Troubleshooting Azure OpenAI with the Latest NVIDIA Nemo Guardrails Version

If you’re utilizing Azure OpenAI alongside NVIDIA’s Nemo Guardrails, you may have recently encountered a frustrating error after upgrading to version 0.14.0 of Nemo Guardrails. This issue specifically relates to model initialization when using the ‘gpt-4o-mini’ with the Azure provider in chat mode.

Previously, when using version 0.11.0 of Nemo Guardrails, everything functioned smoothly. However, after making the leap to version 0.14.0, a model initialization error surfaced, disrupting your workflow. Upon investigating this issue, it appears that all configurations from the relevant directory are being passed correctly. Therefore, the root cause likely lies within changes introduced in the latest version of Nemo.

Here is the error message you might be encountering:

plaintext
ModelInitializationError: Failed to initialize model 'gpt-40-mini' with provider 'azure' in 'chat' mode: ValueError encountered in initializer_init_text_completion_model(modes=['text', 'chat']) for model: gpt-4o-mini and provider: azure: 1 validation error for OpenAIChat Value error, Did not find openai_api_key. Please add an environment variable OPENAI_API_KEY which contains it, or pass openai_api_key as a named parameter.

The key takeaway from this error message is that the model cannot find the OPENAI_API_KEY. To resolve this issue, you have a couple of options:

1. Set Up Environment Variable: You can add the OPENAI_API_KEY as an environment variable on your system, ensuring that your application has access to it.

2. Pass API Key as Parameter: Alternatively, you can specify the openai_api_key directly as a named parameter in your model configuration.

If you haven’t already, it may also be worthwhile to review the change logs or documentation associated with the latest version of Nemo Guardrails. As always, keeping your configurations documented will help in diagnosing issues whenever upgrades are applied.

By addressing the missing API key, you should be able to restore functionality and harness the potential of Azure OpenAI in conjunction with Nemo Guardrails. Happy coding!