Error with Node.js API for GPT3.5 on AWS Lambda: "Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'completions')"

Question

I'm attempted to allow myself to text GPT3.5 and cannot figure out why I keep getting carious errors for this line.

When I use openai.chat.completions.create, as the latest documentation suggests,I get the following error:

Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'completions')

If I use the prior format of invoking completions with openai.createCompletion, I get the following error instead:

TypeError: openai.createChatCompletion is not a function

I've read every piece of documentation I can, and tried even older ways of invoking completions, but cannot get anything to work.

I've already tried getting a new API key and doing npm update, and still get the same issue. Here's my full code, I must be missing something:

const openai = require('openai');

const accountSid = process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID;
const authToken = process.env.TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN;

const client = require('twilio')(accountSid, authToken);

openai.apiKey = process.env.OPENAI_AUTH,

exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
  try {
    const buff = Buffer.from(event.body, "base64");
    const formEncodedParams = buff.toString("utf-8");
    const urlSearchParams = new URLSearchParams(formEncodedParams);

    const body = urlSearchParams.get("Body");
    const from = urlSearchParams.get("From");

    const completion = await openai.chat.completions.create({
      engine: "gpt-3.5-turbo", // GPT-3.5 Turbo
      messages: [
        { role: "system", content: body },
      ],
      max_tokens: 100, // You can adjust this as needed
    });

    await sendMessageBack(completion.data.choices[0].message.content, from);
    return {
      statusCode: 200,
      body: JSON.stringify('Message sent successfully'),
    };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
    return {
      statusCode: 500,
      body: JSON.stringify('Error sending message'),
    };
  }
};

async function sendMessageBack(msg, to) {
  try {
    await client.messages.create({
      body: msg,
      to: to,
      from: process.env.TWILIO_PHONE_NUM,
    });
    console.log('Message sent:', msg);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error sending message:', e);
  }
}

I have tried updating the openai package, new invocations of completions, old invocations, reading the documentation, but AWS Lambda keeps throwing errors on that same line.

EDIT: The solutions below led to the following rewrite. Including it here in case it's helpful to anyone else:

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const openai = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_AUTH, 
});

import twilio from 'twilio';

const accountSid = process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID;
const authToken = process.env.TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN;

const client = twilio(accountSid, authToken);

export const handler = async (event, context) => {
  try {
    const buff = Buffer.from(event.body, "base64");
    const formEncodedParams = buff.toString("utf-8");
    const urlSearchParams = new URLSearchParams(formEncodedParams);

    const msgBody = urlSearchParams.get("Body");
    const from = urlSearchParams.get("From");

    const chatCompletion = await openai.chat.completions.create({
      model: "gpt-3.5-turbo",
      messages: [{ role: "system", content: msgBody }],
      max_tokens: 100,
    });

    await sendMessageBack(chatCompletion.choices[0].message.content, from);
    return {
      statusCode: 200,
      body: JSON.stringify('Message sent successfully'),
    };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
    return {
      statusCode: 500,
      body: JSON.stringify('Error sending message'),
    };
  }
};

async function sendMessageBack(msg, to) {
  try {
    await client.messages.create({
      body: msg,
      to: to,
      from: process.env.TWILIO_PHONE_NUM,
    });
    console.log('Message sent:', msg);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error sending message:', e);
  }
}

Answer 1

The reason why your code is throwing Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'completions') is because openai.chat was not even defined, so it's trying to access a variable or a property that has not been declared yet. That makes sense because usually libraries like this provide a base class to construct everything internally, like the OpenAI one. So you must instantiate it's original class first, like this:

Using openai:4.2.0:

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const openai = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: 'your api key', // defaults to process.env["OPENAI_API_KEY"]
});

rather than:

const openai = require('openai');

openai.apiKey = process.env.OPENAI_AUTH;

Because the later just imports the OpenAI package, but doesn't instantiate it, so just sets the apiKey as a variable there. The package base class knows how to do it internally, and it helps them to better maintain it.

Also, I'd like to recommend changing engine: "gpt-3.5-turbo", to model: "gpt-3.5-turbo" at line 18, as model is the new way of specifiing it.