStream.response;
}

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Usage

You can use the useChat() hook to interact with your Palico agent in your React components.

import { useChat } from "@palico-ai/react";

const Assistant: React.FC = () => {
  const { messages, sendMessage } = useChat({
    agentName: "assistant",
    apiURL: "/api/palico", // the API route we created
  });

  const handleSendMessage = async (message: string) => {
    await sendMessage({
      userMessage: message,
    });
  };

  return (
    <div>
      {messages.map((message, index) => (
        <div key={index}>
          {message.sender} - {message.message}
        </div>
      ))}
      <input
        type="text"
        placeholder="Type a message..."
        onKeyDown={(e) => {
          if (e.key === "Enter") {
            handleSendMessage(e.currentTarget.value);
            e.currentTarget.value = "";
          }
        }}
      />
    </div>
  );
};

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Client-Side Tool Execution

You can handle client-side tool calls in your React application using the pendingToolCalls and addResult params from the useChat hook. Here’s an example of how you can handle client-side tool calls:

import { useChat } from "@palico-ai/react";

const Assistant: React.FC = () => {
  const { addResult, pendingToolCalls } = useChat({
    agentName: "assistant",
    apiURL: "/api/palico", // the API route we created
  });
  const { showDialog } = useDialog();

  if(pendingToolCalls.length > 0) {
    // handle client-side tool calls
    const toolCall = pendingToolCalls[0];
    if(toolCall.name === "askForConfirmation") {
      showDialog({
        title: "Confirmation",
        message: toolCall.parameters.message,
        onConfirm: () => {
          addResult(toolCall, {
            confirmed: true,
          });
        },
        onCancel: () => {
          addResult(toolCall, {
            confirmed: false,
          });
        },
      });
    } else if(/*... other tool calls */) {
      // handle other tool calls
    }
  }

  return (
    //... your UI
  )
};

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API reference

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useChat()

The useChat() hook returns an object with the following properties:

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messages
Message[]

A list of messages sent by the agent and user. Learn more about the Message object.

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sendMessage
function

A function to send a message to the agent. It takes the following parameters:

{
  userMessage: string;
  appConfig: any;
  payload?: any;
}
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startNewConversation
function

A function to start a new conversation with the agent.

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Message

The Message object has the following properties:

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sender
enum: MessageSender
required

The sender of the message. Can be either user or agent.

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message
string

The content of the message.

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data
json

Additional data associated with the message.

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toolCallResults
ToolCallResult[]

[User-Only] For client-side tool execution, the results of the tool call

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appConfig
json

[User-Only] App config value for your Agent. Learn more about App Config.

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requestId
string

[Agent-Only] Request ID associated with the message.

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intermediateSteps
IntermediateStep[]

[Agent-Only] Intermediate steps that the agent has taken. This can be used for debugging or logging purposes, or to provide additional context to the client. IntermediateStep has the following fields:

{
  name: string; // name or description of the intermediate step
  data?: any; // additional data for the intermediate step
}
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toolCalls

[Agent-Only] For client-side tool execution, the tool calls to be executed