Microsoft.Extensions.AI Integration

Cross-SDK comparison

See the centralized MEAI documentation for feature matrices and comparisons across all tryAGI SDKs.

The Cohere SDK implements IChatClient and IEmbeddingGenerator<string, Embedding<float>> and provides AIFunction tool wrappers, all compatible with Microsoft.Extensions.AI.

Namespace Conflict

This SDK has a generated IChatClient interface that conflicts with Microsoft.Extensions.AI.IChatClient. Use the Meai alias pattern shown below.

Streaming

Cohere's chat API does not support true server-sent events streaming. The GetStreamingResponseAsync method simulates streaming by returning the full response as a single update.

Supported Interfaces

Interface	Support Level
IChatClient	Partial (text, tool calling; no true streaming)
IEmbeddingGenerator<string, Embedding<float>>	Full

IChatClient

Installation

dotnet add package Cohere

Basic Usage

Because the SDK generates its own IChatClient interface, you must use a namespace alias:

using Cohere;
using Meai = Microsoft.Extensions.AI;

using var client = new CohereClient(apiKey);
Meai.IChatClient chatClient = client;

var response = await chatClient.GetResponseAsync(
    "What is the capital of France?",
    new Meai.ChatOptions
    {
        ModelId = "command-r-08-2024",
    });

Console.WriteLine(response.Text);

Tool Calling

using CSharpToJsonSchema;
using Meai = Microsoft.Extensions.AI;

[GenerateJsonSchema]
public interface IWeatherTools
{
    [Description("Gets the current weather for a location.")]
    string GetWeather(
        [Description("The city name")] string city);
}

Meai.IChatClient chatClient = client;
var service = new WeatherToolsService();

var response = await chatClient.GetResponseAsync(
    "What's the weather in Paris?",
    new Meai.ChatOptions
    {
        ModelId = "command-r-08-2024",
        Tools = service.AsTools().AsAITools(),
    });

Accessing Client Metadata

When using the Meai alias, call extension methods explicitly:

var metadata = Meai.ChatClientExtensions.GetService<Meai.ChatClientMetadata>(chatClient);
var self = Meai.ChatClientExtensions.GetService<CohereClient>(chatClient);

IEmbeddingGenerator

Basic Usage

using Cohere;
using Meai = Microsoft.Extensions.AI;

using var client = new CohereClient(apiKey);
Meai.IEmbeddingGenerator<string, Meai.Embedding<float>> generator = client;

var embeddings = await generator.GenerateAsync(
    ["Hello, world!", "How are you?"],
    new Meai.EmbeddingGenerationOptions
    {
        ModelId = "embed-english-v3.0",
    });

foreach (var embedding in embeddings)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Dimensions: {embedding.Vector.Length}");
}