Since the openai package is used by pretty much everything in pipecat (due to OpenAILLMContext being the standard context representation), let's make it a non-optional dependency.

This change solves an issue faced by users who aren't intending to use OpenAI getting scary error messages saying that they need the `openai` optional dependency "in order to use OpenAI", along with an instruction to set the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable.

Note that with this change we could theoretically remove from pyproject.toml a number of defined optional dependencies that list only the `openai` package as a dependency (like `deepseek`, for example), but I didn't want to "break the API" in terms of how users install/consume pipecat and its set of built-in services.

Finally, I removed the `python-deepcompare` dependency from the `openai` optional dependency, since it appears to me like it was added by mistake (my guess is it was used for debugging during development and then never removed).

pyproject.toml

@@ -33,7 +33,8 @@ dependencies = [
     "pydantic~=2.10.5",
     "pyloudnorm~=0.1.1",
     "resampy~=0.4.3",
-    "soxr~=0.5.0"
+    "soxr~=0.5.0",
+    "openai~=1.59.6"
 ]
 
 [project.urls]
@@ -69,7 +70,7 @@ local = [ "pyaudio~=0.2.14" ]
 moondream = [ "einops~=0.8.0", "timm~=1.0.13", "transformers~=4.48.0" ]
 nim = [ "openai~=1.59.6" ]
 noisereduce = [ "noisereduce~=3.0.3" ]
-openai = [ "openai~=1.59.6", "websockets~=13.1", "python-deepcompare~=2.1.0" ]
+openai = [ "openai~=1.59.6", "websockets~=13.1" ]
 openpipe = [ "openpipe~=4.45.0" ]
 perplexity = [ "openai~=1.59.6" ]
 playht = [ "pyht~=0.1.6", "websockets~=13.1" ]

src/pipecat/processors/aggregators/openai_llm_context.py

@@ -12,6 +12,12 @@ from dataclasses import dataclass
 from typing import Any, Awaitable, Callable, List, Optional
 
 from loguru import logger
+from openai._types import NOT_GIVEN, NotGiven
+from openai.types.chat import (
+    ChatCompletionMessageParam,
+    ChatCompletionToolChoiceOptionParam,
+    ChatCompletionToolParam,
+)
 from PIL import Image
 
 from pipecat.frames.frames import (
@@ -22,20 +28,6 @@ from pipecat.frames.frames import (
 )
 from pipecat.processors.frame_processor import FrameDirection, FrameProcessor
 
-try:
-    from openai._types import NOT_GIVEN, NotGiven
-    from openai.types.chat import (
-        ChatCompletionMessageParam,
-        ChatCompletionToolChoiceOptionParam,
-        ChatCompletionToolParam,
-    )
-except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
-    logger.error(f"Exception: {e}")
-    logger.error(
-        "In order to use OpenAI, you need to `pip install pipecat-ai[openai]`. Also, set `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable."
-    )
-    raise Exception(f"Missing module: {e}")
-
 # JSON custom encoder to handle bytes arrays so that we can log contexts
 # with images to the console.
 

src/pipecat/services/base_whisper.py

@@ -7,22 +7,14 @@
 from typing import AsyncGenerator, Optional
 
 from loguru import logger
+from openai import AsyncOpenAI
+from openai.types.audio import Transcription
 
 from pipecat.frames.frames import ErrorFrame, Frame, TranscriptionFrame
 from pipecat.services.ai_services import SegmentedSTTService
 from pipecat.transcriptions.language import Language
 from pipecat.utils.time import time_now_iso8601
 
-try:
-    from openai import AsyncOpenAI
-    from openai.types.audio import Transcription
-except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
-    logger.error(f"Exception: {e}")
-    logger.error(
-        "In order to use OpenAI, you need to `pip install pipecat-ai[openai]`. Also, set `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable."
-    )
-    raise Exception(f"Missing module: {e}")
-
 
 def language_to_whisper_language(language: Language) -> Optional[str]:
     """Language support for Whisper API.

src/pipecat/services/openai.py

@@ -13,6 +13,14 @@ from typing import Any, AsyncGenerator, Dict, List, Literal, Optional
 import aiohttp
 import httpx
 from loguru import logger
+from openai import (
+    NOT_GIVEN,
+    AsyncOpenAI,
+    AsyncStream,
+    BadRequestError,
+    DefaultAsyncHttpxClient,
+)
+from openai.types.chat import ChatCompletionChunk, ChatCompletionMessageParam
 from PIL import Image
 from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
 
@@ -57,23 +65,6 @@ from pipecat.services.base_whisper import BaseWhisperSTTService, Transcription
 from pipecat.transcriptions.language import Language
 from pipecat.utils.time import time_now_iso8601
 
-try:
-    from openai import (
-        NOT_GIVEN,
-        AsyncOpenAI,
-        AsyncStream,
-        BadRequestError,
-        DefaultAsyncHttpxClient,
-    )
-    from openai.types.chat import ChatCompletionChunk, ChatCompletionMessageParam
-except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
-    logger.error(f"Exception: {e}")
-    logger.error(
-        "In order to use OpenAI, you need to `pip install pipecat-ai[openai]`. Also, set `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable."
-    )
-    raise Exception(f"Missing module: {e}")
-
-
 ValidVoice = Literal["alloy", "echo", "fable", "onyx", "nova", "shimmer"]
 
 VALID_VOICES: Dict[str, ValidVoice] = {

src/pipecat/services/openai_realtime_beta/openai.py

@@ -10,9 +10,17 @@ import json
 import time
 from dataclasses import dataclass
 
-import websockets
 from loguru import logger
 
+try:
+    import websockets
+except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
+    logger.error(f"Exception: {e}")
+    logger.error(
+        "In order to use OpenAI, you need to `pip install pipecat-ai[openai]`. Also, set `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable."
+    )
+    raise Exception(f"Missing module: {e}")
+
 from pipecat.frames.frames import (
     BotStoppedSpeakingFrame,
     CancelFrame,