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 both IChatClient and IEmbeddingGenerator interfaces from Microsoft.Extensions.AI, enabling you to use Cohere models through standardized .NET AI abstractions.

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}");
}