Questions about tool changes in npm openai package from version 4.27.0 to 4.37.0

API
1

Hi all,

I’ve been developing a NodeJS application using the openai package, starting with version 4.27.0 a few months back. In that version, I used the ‘retrieval’ tool extensively. After updating to version 4.37.0, I noticed that ‘retrieval’ is no longer available, and it seems ‘file_search’ is its replacement. However, ‘file_search’ appears to require a new ‘vector store’ object which wasn’t needed before.

The documenation now has nothing about the ‘retrieval’ tool so I’m questioning my sanity.

A few questions:

  1. If this change went into v4, then I’m confused or missing something.
  2. If not, why such a significant change appears in a minor version update?
  3. What is the best way to keep up with changes?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

2

Hi Mark,

I appreciate your feedback about us making this change in a minor version. Will share this with the team and we’ll consider making a major version bump the next time. We had discussed this decision leading up to the launch but assumed that since most folks lock the versions they use in their package-lock.json files, this shouldn’t break anyone’s integration unless they explicitly chose to upgrade their SDK version.

The documentation around these changes is included here: https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/migration and you can find the old shapes of the API objects here: https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/assistants-v1

We post about changes like this in our changelog: https://platform.openai.com/docs/changelog and our X account: https://twitter.com/OpenAIDevs/status/1780640119890047475

If you have any questions on how to continue using the retrieval tool, let me know and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Thanks,
Nikunj

3

Thank you, Nikunj. That is very helpful. I will definitely reach out if I have any more questions.

Thanks again,

Mark