Getting started with Chat Copilot

Chat Copilot is an AI chat application sample created for educational purposes. It is built on Microsoft Semantic Kernel and has two components:

• A frontend React web app that provides a user interface for interacting with the Semantic Kernel.
• A backend .NET web service that provides an API for the React web app to interact with the Semantic Kernel.

In this article, we'll walk through the steps to run these two components locally on your machine. The Chat Copilot reference app is located in the Chat Copilot GitHub repository.

Important

Each chat interaction will call Azure OpenAI/OpenAI which will use tokens that you may be billed for.

Requirements

You will need the following items to run the sample:

• Git
• .NET 7.0 SDK (via Setup script)
• Node.js (via Setup script)
• Yarn (via Setup script)
• AI Service:

AI Service	Requirement
Azure OpenAI	- Access - Resource - Deployed models (gpt-35-turbo and text-embedding-ada-002) - Endpoint - API key
OpenAI	- Account - API key

Instructions

1. Install .NET 7.0 SDK, Node.js, and Yarn on your machine.

   Windows

   Open a PowerShell terminal as an administrator and navigate to the \scripts directory in the Chat Copilot project.

   cd .\scripts\
   

   Next, run the following command to install the required dependencies. This script will also install Chocolatey:

   .\Install.ps1
   

   Debian/Ubuntu Linux

   Open a Bash terminal as an administrator and navigate to the /scripts directory in the Chat Copilot project:

   cd ./scripts/
   
   # Ensure the install scripts are executable
   chmod +x Install-apt.sh
   

   Next, run the following command to install the required dependencies:

   ./Install-apt.sh
   

   macOS

   Open a Bash terminal as an administrator and navigate to the /scripts directory in the Semantic Kernel project:

   cd ./scripts/
   
   # Ensure the install scripts are executable
   chmod +x Install-brew.sh
   

   Next, run the following command to install the required dependencies. The macOS install script uses Homebrew to install dependencies:

   ./Install-brew.sh
   

2. Configure Chat Copilot.

   PowerShell

   Replace the values in brackets below before running the command:

   .\Configure.ps1 -AIService {AI_SERVICE} -APIKey {API_KEY} -Endpoint {AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT}
   

   • AI_SERVICE: AzureOpenAI or OpenAI.
   • API_KEY: The API key for Azure OpenAI or for OpenAI.
   • AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT: The Azure OpenAI resource Endpoint address. Omit -Endpoint if using OpenAI.

   Important

   For Azure OpenAI, if you deployed models gpt-35-turbo and text-embedding-ada-002 with custom names (instead of each own's given name), also use the parameters:

   -CompletionModel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME} -EmbeddingModel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME} -PlannerModel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME}
   

   Bash

   First, ensure the configuration script is executable:

   # Ensure the configure scripts are executable
   chmod +x Configure.sh
   

   Replace the values in brackets below before running the command:

   ./Configure.sh --aiservice {AI_SERVICE} --apikey {API_KEY} --endpoint {AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT}
   

   • AI_SERVICE: AzureOpenAI or OpenAI.
   • API_KEY: The API key for Azure OpenAI or for OpenAI.
   • AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT: The Azure OpenAI resource Endpoint address. Omit --endpoint if using OpenAI.

   Important

   For Azure OpenAI, if you deployed models gpt-35-turbo and text-embedding-ada-002 with custom names (instead of each own's given name), also use the parameters:

   --completionmodel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME} --embeddingmodel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME} --plannermodel {DEPLOYMENT_NAME} 
   

3. Run the start script.

   PowerShell

   .\Start.ps1
   

   It may take a few minutes for Yarn packages to install on the first run.

   Confirm pop-ups are not bocked and you are logged in with the same account used to register the application.

   Bash

   # Ensure the start scripts are executable
   chmod +x Start.sh
   chmod +x Start-Backend.sh
   chmod +x Start-Frontend.sh
   
   # Start CopilotChat 
   ./Start.sh
   

   It may take a few minutes for Yarn packages to install on the first run.

   Confirm pop-ups are not bocked and you are logged in with the same account used to register the application.

4. Congrats! A browser should automatically launch and navigate to https://localhost:3000 with the sample app running.

Next step

Now that you've gotten Chat Copilot running locally, you can learn how to customize it to your needs.

Customize Chat Copilot