Running Semantic Kernel on Durable Functions

@Pramod Valavala

It sounds like you're curious about integrating Semantic Kernel with Azure Durable Functions. That’s a great question! Running Semantic Kernel in a Durable Functions environment can definitely be feasible, especially since Durable Functions allow for stateful workflows which can manage the complexities of long-running tasks.

Here are a few things to consider for your integration:

Feasibility: Yes, it's indeed possible to run Semantic Kernel on Durable Functions. You'll want to ensure that your tasks can be well-defined as orchestrator functions. This way, Durable Functions can manage the state and execution flow for your long-running background processes.

Consumption Tier and Long-Running Orchestrator: Azure Functions on the consumption tier have limitations, primarily that they time out after 5 minutes. However, Durable Functions are designed to handle this use case; they can manage long-running executions by using "orchestration functions." Even in the consumption tier, you can effectively break down long tasks into smaller segments with checkpoints.

Orchestrator Functions: Create orchestrator functions that will call Semantic Kernel components. You can leverage the Durable Task Framework to control the flow of execution and maintain state between function calls.

Best Practices: Here are some tips:

• Use activity functions to wrap calls to the Semantic Kernel.
• Pay attention to any dependencies that may need to be retried due to transient errors.
  • Ensure that your orchestration logic appropriately handles long-running workflows and adds any necessary timeouts.

Hello Pramod Valavala,

This example shows how to build a Kernel and send a prompt to it via an Orchestration of an Agent (which are basically just renamed Durable Functions Activities)

Please refer .NET 8 Isolated - Durable Functions + Semantic Kernel Integration Project Discussion to run Semantic Kernel on Durable Functions.