Action

Actions are a way to send clickable buttons to the user interface. Each action is attached to a Message and can be used to trigger a python function when the user clicks on it.

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Create an action

Actions are sent to the UI through messages:

import chainlit as cl

@cl.on_chat_start
async def start():
    # Sending an action button within a chatbot message
    actions = [
        cl.Action(name="action_button", value="example_value", description="Click me!")
    ]

    await cl.Message(content="Interact with this action button:", actions=actions).send()

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Define a Python Callback

To handle the user’s click on the action button, you need to define a callback function with the @cl.action_callback decorator:

@cl.action_callback("action_button")
async def on_action(action: cl.Action):
    print("The user clicked on the action button!")

    return "Thank you for clicking on the action button!"

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Toaster

While an action is being processed, a toaster is displayed to the user. The toaster is a small notification that appears at the top right of the screen and indicates that the action is being processed.

If the action callback returns a string, the toaster will display it to the user once the action is processed.