.Net: Chat History Reducer is possibly in the wrong spot

[wmeints]

I noticed that the IChatHistoryReducer was graduated from a sample to the agents layer of the framework. However, I feel that this is the wrong place to put it.

On the one hand, it makes sense to add it to an agent because agents are often used in chat scenarios. I understand that. However, I'm using chat history in non-chat scenarios too, and I don't want to use the agent framework in my application. I consider many of my applications with Semantic Kernel workflows rather than agents.

Would it be possible to consider adding the chat history reduction logic to the core of Semantic Kernel rather than the agent layer?

[sphenry]

I think this makes sense to associate with ChatHistory

[dmytrostruk]

@wmeints Thanks for creating this issue!

Before doing any changes in the codebase, it would be great to learn more about your use case. For example, when exactly do you want to reduce a chat history, should it be a manual call such as chatHistory.Reduce(...) on your side or something automatic on SK side?

Also, do you want just an abstraction (e.g., the IChatHistoryReducer interface) as part of the Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Abstractions package, allowing you to implement your own custom reducer? Or are you also interested in existing implementations from the Agents.Core package, such as ChatHistorySummarizationReducer and ChatHistoryTruncationReducer?

If you have any code samples (even pseudocode will be helpful) or any ideas how IChatHistoryReducer could be used on your side - it will help to understand how to place this functionality in SK Abstractions/Core packages properly. Thank you!

[wmeints]

Hey @dmytrostruk, let me explain my scenario a bit more.

I want to store the full chat history in a database like Cosmos or MongoDB. But I can't send it to the LLM in one piece after a while because it can become too large. That's where the reducer logic comes in. Usually, I just need to truncate the old messages from the history and use the remainder. But I can imagine others need to summarize their history. So, in short, I'd like to have the option to implement my reducer, but I also like the idea of using one of the standard reducers.

I would love to have a method on the ChatHistory to reduce it using IChatHistoryReducer so I can control when I call the reduction logic.