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Getting Started

Ecosystem overview

The tryAGI ecosystem consists of three layers:

  1. Auto-generated SDKs — Typed C# clients generated from OpenAPI specs via AutoSDK. Each SDK wraps a provider's full REST API.
  2. MEAI implementations — Hand-written extensions that implement Microsoft.Extensions.AI interfaces (IChatClient, IEmbeddingGenerator, ISpeechToTextClient) on top of the generated clients.
  3. CustomProviders — Factory methods in tryAGI.OpenAI for providers with OpenAI-compatible APIs, giving you MEAI support without a standalone SDK.

Choosing the right approach

Decision guide

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Does the provider have an OpenAI-compatible API?
├── Yes → Use CustomProviders (see table below)
│         Install: tryAGI.OpenAI
│
└── No  → Does tryAGI have a dedicated SDK?
          ├── Yes → Install the dedicated SDK (e.g., tryAGI.Anthropic)
          └── No  → Consider creating one with AutoSDK

When to use a dedicated SDK

Use a dedicated SDK when the provider has a unique API (not OpenAI-compatible) or has provider-specific features beyond basic chat/embeddings:

SDK Why dedicated?
tryAGI.Anthropic Unique API with thinking, PDFs, prompt caching
tryAGI.Google.Gemini Google's own REST API with grounding, thought signatures
tryAGI.ElevenLabs Speech synthesis + transcription, unique API
tryAGI.AssemblyAI Transcription-focused API with async processing
tryAGI.Tavily Search/extract API exposed as AIFunction tools

When to use CustomProviders

Use CustomProviders when the provider offers an OpenAI-compatible chat/embeddings API:

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using OpenAI;

// One line to get a fully-configured client
var client = CustomProviders.DeepSeek(apiKey);

// Use standard MEAI interfaces
IChatClient chatClient = client.AsChatClient("deepseek-chat");

See the full CustomProviders table for all 19 supported providers.

Installation

All SDKs are published as NuGet packages under the tryAGI.* prefix:

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dotnet add package tryAGI.Anthropic
dotnet add package tryAGI.Ollama
dotnet add package tryAGI.Google.Gemini

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# Single package covers 19 providers
dotnet add package tryAGI.OpenAI

Basic usage pattern

All SDKs follow the same pattern:

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// 1. Create the native client
var client = new AnthropicClient(apiKey);

// 2. Use the provider-specific API directly
var response = await client.Messages.CreateAsync(new CreateMessageRequest
{
    Model = "claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
    MaxTokens = 1024,
    Messages = [new InputMessage { Role = "user", Content = "Hello!" }]
});

// 3. Or use the MEAI abstraction for provider-agnostic code
IChatClient chatClient = client.AsChatClient("claude-sonnet-4-20250514");
var meaiResponse = await chatClient.GetResponseAsync("Hello!");

MEAI integration

Microsoft.Extensions.AI provides unified interfaces for AI services. All tryAGI SDKs with MEAI support implement these on version 10.4.0 of the abstractions.

See the MEAI section for feature matrices and per-interface guides.

Target frameworks

Most SDKs multi-target for broad compatibility:

Framework Support
net10.0 All SDKs
net9.0 Most SDKs
net8.0 Most SDKs
netstandard2.0 Mature SDKs
net4.6.2 Mature SDKs

Newer SDKs may target net10.0 only. Check the individual SDK's .csproj for exact targets.