Intelligence

Intelligence is a lightweight yet powerful Ruby gem that provides a uniform interface for interacting with large language and vision model APIs across multiple vendors. It allows you to seamlessly integrate with services from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, Cerebras, Groq, Hyperbolic, Samba Nova, Together AI, and others, while maintaining a consistent API across all providers.

The gem operates with minimal dependencies and doesn't require vendor SDK installation, making it easy to switch between providers or work with multiple providers simultaneously.

require 'intelligence'

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter.build :open_ai do 
  key             ENV[ 'OPENAI_API_KEY' ]               
  chat_options do                                       
    model         'gpt-4o'                             
    max_tokens    256                                   
  end
end

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )
conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  system_message do 
    content text: "You are a highly efficient AI assistant. Provide clear, concise responses."
  end 
  message role: :user do 
    content text: ARGV[ 0 ] || 'Hello!'
  end
end
 
response = request.chat( conversation )

if response.success?
  puts response.result.text 
else 
  puts "Error: " + response.result.error_description
end 

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'intelligence'

Then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it directly:

$ gem install intelligence

Usage

Fundamentals

The core components of Intelligence are adapters, requests and responses. An adapter encapsulates the differences between different API vendors, allowing you to use requests and responses uniformly.

You retrieve an adapter for a specific vendor, configure it with a key, model and associated
parameters and then make a request by calling either the chat or stream methods.

require 'intelligence'

# configure the adapter with your API key and model settings
adapter = Intelligence::Adapter[ :google ].new(
  key: ENV[ 'GOOGLE_API_KEY' ],
  chat_options: { 
    model: 'gemini-1.5-flash-002', 
    max_tokens: 256 
  }
)

# create a request instance, passing the adapter 
request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )

# make the request and handle the response
response = request.chat( "What is the capital of France?" )

if response.success?
  puts response.result.text
else
  puts "Error: #{response.result.error_description}"
end

The response object is a Faraday response with an added method: result. If a response is successful result returns a ChatResult. If it is not successful it returns a ChatErrorResult. You can use the Faraday method success? to determine if the response is successful.

Results

When you make a request using Intelligence, the response includes a result that provides structured access to the model's output.

• A ChatResult contains one or more choices (alternate responses from the model). The choices method returns an array of ChatResultChoice instances. ChatResult also includes a metrics methods which provides information about token usage for the request.
• A ChatResultChoice contains a message from the assistant and an end_result which indicates how the response ended:
  • :ended means the model completed its response normally
  • :token_limit_exceeded means the response hit the token limit ( max_tokens )
  • :end_sequence_encountered means the response hit a stop sequence
  • :filtered means the content was filtered by the vendors safety settings or protocols
  • :tool_called means the model is requesting to use a tool
• The Message in each choice contains one or more content items, typically text but potentially tool calls or other content types.

While the convenience method text used in the previous example is useful for simple cases, you will typically want to work with the full response structure.

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter[ :google ].new(
  key: ENV[ 'GOOGLE_API_KEY' ],
  chat_options: { 
    model: 'gemini-1.5-flash-002', 
    max_tokens: 256 
  }
)

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )
response = request.chat( "What are three interesting facts about ruby gemstones?" )

if response.success?
  result = response.result  # this is a ChatResult
  
  # iterate through the model's choices
  result.choices.each do | choice |
    # check why the response ended
    puts "Response ended because: #{choice.end_reason}"
    
    # work with the message
    message = choice.message
    puts "Message role: #{message.role}"
    
    # examine each piece of content
    message.each_content do | content |
      puts content.text if content.is_a?( Intelligence::MessageContent::Text )
    end
  end
  
  # check token usage if metrics are available
  if result.metrics
    puts "Input tokens: #{result.metrics.input_tokens}"
    puts "Output tokens: #{result.metrics.output_tokens}"
    puts "Total tokens: #{result.metrics.total_tokens}"
  end
else
  # or alternativelly handle the error result 
  puts "Error: #{response.result.error_description}"
end

The ChatResult, ChatResultChoice and Message all provide the text convenience method which return the text.

Conversations, Messages, and Content

Intelligence organizes interactions with models using three main components:

• Conversations are collections of messages that represent a complete interaction with a model. A conversation can include an optional system message that sets the context, a series of back-and-forth messages between the user and assistant and any tools the model may call.

• Messages are individual communications within a conversation. Each message has a role (:system, :user, or :assistant) that identifies its sender and can contain multiple pieces of content.

• Content represents the actual data within a message. This can be text ( MessageContent::Text ), binary data like images ( MessageContent::Binary ), references to files ( MessageContent::File ) or tool calls or tool results ( MessageContent::ToolCall or MessageContent::ToolResult respectivelly ).

