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What is Instructor?

Instructor is a library that allows you to get structured, validated data from multiple types of inputs: text, chat messages, or images. It is powered by Large Language Models (LLMs).

The library is inspired by the Instructor for Python created by Jason Liu.

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Learn More…

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Feature Highlights

Instructor is designed to make it easy to process data with LLMs in PHP. Here are some of the key features of the library:

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Core features

• Get structured responses from LLM inference
• Validation of returned data
• Automated retries in case of errors when LLM responds with invalid data

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Flexible inputs

• Process various types of input data: text, series of chat messages or images
• ‘Structured-to-structured’ processing - provide object or array as an input and get object with the results of inference back
• Demonstrate examples to improve the quality of inference

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Customizable outputs

• Define response data model the way to need: type-hinted classes, JSON Schema arrays, or dynamically define your data shapes with Structures
• Customize prompts and retry prompts
• Use attributes or PHP DocBlocks to provide additional instructions for LLM
• Customize response model processing by providing your own implementation of schema, deserialization, validation and transformation interfaces

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Sync and streaming support

• Receive synchronous or streaming responses
• Get partial updates & stream completed sequence items

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Observability

• Get detailed insight into internal processing via events

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Support for multiple LLMs / API providers

• Use multiple LLM API providers (incl. OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Azure, Groq, Mistral, Fireworks AI, Ollama, OpenRouter, Together AI)
• Use local models with Ollama

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Documentation and examples

• Learn more from growing documentation and 50+ cookbooks

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Instructor in Other Languages

Instructor has been implemented in various technology stacks. Check out implementations in other languages below:

• Python (original)
• Javascript (port)
• Elixir (port)
• Ruby (port)
• Go (port)

If you want to port Instructor to another language, please reach out to us on Twitter we’d love to help you get started!