An action in Select AI is a keyword that instructs Select AI to perform different behavior when acting on the prompt.

Most applications use the convenience methods on Profile or AsyncProfile, such as show_sql(), run_sql(), narrate(), and chat(). Use generate(..., action=...) when you want to choose the action dynamically at runtime.

The default action for generate() is select_ai.Action.RUNSQL.

1. Supported Actions

The following actions can be performed using select_ai:

Select AI Actions

Action	Enum	Description
chat	select_ai.Action.CHAT	Enables general conversations with the LLM, potentially for clarifying prompts, exploring data, or generating content.
explainsql	select_ai.Action.EXPLAINSQL	Explains the generated SQL query.
narrate	select_ai.Action.NARRATE	Executes generated SQL and explains the output in natural language.
runsql	select_ai.Action.RUNSQL	Executes SQL generated from a natural language prompt. This is the default action for generate().
showprompt	select_ai.Action.SHOWPROMPT	Shows the prompt sent to the LLM.
showsql	select_ai.Action.SHOWSQL	Displays the generated SQL statement without executing it.
summarize	select_ai.Action.SUMMARIZE	Generates a summary of inline content or content referenced by a URI.
feedback	select_ai.Action.FEEDBACK	Provides feedback to improve the accuracy of generated SQL.
translate	select_ai.Action.TRANSLATE	Translates text from one language to another.

1.1. Action methods

Action to method mapping

Action	Convenience method	Return type
RUNSQL	profile.run_sql(prompt)	pandas.DataFrame
SHOWSQL	profile.show_sql(prompt)	str
EXPLAINSQL	profile.explain_sql(prompt)	str
NARRATE	profile.narrate(prompt)	str
CHAT	profile.chat(prompt)	str
SHOWPROMPT	profile.show_prompt(prompt)	str
SUMMARIZE	profile.summarize(...)	str
TRANSLATE	profile.translate(...)	str

1.2. Choosing an action

Use show_sql before run_sql when you want to inspect generated SQL before executing it. Use run_sql when the application should return a tabular result. Use narrate when users need a natural language answer instead of a table. Use explain_sql and show_prompt when tuning profile attributes, object lists, comments, constraints, or feedback.

1.3. Examples

Use a convenience method:

profile = select_ai.Profile(profile_name="oci_ai_profile")
sql = profile.show_sql(prompt="How many promotions?")

Use generate with an explicit action:

profile = select_ai.Profile(profile_name="oci_ai_profile")

sql = profile.generate(
    prompt="How many promotions?",
    action=select_ai.Action.SHOWSQL,
)

df = profile.generate(
    prompt="How many promotions?",
    action=select_ai.Action.RUNSQL,
)

Use an action selected at runtime:

action = select_ai.Action("showsql")
result = profile.generate(
    prompt="How many promotions?",
    action=action,
)

1.4. Streaming

Streaming is supported for text-returning generation actions: CHAT, NARRATE, EXPLAINSQL, SHOWSQL, and SHOWPROMPT. Streaming is not supported for RUNSQL because it returns a pandas.DataFrame.

for chunk in profile.generate(
    prompt="What is OCI?",
    action=select_ai.Action.CHAT,
    stream=True,
    chunk_size=4096,
):
    print(chunk, end="")