Use ragnar with the btw_app()

[ivan-pourmir]

Hi, thanks for the development of this wonderful and very promising app.

I find much more convenient to use Ellmer through the BTW Shiny app than directly through the chat function of Ellmer.
Is there a way to equip llm client with the ragnar register_tool instructions, before passing it either to an Ellmer chat or to the btw_app() function, so that it would work with both options?

Regards

[t-kalinowski]

Hi, welcome, thanks for the issue.

Yes, but it needs to be registered as an actual ellmer tool on the chat client; it is not something you can add just through prompt instructions.

For example:

library(btw)
library(ragnar)

store <- ragnar_store_connect("path/to/store")

chat <- btw_client()
ragnar_register_tool_retrieve(chat, store, top_k = 10)

# Console chat
chat$chat("...")

# Same client in the Shiny app
btw_app(client = I(chat))

I(chat) tells btw_app() to use your preconfigured client as-is, so the Ragnar retrieval tool should come along with it. In the app, it should appear under the other tools section.

I do not think there is currently a btw.md-only way to attach a live Ragnar store, since this needs a tool object bound to a specific store.

@gadenbuie, could you confirm whether this is the recomended btw_app() pattern for passing through a preconfigured ellmer client with custom tools?

[gadenbuie]

This is correct. One small convenience ragnar could provide would be to export the tool-def creating function in addition to ragnar_register_tool_retrieve(). If that were exported, the flow could look something like this:

library(btw)
library(ragnar)

store <- ragnar_store_connect("path/to/store")

btw_app(tools = list(btw_tools(), ragnar_tool_retrieve(store, top_k = 10)))

[ivan-pourmir]

Thank you guys
@t-kalinowski I'm gonna try this
@gadenbuie yes definitely
best