rhoai-chatbot-customization

name	rhoai-chatbot-customization
metadata	{"author":"rhoai3-demo","version":"2.1.0","platform-family":"rhoai","platform-baseline":"repo","ocp-baseline":"repo","skill-group":"RHOAI Platform"}
description	Guide changes to the Stage 230 private RAG chatbot, a vendored Llama Stack UI distribution under stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot/llama_stack_ui. Use when the user asks to customize the chatbot, change suggested questions, adjust source attribution, tune Direct or Agent-based answer behavior, fix llama-stack-client compatibility, or change MCP tool selection in the UI. Do NOT use for Llama Stack server/provider/ vector-store/connector configuration (use rhoai-llama-stack), product NeMo/FMS guardrails resources (use rhoai-guardrails-safety), product Gen AI studio workflows (use rhoai-gen-ai-playground), or live troubleshooting without env-troubleshoot.

Chatbot Customization

Structured workflow for modifying the active Stage 230 private RAG chatbot. The chatbot is a vendored copy of the upstream Llama Stack UI distribution (Streamlit), adapted for this demo and backed by the Stage 230 LlamaStackDistribution. It provides playground chat with Direct and Agent-based processing, direct RAG over the RHOAI product-document vector store with per-guide source attribution, MCP tool calling through registered connectors, distribution inspection pages, and evaluation previews.

Use rhoai-llama-stack for the platform beneath this chatbot: LlamaStackDistribution, providers, vector stores, MCP connectors (top-level connectors: in the run config), OpenAI-compatible APIs, CA trust, and HA/autoscaling.

Use rhoai-guardrails-safety for official NeMo Guardrails, FMS Guardrails, TrustyAI guardrails CRs, detector services, guardrails endpoints, and API payload validation. The chatbot only surfaces shields that the server exposes.

Do not run scripts from backup/legacy-implementation-2026-06-09/ unless the user explicitly asks to restore or inspect the legacy implementation.

Active Implementation Status

• source: stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot/llama_stack_ui/ (vendored distribution; the demo-owned changes live mostly under distribution/ui/page/playground/ and distribution/ui/modules/)
• build resources: gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/app/base/build.yaml (binary BuildConfig in enterprise-rag-build)
• deployment resources: gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/app/base/
• validation: stage-230-private-data-rag/validate.sh (includes a client/server llama-stack version match check)

The previous repo-owned rhoai_rag_chatbot/ package was replaced by this vendored distribution; treat old references to it as historical.

Architecture At A Glance

private-rag-chatbot (Streamlit, vendored Llama Stack UI)
  distribution/ui/page/playground/chat.py    chat page: model/store/tool selection,
                                             suggestion grid, history, ResponseState
  distribution/ui/page/playground/direct.py  Direct mode: vector_stores.search +
                                             chat completions, sources panel
  distribution/ui/page/playground/agent.py   Agent mode: Responses API, file_search
                                             (include=file_search_call.results),
                                             MCP tools via connector_id
  distribution/ui/modules/utils.py           suggestions, source aggregation
                                             (summarize_search_sources), MCP
                                             connector discovery (/v1beta/connectors)
  distribution/ui/modules/api.py             LlamaStackClient wiring

Llama Stack service: lsd-enterprise-rag-service.enterprise-rag.svc:8321
Demo vector store: stage230-rhoai-34-product-docs-kfp (pgvector)
Generation: nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b and governed gpt-4o-mini through MaaS
MCP: mcp::openshift toolgroup name in the UI -> `openshift` connector on the server
Config surface: LLAMA_STACK_ENDPOINT, LLAMA_STACK_TIMEOUT, RAG_QUESTION_SUGGESTIONS, RAG_DEFAULT_MODEL, RAG_SHIELD_FAIL_MODE
Guardrails: shield nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b (Stage 240 NeMo via remote::nvidia); fail-closed on shield error by default

Key demo behaviors on top of upstream:

• collections with seeded suggestions are pre-selected on first load, so the suggestion grid renders immediately
• RAG answers render a per-guide "📚 Sources" panel (topic tags, relevance, docs.redhat.com links) built deterministically from chunk attributes (guide_slug, topic, source_url, product, version); raw chunks stay in a separate expander and history replays both
• Direct mode labels context passages with guide titles and instructs the model to name source guides in the answer
• Agent mode discovers MCP servers through /v1beta/connectors (the 0.7.x client has no toolgroups API) and passes {"type": "mcp", "server_label", "connector_id"} Responses tools
• RAG_DEFAULT_MODEL (substring match, default nemotron) sorts the matching model first in chat.py so the sidebar selectbox defaults to the local governed model instead of the first list entry
• guardrail selectors run the Stage 240 shield around every turn. client.safety.run_shield() in llama_stack_client 0.7.x accepts only shield_id and messages; passing the older params argument raises TypeError before any network call. On a shield error the helpers fail closed by default (block the turn with a visible message); RAG_SHIELD_FAIL_MODE=open restores the answer-anyway behavior. Verify shield behavior through the app's own helpers (run_input_shields / run_output_shields via oc exec + python), not just the server REST API
• the last two suggestion chips are Stage 240 guardrail demo prompts (input rail: prompt injection; output rail: generated PII record) — keep them aligned with the demo script in stage-240-guardrails-and-safety/README.md

