Reasoning Chatbot Starter Template with Vercel’s AI SDK

The ai-sdk-reasoning-starter is an open-source starter template that combines Next.js with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model through Vercel’s AI SDK.

It provides pre-configured components for building AI chatbots optimized for logical reasoning and structured data generation.

Features

🚀 Next.js App Router – The template leverages Next.js’s App Router for optimized page navigation and performance. It incorporates React Server Components and Server Actions to enhance server-side rendering capabilities and improve application responsiveness.

🤖 AI SDK Integration – Built with Vercel’s AI SDK, the template provides a unified API for text generation, structured objects, and tool calls with language models. It includes specialized hooks for building dynamic chat interfaces and generative user experiences.

🔄 Model Flexibility – While configured to use Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet by default, the template supports multiple model providers including OpenAI, xAI, and Deepseek. This gives developers freedom to choose the right AI model for their specific requirements.

💅 Modern UI Components – The template incorporates shadcn/ui component library with Tailwind CSS for styling and Radix UI component primitives.

⚡ One-Click Deployment – The project can be deployed directly to Vercel with a single click. This simplifies the setup process and allowing for quick implementation.

Use Cases

• Customer Support Automation: You can deploy a chatbot to handle common customer inquiries. It can answer questions about products, services, or policies.
• Interactive Learning Tools: Create an educational chatbot. This bot could guide students through lessons or quizzes.
• Personalized Assistants: Develop a virtual assistant. You can tailor it to help users manage tasks, schedules, or information.
• Healthcare Support: Use the chatbot for initial patient interaction, medication reminders, and general health info.

Installation

1. To get started, install the Vercel CLI globally using npm:

   npm i -g vercel

2. Link your local project with your Vercel and GitHub accounts:

   vercel link

3. Ensure your project uses the correct environment variables by running the following:

   vercel env pull

4. Install the required dependencies:

   pnpm install

5. Start the development server:

   pnpm dev

Your application should now be running at localhost:3000.

Usage

Once the setup is complete, you can begin modifying the chatbot interface to suit your needs. The AI SDK provides easy-to-use hooks that allow you to customize the chat flow, integrate various model providers, and fine-tune the chatbot’s responses. Use the default setup to interact with the Anthropic Claude model, or switch to another provider by adjusting environment variables.

For example, to use the OpenAI GPT model, you can simply update the API key and model settings in your environment configuration. The template provides all the necessary tools to create dynamic, real-time conversations.

Related Resources

• Vercel AI SDK Documentation – The official documentation for Vercel’s AI SDK provides comprehensive guidance on using all features and integrating with various model providers. Visit Documentation
• Next.js Documentation – For developers who want to learn more about Next.js features used in this template, the official Next.js documentation offers detailed explanations and examples. Visit Next.js Docs
• Anthropic Claude API – To better understand the capabilities of Claude 3.7 Sonnet and how to optimize prompts for reasoning tasks, review Anthropic’s API documentation. Visit Anthropic Docs
• shadcn/ui Components – For customizing the UI components used in the template, the shadcn/ui documentation provides a catalog of available components and customization options. Visit shadcn/ui

FAQs

Q: Is it possible to fine-tune the AI responses for my specific use case?
A: Yes, you can customize the system prompts and context to guide the AI behavior. For more advanced customization, some model providers also offer fine-tuning services for their models.

Q: How do I handle authentication for my chatbot application?
A: The template doesn’t include authentication by default. You can integrate authentication using Next.js authentication solutions like NextAuth.js or Clerk depending on your requirements.

Q: Do I need an API key?
A: Yes, you need an API key for the AI model provider, such as Anthropic.

Q: How do I deploy the chatbot to Vercel?
A: You can deploy the template to Vercel with a single click. Simply click the provided button on the GitHub page and follow the prompts to configure your environment.

Q: What is the role of the AI SDK in this template?
A: The AI SDK provides a unified API for generating responses from various LLMs.

Preview