Q&A Custom Application Template

Repository overview

In this repository you will find the Q&A Streamlit application code template used within DataRobot. The application uses a styling library for Streamlit called streamlit-sal, (read more).

Configuration

You can run the Q&A app in DataRobot using a custom application or by running the Streamlit app directly. Custom applications can be created via the Registry's Apps workshop or by using DRApps.

Define the variables for the app to communicate with DataRobot. If you run the app locally or via another environment, then you'll need to set the env variables. When this app is run via the Applications page, the variables are set automatically via runtime parameters set in the application source.

export token="$DATAROBOT_API_TOKEN"  # Your API token from DR developer tools page
export endpoint="$DATAROBOT_ENDPOINT"  # Example: https://app.datarobot.com/api/v2/
export deployment_id="$DEPLOYMENT_ID"  # ID of the deployment
export custom_metric_id="$CUSTOM_METRIC_ID"  # Optional: Response feedback custom metric id 

pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

cd src/
streamlit-sal compile
streamlit run --server.port=8080 qa_chat_bot.py

Alternatively, run the start-app.sh directly from the app src:

cd src/
./start-app.sh

To run the tests use the shell script in the project root:

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
./run_tests.sh

App modifications

The app is split into multiple files to make it easy to modify:

• qa_chat_bot.py: The main app function that includes all other necessary files. Here you can modify the basic page configuration (title, favicon, width) and add any additional elements such as sidebar or links to additional subpages.
• constants.py: This file contains all translatable strings, app and user configuration.
• components.py: Here you will find the render functions for both customized and default streamlit elements used within the app.
• dr_requests.py: In this file you will find all DataRobot API request functions.
• styles/main.scss: This SASS stylesheet will be compiled to CSS on app start, it is used to customize Streamlit native components via SAL. You can compile it manually by running streamlit-sal compile.
• styles/variables.scss: Here you can modify various CSS variables such as colors, or borders.
• .streamlit/config.toml: This is the Streamlit configuration file. Under [theme] you can define your own app colors. Please note that a full app restart is necessary for the values to take effect.

How to add and use runtime parameters?

Variables can be added in the metadata.yaml file in your application source folder. Here is an example of an API_TOKEN which will create an environment variable called MLOPS_RUNTIME_PARAM_EXAMPLE_VALUE:

runtimeParameterDefinitions:
- fieldName: EXAMPLE_VALUE
  type: string

Once this file is part of your Application source in DataRobot, it will display the new runtime parameter(s) as part of the app configuration.

To use the parameters we recommend to add them via start-app.sh, add this conditional export before the streamlit-sal and streamlit commands:

if [ -n "$MLOPS_RUNTIME_PARAM_EXAMPLE_VALUE" ]; then
  export example_value="$MLOPS_RUNTIME_PARAM_EXAMPLE_VALUE"
fi

Now you can use os.getenv("example_value") within your application code. If you'd like to know more about runtime parameters, you can read more in our DataRobot Docs

Feedback custom metric

The application uses the association ID from the deployment to match the LLM response with the given feedback. Navigate to Console -> Deployment -> Settings -> Custom metrics and set the Association ID to message_id.

Feedback buttons on LLM responses will only appear if the CUSTOM_METRIC_ID environment variable has been set. Below is an example of a metric for thumbs up and down, you can add it by navigating to Console -> Deployment -> Monitoring ->Custom metrics .

• Name: Feedback
• Metric ID: -- Copy this for the runtime parameter --
• Description: Feedback on LLM response
• Y-axis: +1/-1
• Baseline: 0
• Aggregation type: Average
• Higher is better

Troubleshooting

Error	Solution
Could not find root directory. Did you run 'streamlit-sal init'?	Make sure that all application src files have been uploaded, including dotfiles: .streamlit-sal (file) and .streamlit (directory)