In the previous examples we used a simple string as an argument to chat. As a convenience, the chat methods builds a coversation for you from a String but, typically, you will construct a coversation instance ( Coversation ) and pass that to the chat or stream methods.

The following example expands the minimal example, building a conversation, messages and content:

# create an adapter as before
adapter = Intelligence::Adapter[ :google ].new(
  key: ENV[ 'GOOGLE_API_KEY' ],
  chat_options: { model: 'gemini-1.5-flash-002', max_tokens: 256 }
)

# create a conversation
conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.new

# add a system message (optional but recommended)
system_message = Intelligence::Message.new( :system )
system_message << Intelligence::MessageContent::Text.new(
  text: "You are a helpful coding assistant."
)
conversation.system_message = system_message

# add a user message
user_message = Intelligence::Message.new( :user )
user_message << Intelligence::MessageContent::Text.new(
  text: "How do I read a file in Ruby?"
)
conversation.messages << user_message

# make the request
request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )
response = request.chat( conversation )

if response.success?
  puts response.result.text
else
  puts "Error: #{response.result.error_description}"
end

The hierarchical nature of these components makes it easy to organize and access your interaction data. A conversation acts as a container for messages, and each message acts as a container for content items. This structure allows for rich interactions that can include multiple types of content in a single message.

You can examine the contents of a conversation by iterating through its messages and their content:

# iterate through messages
conversation.messages.each do |message|
  puts "Role: #{message.role}"
  
  # each message can have multiple content items
  message.each_content do |content|
    case content
    when Intelligence::MessageContent::Text
      puts "Text: #{content.text}"
    when Intelligence::MessageContent::Binary
      puts "Binary content of type: #{content.content_type}"
    when Intelligence::MessageContent::File
      puts "File reference: #{content.uri}"
    end
  end
end

# remeber that, alternatively, you can use convenience methods for quick text access
puts message.text  # combines all text content in a messages with newlines

Continuing Conversations / Maintaining Context

To continue a conversation with the model, we can add the model's response and our follow-up message to the conversation:

# get the previous response
if response.success?
  # add the assistant's response to our conversation
  assistant_message = response.result.message
  conversation.messages << assistant_message
  
  # add another user message for follow-up
  follow_up = Intelligence::Message.new( :user )
  follow_up << Intelligence::MessageContent::Text.new(
    text: "How do I write to that file?"
  )
  conversation.messages << follow_up
  
  # make another request with the updated conversation
  response = request.chat( conversation )
  
  if response.success?
    puts response.result.text
  end
end

This pattern allows you to maintain context across multiple interactions with the model. Each request includes the full conversation history, helping the model provide more contextually relevant responses.

Builders

For more readable configuration, Intelligence provides builder syntax for both adapters and conversations.

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter.build! :google do
  key ENV['GOOGLE_API_KEY']
  chat_options do
    model 'gemini-1.5-flash-002'
    max_tokens 256
    temperature 0.7
  end
end

Similarly, you can use builders to construct conversations with multiple messages.

conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  system_message do
    content text: "You are a knowledgeable historian specializing in ancient civilizations."
  end
  
  message do
    role :user
    content text: "What were the key factors in the fall of the Roman Empire?"
  end
end

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapte r)
response = request.chat( conversation )

Binary and File Content

Intelligence supports vision models through binary and file content types.

require 'intelligence'
require 'mime-types'

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter.build! :open_ai do
  key ENV[ 'OPENAI_API_KEY' ]
  chat_options do
    model 'gpt-4-vision-preview'
    max_tokens 256
  end
end

# Using binary content for local images
conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  message do
    role :user
    content text: "What's in this image?"
    content do
      type :binary
      content_type 'image/jpeg'
      bytes File.binread( 'path/to/image.jpg' )
    end
  end
end

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )
response = request.chat( conversation )

For remote images, you can use file content instead of binary content:

conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  message do
    role :user
    content text: "Analyze this image"
    content do
      type :file
      content_type 'image/jpeg'
      uri 'https://example.com/image.jpg'
    end
  end
end

Tools

Intelligence supports tool/function calling capabilities, allowing models to use defined tools during their response.

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter.build! :anthropic do
  key ENV['ANTHROPIC_API_KEY']
  chat_options do
    model 'claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620'
    max_tokens 1024
  end
end

# Define a tool for getting weather information
weather_tool = Intelligence::Tool.build! do
  name :get_weather
  description "Get the current weather for a specified location"
  argument name: :location, required: true, type: 'object' do
    description "The location for which to retrieve weather information"
    property name: :city, type: 'string', required: true do
      description "The city or town name"
    end
    property name: :state, type: 'string' do
      description "The state or province (optional)"
    end
    property name: :country, type: 'string' do
      description "The country (optional)"
    end
  end
end

# Create a conversation with the tool
conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  system_message do
    content text: "You can help users check weather conditions."
  end
  
