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Chat Memory

docs/docs/tutorials/chat-memory.md

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Chat Memory

Maintaining and managing ChatMessages manually is cumbersome. Therefore, LangChain4j offers a ChatMemory abstraction along with multiple out-of-the-box implementations.

ChatMemory can be used as a standalone low-level component, or as a part of a high-level component like AI Services.

ChatMemory acts as a container for ChatMessages (backed by a List), with additional features like:

  • Eviction policy
  • Persistence
  • Special treatment of SystemMessage
  • Special treatment of tool messages

Memory vs History

Please note that "memory" and "history" are similar, yet distinct concepts.

  • History keeps all messages between the user and AI intact. History is what the user sees in the UI. It represents what was actually said.
  • Memory keeps some information, which is presented to the LLM to make it behave as if it "remembers" the conversation. Memory is quite different from history. Depending on the memory algorithm used, it can modify history in various ways: evict some messages, summarize multiple messages, summarize separate messages, remove unimportant details from messages, inject extra information (e.g., for RAG) or instructions (e.g., for structured outputs) into messages, and so on.

LangChain4j currently offers only "memory", not "history". If you need to keep an entire history, please do so manually.

Eviction policy

An eviction policy is necessary for several reasons:

  • To fit within the LLM's context window. There is a cap on the number of tokens LLM can process at once. At some point, conversation might exceed this limit. In such cases, some message(s) should be evicted. Usually, the oldest message(s) are evicted, but more sophisticated algorithms can be implemented if needed.
  • To control the cost. Each token has a cost, making each call to the LLM progressively more expensive. Evicting unnecessary messages reduces the cost.
  • To control the latency. The more tokens are sent to the LLM, the more time it takes to process them.

Currently, LangChain4j offers 2 out-of-the-box implementations:

  • The simpler one, MessageWindowChatMemory, functions as a sliding window, retaining the N most recent messages and evicting older ones that no longer fit. However, because each message can contain a varying number of tokens, MessageWindowChatMemory is mostly useful for fast prototyping.
  • A more sophisticated option is the TokenWindowChatMemory, which also operates as a sliding window but focuses on keeping the N most recent tokens, evicting older messages as needed. Messages are indivisible. If a message doesn't fit, it is evicted completely. TokenWindowChatMemory requires a TokenCountEstimator to count the tokens in each ChatMessage.

Persistence

By default, ChatMemory implementations store ChatMessages in memory.

If persistence is required, a custom ChatMemoryStore can be implemented to store ChatMessages in any persistent store of your choice:

java
class PersistentChatMemoryStore implements ChatMemoryStore {

        @Override
        public List<ChatMessage> getMessages(Object memoryId) {
          // TODO: Implement getting all messages from the persistent store by memory ID.
          // ChatMessageDeserializer.messageFromJson(String) and 
          // ChatMessageDeserializer.messagesFromJson(String) helper methods can be used to
          // easily deserialize chat messages from JSON.
        }

        @Override
        public void updateMessages(Object memoryId, List<ChatMessage> messages) {
            // TODO: Implement updating all messages in the persistent store by memory ID.
            // ChatMessageSerializer.messageToJson(ChatMessage) and 
            // ChatMessageSerializer.messagesToJson(List<ChatMessage>) helper methods can be used to
            // easily serialize chat messages into JSON.
        }

        @Override
        public void deleteMessages(Object memoryId) {
          // TODO: Implement deleting all messages in the persistent store by memory ID.
        }
    }

ChatMemory chatMemory = MessageWindowChatMemory.builder()
        .id("12345")
        .maxMessages(10)
        .chatMemoryStore(new PersistentChatMemoryStore())
        .build();

The updateMessages() method is called every time a new ChatMessage is added to the ChatMemory. This usually happens twice during each interaction with the LLM: once when a new UserMessage is added and again when a new AiMessage is added. The updateMessages() method is expected to update all messages associated with the given memory ID. ChatMessages can be stored either separately (e.g., one record/row/object per message) or together (e.g., one record/row/object for the entire ChatMemory).

:::note Please note that messages evicted from ChatMemory will also be evicted from ChatMemoryStore. When a message is evicted, the updateMessages() method is called with a list of messages that does not include the evicted message. :::

The getMessages() method is called whenever the user of the ChatMemory requests all messages. This typically happens once during each interaction with the LLM. The value of the Object memoryId argument corresponds to the id specified during the creation of the ChatMemory. It can be used to differentiate between multiple users and/or conversations. The getMessages() method is expected to return all messages associated with the given memory ID.

The deleteMessages() method is called whenever ChatMemory.clear() is called. If you do not use this functionality, you can leave this method empty.

Special treatment of SystemMessage

SystemMessage is a special type of message, so it is treated differently from other message types:

  • Once added, a SystemMessage is always retained.
  • Only one SystemMessage can be held at a time.
  • If a new SystemMessage with the same content is added, it is ignored.
  • If a new SystemMessage with different content is added, it replaces the previous one. By default, the new SystemMessage is added to the end of the message list. You can change this by setting alwaysKeepSystemMessageFirst property when creating ChatMemory.

Special treatment of tool messages

If an AiMessage containing ToolExecutionRequests is evicted, the following orphan ToolExecutionResultMessage(s) are also automatically evicted to avoid problems with some LLM providers (such as OpenAI) that prohibit sending orphan ToolExecutionResultMessage(s) in the request.

Examples

All supported chat memory stores can be found here.