Apollo Web Chat: Logging Hermes & Persona Diary Integration

In this article, we'll delve into the crucial integration of Apollo's web chat functionality with Hermes, focusing on logging conversations and integrating them with the Persona Diary. This enhancement is vital for maintaining context and improving the user experience across different Apollo surfaces. We will explore the requirements, acceptance criteria, and the steps involved in setting up this integration effectively.

Understanding the Need for Integration

Web chat logs and their integration with the Hermes /llm gateway are essential for Apollo's Phase 2 development. Currently, the chat panel in Apollo only retains messages within the component state. This means that the context of the conversation is lost once the session ends, hindering the ability of surfaces like Sophia and Talos to replay the operator's context effectively. To address this, we need to persist each completion from Hermes, allowing these surfaces to maintain a continuous understanding of the interaction. The integration ensures that every message, prompt, and response is recorded, providing a comprehensive view of the conversation history.

The primary goal is to enable a seamless transition of context across different Apollo interfaces. For instance, if a user initiates a conversation in the web chat and then switches to another surface like Sophia or Talos, the conversation history should be readily available. This continuity is crucial for maintaining a coherent user experience and for leveraging the full potential of Apollo's AI-driven capabilities. By persisting the chat logs, Apollo can provide more informed and context-aware responses, ultimately enhancing the user's interaction with the platform.

Another critical aspect of this integration is the ability to analyze and improve the performance of the AI models. By logging the conversations, we can gather valuable data about user queries, model responses, and the overall flow of the interaction. This data can then be used to fine-tune the models, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that the AI is providing accurate and relevant information. Furthermore, the logs serve as an audit trail, allowing us to track the interactions and ensure compliance with any regulatory requirements.

Key Requirements for Apollo and Hermes Integration

To achieve the desired integration, several key requirements must be met. First and foremost, both the web chat panel and the apollo-cli chat need to be configured to load provider and model overrides from a central configuration. This is crucial for ensuring that they can interact with a live Hermes instance. By allowing these components to dynamically adjust their provider and model settings, we can easily switch between different AI models and providers, making the system more flexible and adaptable.

Next, it's essential to attach rich metadata to each /llm call. This metadata should include the session ID, provider/model hints, and persona entry IDs. This information is vital for tracking the context of each interaction and for linking it back to the appropriate user and session. Additionally, this metadata needs to be sent to the /api/diagnostics/llm endpoint for telemetry purposes. This allows us to monitor the performance of the system, identify any issues, and ensure that the integration is functioning correctly.

Another crucial requirement is the persistence of every assistant completion. Each response generated by the AI should be persisted to the POST /api/persona/entries endpoint. This ensures that Sophia and Neo4j can store the exchange and make it available across different surfaces. The summary of the persona entry should accurately reflect the user prompt, providing a clear and concise overview of the interaction. This persistence mechanism is the backbone of the context-aware experience, allowing Apollo to maintain a continuous understanding of the user's needs and preferences.

Finally, it's imperative to provide comprehensive documentation on how to run Hermes locally with real provider credentials and how Apollo should be configured to interact with it. This documentation will serve as a guide for developers and administrators, ensuring that they can set up and maintain the integration effectively. Clear and concise instructions are essential for minimizing errors and ensuring that the system is running optimally.

Acceptance Criteria for Successful Integration

To ensure the successful integration of Apollo and Hermes, specific acceptance criteria have been defined. These criteria serve as benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of the integration and to identify any areas that may require further attention. Meeting these criteria is essential for delivering a robust and reliable system.

The first key criterion is that all Hermes /llm requests must carry metadata that clearly identifies the surface and persona context. This metadata is the cornerstone of the context-aware experience, allowing Apollo to understand the user's intent and provide relevant responses. The presence of this metadata ensures that each interaction is properly attributed and can be tracked across different surfaces. Without this metadata, the system would lose the ability to maintain context, leading to a disjointed and unsatisfactory user experience.

Another critical criterion is the functionality of the Persona Diary tab. The tab should display entries for both CLI and browser chat sessions after each prompt. This provides a centralized view of all interactions, allowing users to easily review their conversation history. The Persona Diary tab serves as a key interface for accessing and managing the conversation logs, making it an essential component of the integrated system. The entries should be displayed in a clear and organized manner, providing users with a comprehensive overview of their interactions.

Finally, the documentation and README files must be updated with clear and concise instructions on how to set up Hermes and Apollo. This documentation is crucial for developers and administrators who need to configure and maintain the integration. The instructions should cover all aspects of the setup process, from running Hermes locally to configuring Apollo to interact with it. The documentation should be easily accessible and regularly updated to reflect any changes in the system.

Steps to Wire Web Chat Panel and Apollo CLI

Wiring the web chat panel and apollo-cli chat to load provider/model overrides from config involves several key steps. This configuration is crucial for ensuring that both interfaces can effectively interact with a live Hermes instance. By dynamically adjusting provider and model settings, the system becomes more flexible and adaptable to different AI models and providers.

The first step is to establish a configuration management system. This system should allow for easy modification and deployment of configuration settings. A common approach is to use environment variables or configuration files that can be easily updated without modifying the application code. This ensures that changes can be made quickly and efficiently, without disrupting the running system.

Next, the web chat panel and apollo-cli chat need to be updated to read these configuration settings. This involves modifying the application code to access the environment variables or configuration files and to use the values to set the provider and model parameters. It's important to ensure that the configuration settings are properly validated to prevent errors and to ensure that the system is running with the correct parameters.

