lexilux 2.8.0

Unified LLM API client library with Chat, Embedding, Rerank, and Tokenizer support

Lexilux

Lexilux is a unified LLM API client library that makes calling Chat, Embedding, Rerank, and Tokenizer APIs as simple as calling a function.

Features

• Function-like API: Call APIs like functions (chat("hi"), embed(["text"]))
• Streaming Support: Built-in streaming for Chat with usage tracking
• Unified Usage: Consistent usage statistics across all APIs
• Flexible Input: Support multiple input formats (string, list, dict)
• OpenAI-Compatible: Works with OpenAI-compatible APIs
• Automatic Retry: Built-in retry logic with exponential backoff
• Connection Pooling: HTTP connection pooling for better performance
• Rate Limiting: Built-in rate limiter for API request throttling
• SSL Control: Configurable SSL certificate verification
• Input Validation: Comprehensive parameter validation with clear errors
• Exception Hierarchy: Comprehensive exception system with error codes
• Function Calling: OpenAI-compatible function/tool calling support
• Multimodal Support: Vision capabilities with image inputs
• Async Support: Full async/await API for concurrent operations

One Client, Multiple Providers

Lexilux is designed to work seamlessly with all major LLM providers through their OpenAI-compatible APIs:

Provider	Base URL
OpenAI	https://api.openai.com/v1
DeepSeek	https://api.deepseek.com
GLM / ZhipuAI	https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4
Kimi / Moonshot	https://api.moonshot.cn/v1
Minimax	https://api.minimax.chat/v1
Qwen / Alibaba	https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1
Groq	https://api.groq.com/openai/v1

Simply change base_url and api_key to switch providers:

# OpenAI
chat = Chat(base_url="https://api.openai.com/v1", api_key="sk-...", model="gpt-4o")

# DeepSeek
chat = Chat(base_url="https://api.deepseek.com", api_key="sk-...", model="deepseek-chat")

# GLM (智谱)
chat = Chat(base_url="https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4", api_key="...", model="glm-4-plus")

See PROVIDERS.md for complete provider documentation.

Installation

Quick Install

pip install lexilux

With Tokenizer Support

pip install lexilux[tokenizer]

Development Setup with uv (Recommended)

This project uses uv for fast dependency management.

# Install uv
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# For active development
make dev-install

# Or manually with uv
uv sync --group docs --all-extras

Legacy pip Setup

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick Start

Basic Chat

from lexilux import Chat

chat = Chat(base_url="https://api.example.com/v1", api_key="your-key", model="gpt-4")
result = chat("Hello, world!")
print(result.text)
print(result.usage.total_tokens)

Streaming

for chunk in chat.stream("Tell me a joke"):
    print(chunk.delta, end="", flush=True)
    if chunk.done:
        print(f"\nTokens: {chunk.usage.total_tokens}")

Error Handling

from lexilux import LexiluxError, AuthenticationError, RateLimitError

try:
    result = chat("Hello, world!")
except AuthenticationError as e:
    print(f"Authentication failed: {e.message}")
except RateLimitError as e:
    if e.retryable:
        print(f"Rate limited: {e.message}")
except LexiluxError as e:
    print(f"Error: {e.code} - {e.message}")

Function Calling

from lexilux import Chat, FunctionTool

get_weather = FunctionTool(
    name="get_weather",
    description="Get weather for a location",
    parameters={
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
            "location": {"type": "string", "description": "City name"},
            "unit": {"type": "string", "enum": ["celsius", "fahrenheit"]}
        },
        "required": ["location"]
    }
)

result = chat("What's the weather in Paris?", tools=[get_weather])
if result.has_tool_calls:
    for tool_call in result.tool_calls:
        print(f"Calling: {tool_call.name}")
        print(f"Arguments: {tool_call.get_arguments()}")

Rate Limiting

from lexilux import Chat

# Limit to 10 requests per second
chat = Chat(
    base_url="https://api.example.com/v1",
    api_key="your-key",
    model="gpt-4",
    rate_limit=10  # requests per second
)

SSL Verification

from lexilux import Chat

# Disable SSL verification for testing (not recommended for production)
chat = Chat(
    base_url="https://api.example.com/v1",
    api_key="your-key",
    model="gpt-4",
    verify_ssl=False
)

Async

import asyncio
from lexilux import Chat

async def main():
    chat = Chat(base_url="...", api_key="...", model="gpt-4")
    result = await chat.a("Hello, async world!")
    print(result.text)

asyncio.run(main())

Connection Pooling

By default, Lexilux uses a connection pool with size 2 to reuse HTTP connections and improve performance. You can customize this based on your API provider's limits:

chat = Chat(
    base_url="https://api.openai.com/v1",
    api_key="your-key",
    model="gpt-4",
    pool_size=10,  # Increase for higher concurrency
)

Provider Limits:

• OpenAI: Recommended <= 10
• Anthropic: Recommended <= 5
• Other providers: Check their documentation

Automatic Retries

Lexilux automatically retries failed requests with exponential backoff when:

• Rate limit errors (HTTP 429)
• Server errors (HTTP 500, 502, 503, 504)
• Network timeouts or connection errors

Configure retry behavior:

chat = Chat(
    base_url="https://api.openai.com/v1",
    api_key="your-key",
    max_retries=3,  # Retry up to 3 times on transient errors
)

Note: Only retryable=True errors trigger automatic retries. Authentication and validation errors are never retried.

Chat API Selection Guide

Method	Streaming	Ensures Complete	History Behavior
chat()	No	No	Read-only
stream()	Yes	No	Read-only
complete()	No	Yes	Internal working copy
complete_stream()	Yes	Yes	Internal working copy

History Behavior:

• chat() and stream() never modify your history object
• complete() methods create an internal working copy for state management
• Your original ChatHistory is always preserved

Documentation

Full documentation available at: lexilux.readthedocs.io

Examples

Check out the examples/ directory for practical examples:

• examples/01_hello_world.py - Basic chat completion
• examples/02_system_message.py - Using system messages
• examples/10_streaming.py - Streaming chat
• examples/11_conversation.py - Multi-turn conversations
• examples/12_chat_params.py - Custom chat parameters
• examples/20_embedding.py - Text embedding
• examples/21_rerank.py - Document reranking
• examples/22_tokenizer.py - Tokenization
• examples/30_function_calling.py - Function calling
• examples/31_multimodal.py - Vision capabilities
• examples/32_async.py - Async operations
• examples/40_chat_history.py - History management
• examples/41_auto_continue.py - Continue cut-off responses
• examples/42_error_handling.py - Error handling patterns
• examples/43_custom_formatting.py - Custom response formatting

Run examples:

python examples/01_hello_world.py

Testing

# Run unit tests
make test

# Run integration tests
make test-integration

# Run with coverage
make test-cov

# Run linting
make lint

# Format code
make format

Build documentation locally:

cd docs && make html

About Agentsmith

Lexilux is part of the Agentsmith open-source ecosystem. Agentsmith is a ToB AI agent and algorithm development platform, currently deployed in multiple highway management companies, securities firms, and regulatory agencies in China. The Agentsmith team is gradually open-sourcing the platform by removing proprietary code and algorithm modules, as well as enterprise-specific customizations, while decoupling the system for modular use by the open-source community.

Agentsmith Open-Source Projects

• Varlord - Configuration management library
• Routilux - Event-driven workflow orchestration
• Serilux - Flexible serialization framework
• Lexilux - Unified LLM API client library

License

Lexilux is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Links

• PyPI: pypi.org/project/lexilux
• Documentation: lexilux.readthedocs.io
• GitHub: github.com/lzjever/lexilux