.Net: 1.38 seems to have lot of breaking changes from 1.37 : Is there a migration guide to make this transition

[shanthuk]

I just got the v1.38 and solution is not compiling with breaking changes. I am wondering if there is a guidance for this migration.

[moonbox3]

@shanthuk could you provide some more context, please? Is this agent related?

[shanthuk]

@moonbox3 - Yes most of the compilation issues are related to agents

Ex #1:
Argument 2: cannot convert from 'Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Agents.OpenAI.OpenAIAssistantInvocationOptions' to 'Microsoft.SemanticKernel.KernelArguments?'

Ex #2:
OpenAIThreadCreationOptions is Obsolete

Ex #3:

CreateThreadAsync is Obsolete

[shanthuk]

@moonbox3 @crickman - Should we stay with v1.37 until these issues are resolved ?

[moonbox3]

Hi @shanthuk,

I'll let @crickman add any additional comments if needed.

TL;DR: We're working to bring some of our agents to general availability (GA) soon.

Our current agent framework is experimental. As we move toward finalized APIs for GA and beyond, some breaking changes may be necessary (as you've experienced). We are committed to minimizing these changes during the experimental phase and will provide clear, detailed communication about any breaking changes and how to upgrade to the latest code.

[crickman]

@shanthuk - You can examine the samples here for working patterns. You can also suppress the [Obsolete] warnings in your project and things will continue to work "as-is".

These changes weren't expected to be packaged until next week. Each [Obsolete] message contains direction on the new prefered pattern. For example, you can create a thread directly using the SDK client. Many customers had observed that binding this to the agent was limiting as they wanted to define a thread outside of the agent life-cycle. When you use the SDK directly, OpenAIThreadCreationOptions can be replaced by ThreadCreationOptions. We've also made the extension method available for convenience: https://github.com/microsoft/semantic-kernel/blob/main/dotnet/src/Agents/OpenAI/Extensions/AssistantClientExtensions.cs#L142C38-L142C55.

Instead of OpenAIAssistantInvocationOptions you can use the SDK RunCreationOptions directly. This way our agent pattern isn't obscuring features from the underlying SDK...such as "structured output"...which now works.

In anycase, these changes weren't intended to be released until next week. We're looking at providing more context within that timeline.

[shanthuk]

Thank you, we appreciate all your work with SK.

[shanthuk]

This question is not quite relevant in this context. Since you are planning to support many different agent frameworks (such as Azure Agent Service etc.). When working with SK + Azure OpenAI to build agents, there is no way to see the details of the thread (what functions were called, parameters passed etc.). Without such a console, it becomes very hard to develop/debug. OpenAI dashboard has a nice way to see everything that happens in the thread. When we moved from OpenAI to Azure OpenAI, we are sorely missing that feature.

Also, please review the entire code base of SK, it appears that SK may be swallowing exceptions. When developers can't see the exceptions causing the issues, it becomes much harder to figure out the root cause.

[crickman]

Agree that swallowing exceptions is problematic. Do you have any guidance on where you've experienced this?

Regarding agent dashboard, I know the service team is working hard to complete the tools available. We've recently enhanced the tracing features within the agent framework to aid in overall diagnostics.

[crickman]

@shanthuk - Staged migration details in this issue #10637 (comment) so it may be communicated more broadly.