Principle:Cohere ai Cohere python Message Construction
| Metadata | |
|---|---|
| Source Repo | Cohere Python SDK |
| Source Doc | Cohere Chat API |
| Domains | NLP, Chat_API, Message_Formatting |
| Last Updated | 2026-02-15 14:00 GMT |
Overview
A structured message format for representing multi-turn conversation history with role-based typing in chat APIs.
Description
Message Construction is the process of building typed, role-discriminated message sequences for chat model interactions. The Cohere V2 Chat API uses a message-based interface where each message has a role (user, assistant, system, tool) and role-specific content. This mirrors the chat completion paradigm established by modern LLM APIs: a system message sets behavior, user messages provide prompts, assistant messages capture model responses, and tool messages relay function call results. The messages form an ordered conversation history that provides context for generation.
Usage
Use this principle when building any chat interaction. Construct a list of typed messages representing the conversation state before sending to the chat API. System messages are optional but useful for controlling model behavior. Multi-turn conversations append assistant and user messages in alternation.
Theoretical Basis
Role-based message construction follows the conversational AI paradigm where context is maintained as an ordered sequence of attributed turns. The discriminated union pattern (tagged by the role field) ensures type safety and enables the model to correctly attribute context to different participants in the conversation.