Creating Intelligent Apps on App Service with .NET

You can use Azure App Service to work with popular AI frameworks like LangChain and Semantic Kernel connected to OpenAI for creating intelligent apps. In the following tutorial we will be adding an Azure OpenAI service using Semantic Kernel to a .NET 8 Blazor web application.

Prerequisites

An Azure OpenAI resource or an OpenAI account.
A .NET 8 Blazor Web App. Create the application with a template here.

Setup Blazor web app

For this Blazor web application, we’ll be building off the Blazor template and creating a new razor page that can send and receive requests to an Azure OpenAI OR OpenAI service using Semantic Kernel.

Right click on the Pages folder found under the Components folder and add a new item named OpenAI.razor
Add the following code to the ****OpenAI.razor file and click Save

“/openai”
@rendermode InteractiveServer

<h3>Open AI Query</h3>

<input placeholder=”Input query” @bind=”newQuery” />
<button class=”btn btn-primary” @onclick=”SemanticKernelClient”>Send Request</button>

<br />

<h4>Server response:</h4> <p>@serverResponse</p>

@code {

public string? newQuery;
public string? serverResponse;

}

Next, we’ll need to add the new page to the navigation so we can navigate to the service.

Go to the NavMenu.razor file under the Layout folder and add the following div in the nav class. Click Save

After the Navigation is updated, we can start preparing to build the OpenAI client to handle our requests.

API Keys and Endpoints

In order to make calls to OpenAI with your client, you will need to first grab the Keys and Endpoint values from Azure OpenAI or OpenAI and add them as secrets for use in your application. Retrieve and save the values for later use.

For Azure OpenAI, see this documentation to retrieve the key and endpoint values. For our application, you will need the following values:

deploymentName
endpoint
apiKey
modelId

For OpenAI, see this documentation to retrieve the api keys. For our application, you will need the following values:

apiKey
modelId

Since we’ll be deploying to App Service we can secure these secrets in Azure Key Vault for protection. Follow the Quickstart to setup your Key Vault and add the secrets you saved from earlier.

Next, we can use Key Vault references as app settings in our App Service resource to reference in our application. Follow the instructions in the documentation to grant your app access to your Key Vault and to setup Key Vault references.

Then, go to the portal Environment Variables blade in your resource and add the following app settings:

For Azure OpenAI, use the following:

DEPOYMENT_NAME = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)
ENDPOINT = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)
API_KEY = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)
MODEL_ID = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)

For OpenAI, use the following:

OPENAI_API_KEY = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)
OPENAI_MODEL_ID = @microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=https://myvault.vault.azure.net/secrets/mysecret/)

Once your app settings are saved, you can bring them into the code by injecting IConfiguration and referencing the app settings. Add the following code to your OpenAI.razor file:

@inject Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.IConfiguration _config

@code {

private async Task SemanticKernelClient()
{
string deploymentName = _config[“DEPLOYMENT_NAME”];
string endpoint = _config[“ENDPOINT”];
string apiKey = _config[“API_KEY”];
string modelId = _config[“MODEL_ID”];

// OpenAI
string OpenAIModelId = _config[“OPENAI_MODEL_ID”];
string OpenAIApiKey = _config[“OPENAI_API_KEY”];
}

Semantic Kernel

Semantic Kernel is an open-source SDK that enables you to easily develop AI agents to work with your existing code. You can use Semantic Kernel with Azure OpenAI and OpenAI models.

To create the OpenAI client, we’ll first start by installing Semantic Kernel.

To install Semantic Kernel, browse the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio and install the Microsoft.SemanticKernel package. For NuGet Package Manager instructions, see here. For CLI instructions, see here.

Once the Semantic Kernel package is installed, you can now initialize the kernel.

Initialize the Kernel

To initialize the Kernel, add the following code to the OpenAI.razor file.

@code {

@using Microsoft.SemanticKernel;

private async Task SemanticKernelClient()
{
var builder = Kernel.CreateBuilder();

var kernel = builder.Build();
}

}

Here we are adding the using statement and creating the Kernel in a method that we can use when we send the request to the service.

Add your AI service

Once the Kernel is initialized, we can add our chosen AI service to the kernel. Here we will define our model and pass in our key and endpoint information to be consumed by the chosen model.

