How to make the assistant write the first message?

[simpel]

Hello!

I'm sure this is obvious. How can I make the assistant start the conversation with the user? I'm using the https://chat.vercel.ai/ codebase and I just want the assistant to start the conversation with the user instead of the user having to make the first move.

Of course I can just "fake it" in the UI but I want the thread to be aware of this first message. Just adding it to the messages array doesn't seen to do it. Like this:

const [messages, setMessages] = useUIState<typeof AIProvider>();
const {submitUserMessage} = useActions<typeof AIProvider>();

useEffect(() => {
  setMessages([
	  ...messages,
	  {
		  id: 1,
		  display: 'Hello! How can I assist you today?',
	  },
  ]);
}, []);

[lgrammel]

When you create a new assistant thread, have you tried creating an initial user and assistant message using their API?

https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/messages/createMessage

[ranst91]

// Define the initial state of the AI. It can be any JSON object.
const initialAIState: {
	role: 'user' | 'assistant' | 'system' | 'function';
	content: string;
	id?: string;
	name?: string;
}[] = [{
	role: 'assistant',
	content: 'Hello! How can I assist you today?',
}];

// The initial UI state that the client will keep track of, which contains the message IDs and their UI nodes.
const initialUIState: {
	id: number;
	display: React.ReactNode;
}[] = [
	{
		id: Date.now(), // Just an example of an ID here
		display: <p>{initialAIState?.[0]?.content}</p>
	}
];

[simpel]

Sorry for the late reply! Thanks @ranst91

[haggen]

How does that work in the new version 5?

[hassanbazzi]

Agreed. I think this is broken in v5.