When To Use

• Adding, removing, or editing suggested questions or their default selection
• Changing source-attribution rendering (sources panel, context labels, citation instruction)
• Tuning Direct vs Agent-based processing behavior or tool selection UI
• Fixing llama-stack-client compatibility after a RHOAI/Llama Stack update
• Surfacing additional Llama Stack runtime state in distribution pages

Key Files

File	What to edit
.../ui/page/playground/chat.py	Selection UI, suggestion grid, defaults, history rendering, ResponseState
.../ui/page/playground/direct.py	Direct RAG search, context building, citation instruction, sources panel
.../ui/page/playground/agent.py	Responses API request, streamed tool handling, MCP tool building, fallback search
.../ui/modules/utils.py	get_question_suggestions, summarize_search_sources, format_sources_markdown, guide_title_from_slug, fetch_mcp_connectors
stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot/pyproject.toml	Pinned llama-stack-client (must match the server minor line)
gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/app/base/configmap-chatbot.yaml	RAG_QUESTION_SUGGESTIONS and endpoint/timeout env
gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/app/base/deployment-chatbot.yaml	Image, endpoint, probes, resources, env wiring
gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/dashboard/base/odhapplication-rag-chatbot.yaml	Dashboard application tile pointing at the chatbot Route

Instructions

Read Before You Write

1. Read stage-230-private-data-rag/README.md (Chatbot Flow) and stage-230-private-data-rag/PLAN.md.
2. If touching code architecture, read references/chatbot-architecture.md.
3. If changing prompts or attribution text, read references/prompt-engineering.md.
4. If changing llama-stack-client, verify the deployed server version. A stale client fails with HTTP 426 Client version ... is not compatible with server version ...; validate.sh checks this by comparing the client version in the chatbot pod with the server version in the LSD pod.

Change Suggested Questions

Suggestions render in the chat page once a collection with seeded questions is selected; suggestion-backed collections are pre-selected on first page load. The grid shows four questions, more behind "Show More".

1. Edit RAG_QUESTION_SUGGESTIONS in gitops/stage-230-private-data-rag/app/base/configmap-chatbot.yaml. The JSON object is keyed by vector store NAME (for example stage230-rhoai-34-product-docs-kfp).

2. Prefer questions from the committed AutoRAG benchmark (stage-230-private-data-rag/data/rhoai-product-docs/autorag/benchmark_data.json) so live answers match measured pattern quality. Keep the two Stage 240 guardrail demo chips (last two entries: prompt-injection input block and generated-PII output block) unless the guardrails demo is retired with them.

3. Argo CD applies the ConfigMap; restart the deployment to reload env:

   oc rollout restart deployment/private-rag-chatbot -n enterprise-rag
   

4. Browser sessions created before the change keep their old Streamlit session state; reload the page to see new defaults.

Change Source Attribution

1. Chunk metadata is the source of truth: guide_slug, topic, source_url, product, version travel with every ingested chunk. Aggregation lives in summarize_search_sources / format_sources_markdown in modules/utils.py; guide display names come from guide_title_from_slug (extend _SLUG_WORD_FIXES for new acronyms).
2. Direct mode: search_vector_store_direct renders the panel and labels context entries; the citation instruction lives in build_rag_messages.
3. Agent mode: the Responses request sets include=["file_search_call.results"] and handle_agent_output_item_done renders the panel from streamed results; state.sources_rendered suppresses the duplicate fallback search.
4. Relevance figures are raw hybrid-search scores (can exceed 1.0); rank with them, do not present them as percentages.

Change MCP Tool Selection

The server side (connector registration) belongs to rhoai-llama-stack. In this UI:

1. fetch_mcp_connectors reads /v1beta/connectors directly (the 0.7.x client library has no connectors or toolgroups surface).
2. The chat page lists connectors as mcp::<connector_id> pills; build_response_tools maps a selection to {"type": "mcp", "server_label": ..., "connector_id": ...}.
3. A model-driven tool-use claim requires mcp_list_tools, mcp_call, and a final message in the Responses output; a plain answer is not proof.

Build And Deploy Cycle

Code changes rebuild the image from stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot/ with the GitOps-managed binary BuildConfig, then restart the deployment:

python3 -m compileall -q stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot
oc start-build private-rag-chatbot -n enterprise-rag-build \
  --from-dir=stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot --wait
oc rollout restart deployment/private-rag-chatbot -n enterprise-rag

Keep build resources out of the Kueue-managed enterprise-rag runtime namespace; build pods are infrastructure, not AI workloads. Env-only changes need only an Argo CD sync plus a deployment restart.

Do not switch the active RHOAI 3.4 demo back to quay.io/rh-ai-quickstart/llamastack-dist-ui:0.2.45 without retesting client compatibility. That image pins llama-stack-client==0.6.0; Stage 230 uses the 0.7.x client line for the observed RHOAI 3.4 Llama Stack server.

Validation

After any code or config change:

1. Run python3 -m compileall -q stage-230-private-data-rag/chatbot.
2. Run ./stage-230-private-data-rag/validate.sh against the guarded target cluster after deployment.
3. Ask a seeded suggestion question and confirm the answer names its source guides and the "📚 Sources" panel lists them with docs.redhat.com links.
4. In Agent-based mode with mcp::openshift selected, ask a bounded cluster question and confirm the mcp_list_tools/mcp_call chain in the output.

For detailed architecture, container constraints, and prompt patterns, read:

• references/chatbot-architecture.md
• references/development-constraints.md
• references/prompt-engineering.md