Slash command content

An ellmer::ContentText subclass that preserves the original slash command entered by the user. When the chat UI is restored from a bookmark (or pre-existing turns), the original /command user_text is shown in the UI instead of the (possibly transformed) text that was sent to the LLM.

Usage

ContentSlashCommand(
  text = stop("Required"),
  command = character(0),
  user_text = ""
)

Arguments

text

The text sent to the LLM. When constructed by the chat module, this defaults to a descriptive string like "The user entered the /greet slash command with arguments: world". Set it in the handler to control what the LLM actually sees.

command

The slash command name (without the leading /).

user_text

The text the user typed after the command name. Defaults to "".

Value

A ContentSlashCommand object.

How it works

Slash command handlers that accept an argument receive a ContentSlashCommand object rather than a plain string. The object has three properties:

• command: the command name (e.g., "greet").

• user_text: the text the user typed after the command (e.g., "world").

• text: the text that will be sent to the LLM. This starts as a descriptive string like "The user entered the /greet slash command with arguments: world". Set it to whatever text the LLM should actually see.

Because ContentSlashCommand extends ellmer::ContentText, it works anywhere a ContentText does – including client$stream(), client$chat(), etc. LLM providers read the text property (inherited behavior), while contents_shinychat() reconstructs the original /command user_text for display in the chat UI.

Bookmark serialization via ellmer::contents_record() / ellmer::contents_replay() is automatic.

Example

chat$slash_command("greet", "Greet someone", function(content) {
  content@text <- paste("Say hello to", content@user_text)
  stream <- client$stream(content)
  chat_append("chat", stream)
})

The LLM sees "Say hello to world", but on restore the chat UI shows /greet world.

See also

chat_server() for registering slash commands via the slash_command() method on the returned object.