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Commands are a great way to capture user intent in a deterministic way.

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Attributes

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id
str
Identifier for the command, this will be used in the UI.
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icon
str
The lucide icon name for the command. See https://lucide.dev/icons/.
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description
str
The description of the command.
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button
boolean
Whether to display the command as a button in the message composer.
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persistent
boolean
Whether to keep the command active after the user sent the message.

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Set available commands

You can set the available commands at any moment using the cl.context.emitter.set_commands method. 
import chainlit as cl

commands = [
    {"id": "Picture", "icon": "image", "description": "Use DALL-E"},
    {"id": "Search", "icon": "globe", "description": "Find on the web"},
    {
        "id": "Canvas",
        "icon": "pen-line",
        "description": "Collaborate on writing and code",
    },
]

@cl.on_chat_start
async def start():
    await cl.context.emitter.set_commands(commands)

@cl.on_message
async def message(msg: cl.Message):
    if msg.command == "Picture":
        # User is using the Picture command
        pass
    pass
Since version 2.1.0. If you use a SQL-based data layer, the steps table requires a command column. See the migration guide.