Once the configuration settings are loaded, the applications need to use them to initialize the Hermes client. This involves creating a Hermes client instance with the specified provider and model settings. The client should then be used to make requests to the Hermes /llm endpoint. It's crucial to handle any errors that may occur during the initialization or request process to ensure that the system remains stable and reliable.

Finally, the configuration management system should be integrated with the deployment process. This ensures that the configuration settings are automatically updated when the applications are deployed. This can be achieved by using a deployment tool that supports environment variables or by including the configuration files in the deployment package. This ensures that the applications are always running with the latest configuration settings.

Attaching Metadata and Sending Telemetry

Attaching rich metadata to each /llm call and sending the telemetry to /api/diagnostics/llm is a critical step in the integration process. This metadata provides valuable context for each interaction and allows for effective monitoring and diagnostics. The metadata should include the session ID, provider/model hints, and persona entry IDs, which are essential for tracking and analyzing the conversations.

The first step in this process is to generate a unique session ID for each conversation. This ID should be generated when the conversation is initiated and should be included in all subsequent /llm calls. This allows for easy tracking of the conversation and for linking it to the appropriate user and session. The session ID should be stored in a secure manner and should be accessible to both the web chat panel and the apollo-cli chat.

Next, the provider and model hints should be attached to each /llm call. These hints provide information about the AI model and provider being used for the interaction. This information is valuable for analyzing the performance of different models and providers and for identifying any issues that may arise. The provider and model hints should be included in the metadata as key-value pairs.

The persona entry IDs should also be attached to each /llm call. These IDs link the interaction to the appropriate persona entry in the system. This allows for easy retrieval of the conversation history and for maintaining context across different interactions. The persona entry IDs should be included in the metadata as an array.

Once the metadata is collected, it needs to be sent to the /api/diagnostics/llm endpoint for telemetry purposes. This can be achieved by making a POST request to the endpoint with the metadata included in the request body. It's important to handle any errors that may occur during the request process to ensure that the telemetry data is successfully sent.

The telemetry data should be stored and analyzed to identify any issues and to improve the performance of the system. This data can be used to monitor the health of the system, to identify trends and patterns, and to make informed decisions about future development efforts.

Persisting Assistant Completions to Persona Diary

Persisting every assistant completion to POST /api/persona/entries is crucial for enabling Sophia/Neo4j to store the exchange and for maintaining a comprehensive record of the interactions. This persistence mechanism is the backbone of the context-aware experience, allowing Apollo to maintain a continuous understanding of the user's needs and preferences.

The first step in this process is to create a persona entry for each assistant completion. This entry should include the user prompt, the assistant's response, and any relevant metadata. The summary of the persona entry should accurately reflect the user prompt, providing a clear and concise overview of the interaction.

The persona entry should be created in a format that is compatible with the POST /api/persona/entries endpoint. This typically involves creating a JSON object with the appropriate fields and values. The JSON object should include the user prompt, the assistant's response, the session ID, the provider/model hints, and the persona entry IDs.

Once the persona entry is created, it needs to be sent to the POST /api/persona/entries endpoint. This can be achieved by making a POST request to the endpoint with the JSON object included in the request body. It's important to handle any errors that may occur during the request process to ensure that the persona entry is successfully persisted.

The persisted persona entries should be stored in a database or other storage system that is accessible to Sophia and Neo4j. This allows these systems to retrieve the conversation history and to use it to provide context-aware responses. The storage system should be designed to handle a large volume of data and should provide efficient access to the persona entries.

The persona entries should be regularly backed up to prevent data loss. This ensures that the conversation history is preserved even in the event of a system failure. The backup process should be automated to minimize the risk of human error.

Documentation for Hermes Setup and Apollo Configuration

Adding docs describing how to run Hermes locally with real provider credentials and how Apollo should be configured is essential for ensuring that developers and administrators can effectively set up and maintain the integration. Clear and concise instructions are crucial for minimizing errors and for ensuring that the system is running optimally.

The documentation should start with a detailed explanation of how to run Hermes locally. This should include instructions on how to install Hermes, how to configure it with real provider credentials, and how to start the Hermes server. The instructions should be clear and easy to follow, even for those who are not familiar with Hermes.

The documentation should also include a section on how to configure Apollo to interact with Hermes. This should include instructions on how to set the provider and model parameters, how to attach metadata to /llm calls, and how to send telemetry data. The instructions should be tailored to the specific requirements of the integration and should provide clear examples of how to configure Apollo correctly.

The documentation should also include a troubleshooting section that addresses common issues and provides solutions. This section should be regularly updated to reflect any new issues that are identified and resolved. The troubleshooting section should be organized in a clear and logical manner to make it easy for users to find the information they need.

The documentation should be easily accessible and should be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that it remains accurate and up-to-date. The documentation should be stored in a central location and should be available to all developers and administrators who need it.

Conclusion

The integration of Apollo's web chat with Hermes, focusing on logging conversations and integrating them with the Persona Diary, is a critical step in enhancing the user experience and leveraging the full potential of Apollo's AI-driven capabilities. By meeting the requirements and acceptance criteria outlined in this article, we can ensure that Apollo provides a seamless and context-aware interaction across different surfaces. The persistence of chat logs, attachment of metadata, and comprehensive documentation are key elements in this integration process. By following the steps and guidelines discussed, developers and administrators can effectively set up and maintain this integration, leading to a more robust and reliable system.

For further reading on best practices in web application development and integration, you can visit the OWASP Foundation website.