For Azure OpenAI, use the following code:

var builder = Kernel.CreateBuilder();
builder.Services.AddAzureOpenAIChatCompletion(
deploymentName: deploymentName,
endpoint: endpoint,
apiKey: apiKey,
modelId: modelId
);
var kernel = builder.Build();

For OpenAI, use the following code:

var builder = Kernel.CreateBuilder();
builder.Services.AddOpenAIChatCompletion(
modelId: OpenAIModelId,
apiKey: OpenAIApiKey,
);
var kernel = builder.Build();

Configure prompt and create Semantic function

Now that our chosen OpenAI service client is created with the correct keys we can add a function to handle the prompt. With Semantic Kernel you can handle prompts by the use of a semantic functions, which turn the prompt and the prompt configuration settings into a function the Kernel can execute. Learn more on configuring prompts here.

First, we’ll create a variable that will hold the users prompt. Then add a function with execution settings to handle and configure the prompt. Add the following code to the OpenAI.razor file:

@using Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Connectors.OpenAI

private async Task SemanticKernelClient()
{
var builder = Kernel.CreateBuilder();
builder.Services.AddAzureOpenAIChatCompletion(
deploymentName: deploymentName,
endpoint: endpoint,
apiKey: apiKey,
modelId: modelId
);
var kernel = builder.Build();

var prompt = @”{{$input}} ” + newQuery;

var summarize = kernel.CreateFunctionFromPrompt(prompt, executionSettings: new OpenAIPromptExecutionSettings { MaxTokens = 100, Temperature = 0.2 });

}

Lastly, we’ll need to invoke the function and return the response. Add the following to the OpenAI.razor file:

private async Task SemanticKernelClient()
{

var prompt = @”{{$input}} ” + newQuery;

var summarize = kernel.CreateFunctionFromPrompt(prompt, executionSettings: new OpenAIPromptExecutionSettings { MaxTokens = 100, Temperature = 0.2 })

var result = await kernel.InvokeAsync(summarize);

serverResponse = result.ToString();

}

Here is the example in it’s completed form. In this example, use the Azure OpenAI chat completion service OR the OpenAI chat completion service, not both.

“/openai”
@rendermode InteractiveServer
@inject Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.IConfiguration _config

<PageTitle>OpenAI</PageTitle>

<h3>OpenAI input query: </h3>
<input class=”col-sm-4″ @bind=”newQuery” />
<button class=”btn btn-primary” @onclick=”SemanticKernelClient”>Send Request</button>

<h4>Server response:</h4> <p>@serverResponse</p>

@code {

@using Microsoft.SemanticKernel;
@using Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Connectors.OpenAI

private string? newQuery;
private string? serverResponse;

private async Task SemanticKernelClient()
{
// Azure OpenAI
string deploymentName = _config[“DEPLOYMENT_NAME”];
string endpoint = _config[“ENDPOINT”];
string apiKey = _config[“API_KEY”];
string modelId = _config[“MODEL_ID”];

// OpenAI
// string OpenAIModelId = _config[“OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT_NAME”];
// string OpenAIApiKey = _config[“OPENAI_API_KEY”];

// Semantic Kernel client
var builder = Kernel.CreateBuilder();
// Azure OpenAI
builder.Services.AddAzureOpenAIChatCompletion(
deploymentName: deploymentName,
endpoint: endpoint,
apiKey: apiKey,
modelId: modelId
);
// OpenAI
// builder.Services.AddOpenAIChatCompletion(
// modelId: OpenAIModelId,
// apiKey: OpenAIApiKey
// );
var kernel = builder.Build();

var prompt = @”{{$input}} ” + newQuery;

var summarize = kernel.CreateFunctionFromPrompt(prompt, executionSettings: new OpenAIPromptExecutionSettings { MaxTokens = 100, Temperature = 0.2 });

var result = await kernel.InvokeAsync(summarize);

serverResponse = result.ToString();

}
}

Now save the application and follow the next steps to deploy it to App Service. If you would like to test it locally first at this step, you can swap out the config values at with the literal string values of your OpenAI service. For example: string modelId = “gpt-4-turbo”;

Deploy to App Service

If you have followed the steps above, you are ready to deploy to App Service. If you run into any issues remember that you need to have done the following: grant your app access to your Key Vault, add the app settings with key vault references as your values. App Service will resolve the app settings in your application that match what you’ve added in the portal.

Authentication

Although optional, it is highly recommended that you also add authentication to your web app when using an Azure OpenAI or OpenAI service. This can add a level of security with no additional code. Learn how to enable authentication for your web app here.

Once deployed, browse to the web app and navigate to the Open AI tab. Enter a query to the service and you should see a populated response from the server. The tutorial is now complete and you now know how to use OpenAI services to create intelligent applications.

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