  # Add the tool to the conversation
  tools << weather_tool
  
  message do
    role :user
    content text: "What's the weather like in Paris, France?"
  end
end

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )
response = request.chat( conversation )

# Handle tool calls in the response
if response.success?
  result.choices.each do |choice|
    choice.message.each_content do |content|
      if content.is_a?(Intelligence::MessageContent::ToolCall)
        # Process the tool call
        if content.tool_name == :get_weather
          # Make actual weather API call here
          weather_data = fetch_weather(content.tool_parameters[:location])
          
          # Send tool result back to continue the conversation
          conversation.messages << Intelligence::Message.build! do
            role :user
            content do
              type :tool_result
              tool_call_id content.tool_call_id
              tool_result weather_data.to_json
            end
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Tools are defined using the Intelligence::Tool.build! method, where you specify the tool's name, description, and its argument schema. Arguments can have nested properties with their own descriptions and requirements. Once defined, tools are added to conversations and can be used by the model during its response.

Note that not all providers support tools, and the specific tool capabilities may vary between providers. Today, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and Together AI support tools. In general all these providers support tools in an identical manner but as of this writing Google does not support 'complex' tools which take object parameters.

Streaming Responses

The chat method, while straightforward in implementation, can be time consuming ( especially when using modern 'reasoning' models like OpenAI O1 ). The alternative is to use the stream method which will receive results as these are generated by the model.

adapter = Intelligence::Adapter.build! :anthropic do
  key ENV['ANTHROPIC_API_KEY']
  chat_options do
    model 'claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620'
    max_tokens 1024
    stream true
  end
end

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new(adapter: adapter)

response = request.stream( "Tell me a story about a robot." ) do | request |
  request.receive_result do | result |
    # result is a ChatResult object with partial content
    print result.text 
    print "\n" if result.choices.first.end_reason
  end
end

Notice that in this approach you will receive multiple results ( ChatResult instances ) each with a fragment of the generation. The result always includes a message and will include contents as soon as any content is received. The contents is always positionally consitent, meaning that if a model is, for example, generating text followed by several tool calls you may receive a single text content initially, then the text content and a tool, and then subsequent tools, even after the text has been completely generated.

Remember that every result contains only a fragment of content and it is possible that any given fragment is completely blank ( that is, it is possible for the content to be present in the result but all of it's fields are nil ).

While you will likelly want to immediatelly output any generated text but, as practical matter, tool calls are not useful until full generated. To assemble tool calls ( or the text ) from the text fragments you may use the content items merge method.

request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new( adapter: adapter )

contents = []
response = request.stream( "Tell me a story about a robot." ) do | request |
  request.receive_result do | result |
    choice = result.choices.first
    contents_fragments = choice.message.contents 
    contents.fill( nil, contents.length..(contents_fragments.length - 1) )

    contents_fragments.each_with_index do | contents_fragment, index |
      if contents_fragment.is_a?( Intelligence::MessageContent::Text )
        # here we need the `|| ''` because the text of the fragment may be nil 
        print contents_fragment.text 
      else 
        contents[ index ] = contents[ index ].nil? ? 
          contents_fragment : 
          contents[ index ].merge( contents_fragment )
      end 
    end

  end
end

In the above example we construct an array to receive the content. As the content fragments are streamed we will immediatelly output generated text but other types of content ( today it could only be instances of Intelligence::MessageContent::ToolCall' ) are individualy combined in the contents` array. You can simply iterate though the array and then retrieve and take action for any of the tool calls.

Note also that the result will only include a non-nil end_reason as the last ( or one of the last, result instances to be received ).

Finally note that the streamed result is always a ChatResult, never a ChatErrorResult. If an error occurs, the request itself will fail and you will receive this as part of response.result.

Provider Switching

One of Intelligence's most powerful features is the ability to easily switch between providers:

def create_adapter(provider, api_key, model)
  Intelligence::Adapter.build! provider do
    key api_key
    chat_options do
      model model
      max_tokens 256
    end
  end
end

# Create adapters for different providers
anthropic = create_adapter(:anthropic, ENV['ANTHROPIC_API_KEY'], 'claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620')
google = create_adapter(:google, ENV['GOOGLE_API_KEY'], 'gemini-1.5-pro-002')
openai = create_adapter(:open_ai, ENV['OPENAI_API_KEY'], 'gpt-4o')

# Use the same conversation with different providers
conversation = Intelligence::Conversation.build do
  system_message do
    content text: "You are a helpful assistant."
  end
  message do
    role :user
    content text: "Explain quantum entanglement in simple terms."
  end
end

[anthropic, google, open_ai].each do |adapter|
  request = Intelligence::ChatRequest.new(adapter: adapter)
  response = request.chat(conversation)
  puts "#{adapter.class.name} response: #{response.result.text}"
end

License

This gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.