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AI Chat Interactions Module

Feature NameAI Chat Interactions
Feature IDCrestApps.OrchardCore.AI.Chat.Interactions

Provides ad-hoc AI chat interactions with configurable parameters without predefined profiles.

Overview​

This module provides ad-hoc AI chat interactions with configurable parameters, enabling users to chat with AI models without requiring predefined AI Profiles. The orchestrator manages all AI dependencies including tools, MCP connections, and document handling.

Capabilities​

  • Create and manage chat sessions with any configured AI provider
  • Session persistence — all chat messages are saved and can be resumed later
  • Configurable parameters — customize temperature, TopP, max tokens, frequency/presence penalties, and past messages count
  • Tool integration — select from available AI tools and MCP connections
  • Deployment selection — choose specific chat and utility deployments for each interaction (grouped by connection in the dropdown)
  • Orchestrator selection — choose which orchestrator runtime manages the session (e.g., Default, Copilot)
  • Image generation — generate images from text prompts using AI image generation models
  • Chart generation — generate chart specifications from prompts (for rendering as a chart)
  • Document upload — upload documents and chat against your own data via retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

Getting Started​

  1. Enable the AI Chat Interactions feature in Orchard Core admin
  2. Navigate to Artificial Intelligence > Chat Interactions
  3. Click + New Chat and select your chat and utility deployments
  4. Configure your chat settings and start chatting
tip

Deployment dropdowns are grouped by connection, making it easy to find the right model. If you don't select a deployment, the system uses the fallback chain: connection default → global default (configured in Settings > Artificial Intelligence > Default Deployments).

Orchestration​

Each chat interaction session is bound to an orchestrator that manages the execution pipeline. The orchestrator handles:

  • Planning — breaking the request into steps and deciding what to do next
  • Tool scoping — selecting and invoking the right tools based on context
  • MCP connections — discovering and using capabilities from connected MCP servers
  • Document handling — providing uploaded document context to the AI model (retrieval-augmented generation (RAG))
  • Iterative execution — managing multi-step tool-call loops

The default orchestrator (DefaultOrchestrator) is our state-of-the-art orchestrator responsible for gluing together everything the model needs to do useful work: planning, tool selection and execution, document context, and multi-step reasoning loops. It is effectively the brain behind chat interactions and the overall model behavior, unless you select a different orchestrator (for example, the Copilot orchestrator).

AI Documents​

For document upload and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) support, see the Documents feature documentation.

Note

The AI Documents feature is provided on demand and is only enabled when another feature that requires it is enabled (for example one of the document indexing provider features). To configure document indexing you must enable either the AI Documents (Azure AI Search) feature or the AI Documents (Elasticsearch) feature in Orchard Core admin.

The Documents feature supports Elasticsearch and Azure AI Search as embedding and search providers. Ensure you enable the corresponding feature for your chosen provider in Orchard Core admin.

Image and Chart Generation​

Image and chart generation are handled by AI tools that the orchestrator can invoke based on the user's request.

Configuration​

To enable image generation, create an AIDeployment record with type Image for your image model (e.g., dall-e-3). You can set it as the default Image deployment globally, or select it explicitly on each chat interaction.

Option 1: Admin UI

  1. Navigate to Artificial Intelligence > Deployments and create a new deployment with type Image (e.g., name dall-e-3, connection openai-main).
  2. Optionally, set it as the default Image deployment in Settings > Artificial Intelligence > Default Deployments.

Option 2: Configuration (appsettings.json)

{
  "OrchardCore": {
    "CrestApps_AI": {
      "Providers": {
        "OpenAI": {
          "Connections": {
            "default": {
              "Deployments": [
                {
                  "Name": "gpt-4o",
                  "Type": "Chat",
                  "IsDefault": true
                },
                {
                  "Name": "gpt-4o-mini",
                  "Type": "Utility",
                  "IsDefault": true
                },
                {
                  "Name": "dall-e-3",
                  "Type": "Image",
                  "IsDefault": true
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
info

The legacy format with ChatDeploymentName, UtilityDeploymentName, EmbeddingDeploymentName, and ImagesDeploymentName on the connection is still supported for backward compatibility but is deprecated. See the migration guide for details.