---
sidebar_position: 3
title: "🔄 Valves & UserValves"
---

## Valves & UserValves

Valves and UserValves are used to allow users to provide dynamic details such as an API key or a configuration option. These will create a fillable field or a bool switch in the GUI menu for the given function. They are always optional, but HIGHLY encouraged.

Hence, Valves and UserValves class can be defined in either a `Pipe`, `Pipeline`, `Filter` or `Tools` class.

Valves are configurable by admins alone via the Tools or Functions menus. On the other hand UserValves are configurable by any users directly from a chat session.

<details>
<summary>Commented example</summary>

```python

from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
from typing import Literal

# Define and Valves
class Filter:
   # Notice the current indentation: Valves and UserValves must be declared as
   # attributes of a Tools, Filter or Pipe class. Here we take the
   # example of a Filter.
    class Valves(BaseModel):
       # Valves and UserValves inherit from pydantic's BaseModel. This
       # enables complex use cases like model validators etc.
       test_valve: int = Field(  # Notice the type hint: it is used to
           # choose the kind of UI element to show the user (buttons,
           # texts, etc).
           default=4,
           description="A valve controlling a numberical value"
           # required=False,  # you can enforce fields using True
       )
       # To give the user the choice between multiple strings, you can use Literal from typing:
       choice_option: Literal["choiceA", "choiceB"] = Field(
           default="choiceA",
           description="An example of a multi choice valve",
       )
       priority: int = Field(
           default=0,
           description="Priority level for the filter operations. Lower values are passed through first"
       )
       # The priority field is optional but if present will be used to
       # order the Filters.
       pass
       # Note that this 'pass' helps for parsing and is recommended.

   # UserValves are defined the same way.
    class UserValves(BaseModel):
        test_user_valve: bool = Field(
            default=False, description="A user valve controlling a True/False (on/off) switch"
       )
       pass

   def __init__(self):
       self.valves = self.Valves()
       # Because they are set by the admin, they are accessible directly
       # upon code execution.
       pass

   # The inlet method is only used for Filter but the __user__ handling is the same
   def inlet(self, body: dict, __user__: dict):
       # Because UserValves are defined per user they are only available
       # on use.
       # Note that although __user__ is a dict, __user__["valves"] is a
       # UserValves object. Hence you can access values like that:
       test_user_valve = __user__["valves"].test_user_valve
       # Or:
       test_user_valve = dict(__user__["valves"])["test_user_valve"]
       # But this will return the default value instead of the actual value:
       # test_user_valve = __user__["valves"]["test_user_valve"]  # Do not do that!
```

</details>
