Deprecate Ask tab

Remove the Ask/Q&A tab from the application as it was not widely used
and duplicated functionality available in the Chat tab.

Changes:
- Remove Ask page frontend components (Ask.tsx, Ask.module.css)
- Remove RetrieveThenReadApproach backend class
- Remove /ask API endpoint
- Remove Ask-related tests and snapshots
- Update documentation to reflect removal
- Update all translation files
- Update evaluation configs

Fixes #2834

Author: pamelafox

AGENTS.md

@@ -11,9 +11,7 @@ If necessary, edit this file to ensure it accurately reflects the current state
   * app/backend: Contains the Python backend code, written with Quart framework.
     * app/backend/approaches: Contains the different approaches
       * app/backend/approaches/approach.py: Base class for all approaches
-      * app/backend/approaches/retrievethenread.py: Ask approach, just searches and answers
       * app/backend/approaches/chatreadretrieveread.py: Chat approach, includes query rewriting step first
-      * app/backend/approaches/prompts/ask_answer_question.prompty: Prompt used by the Ask approach to answer the question based off sources
       * app/backend/approaches/prompts/chat_query_rewrite.prompty: Prompt used to rewrite the query based off search history into a better search query
       * app/backend/approaches/prompts/chat_query_rewrite_tools.json: Tools used by the query rewriting prompt
       * app/backend/approaches/prompts/chat_answer_question.prompty: Prompt used by the Chat approach to actually answer the question based off sources
@@ -86,11 +84,9 @@ When adding a new developer setting, update:
   * app/frontend/src/components/Settings.tsx : Add a UI element for the setting
   * app/frontend/src/locales/*/translations.json: Add a translation for the setting label/tooltip for all languages
   * app/frontend/src/pages/chat/Chat.tsx: Add the setting to the component, pass it to Settings
-  * app/frontend/src/pages/ask/Ask.tsx: Add the setting to the component, pass it to Settings
 
 * backend:
   * app/backend/approaches/chatreadretrieveread.py :  Retrieve from overrides parameter
-  * app/backend/approaches/retrievethenread.py : Retrieve from overrides parameter
   * app/backend/app.py: Some settings may need to be sent down in the /config route.
 
 ## When adding tests for a new feature

README.md

@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ The repo includes sample data so it's ready to try end to end. In this sample ap
 
 ## Features
 
-- Chat (multi-turn) and Q&A (single turn) interfaces
+- Chat (multi-turn) interface
 - Renders citations and thought process for each answer
 - Includes settings directly in the UI to tweak the behavior and experiment with options
 - Integrates Azure AI Search for indexing and retrieval of documents, with support for [many document formats](/docs/data_ingestion.md#supported-document-formats) as well as [cloud data ingestion](/docs/data_ingestion.md#cloud-data-ingestion)
@@ -228,7 +228,7 @@ See more tips in [the local development guide](docs/localdev.md).
 
 Once in the web app:
 
-- Try different topics in chat or Q&A context. For chat, try follow up questions, clarifications, ask to simplify or elaborate on answer, etc.
+- Try different topics in chat. Try follow up questions, clarifications, ask to simplify or elaborate on answer, etc.
 - Explore citations and sources
 - Click on "settings" to try different options, tweak prompts, etc.
 

app/backend/app.py

@@ -47,11 +47,9 @@
 from approaches.approach import Approach, DataPoints
 from approaches.chatreadretrieveread import ChatReadRetrieveReadApproach
 from approaches.promptmanager import PromptyManager
-from approaches.retrievethenread import RetrieveThenReadApproach
 from chat_history.cosmosdb import chat_history_cosmosdb_bp
 from config import (
     CONFIG_AGENTIC_KNOWLEDGEBASE_ENABLED,
-    CONFIG_ASK_APPROACH,
     CONFIG_AUTH_CLIENT,
     CONFIG_CHAT_APPROACH,
     CONFIG_CHAT_HISTORY_BROWSER_ENABLED,
@@ -182,24 +180,6 @@ async def content_file(path: str, auth_claims: dict[str, Any]):
     return await send_file(blob_file, mimetype=mime_type, as_attachment=False, attachment_filename=path)
 
 
-@bp.route("/ask", methods=["POST"])
-@authenticated
-async def ask(auth_claims: dict[str, Any]):
-    if not request.is_json:
-        return jsonify({"error": "request must be json"}), 415
-    request_json = await request.get_json()
-    context = request_json.get("context", {})
-    context["auth_claims"] = auth_claims
-    try:
-        approach: Approach = cast(Approach, current_app.config[CONFIG_ASK_APPROACH])
-        r = await approach.run(
-            request_json["messages"], context=context, session_state=request_json.get("session_state")
-        )
-        return jsonify(r)
-    except Exception as error:
-        return error_response(error, "/ask")
-
-
 class JSONEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
     def default(self, o):
         if dataclasses.is_dataclass(o) and not isinstance(o, type):
@@ -722,40 +702,6 @@ async def setup_clients():
 
     prompt_manager = PromptyManager()
 
-    # Set up the two default RAG approaches for /ask and /chat
-    # RetrieveThenReadApproach is used by /ask for single-turn Q&A
-
-    current_app.config[CONFIG_ASK_APPROACH] = RetrieveThenReadApproach(
-        search_client=search_client,
-        search_index_name=AZURE_SEARCH_INDEX,
-        knowledgebase_model=AZURE_OPENAI_KNOWLEDGEBASE_MODEL,
-        knowledgebase_deployment=AZURE_OPENAI_KNOWLEDGEBASE_DEPLOYMENT,
-        knowledgebase_client=knowledgebase_client,
-        knowledgebase_client_with_web=knowledgebase_client_with_web,
-        knowledgebase_client_with_sharepoint=knowledgebase_client_with_sharepoint,
-        knowledgebase_client_with_web_and_sharepoint=knowledgebase_client_with_web_and_sharepoint,
-        openai_client=openai_client,
-        chatgpt_model=OPENAI_CHATGPT_MODEL,
-        chatgpt_deployment=AZURE_OPENAI_CHATGPT_DEPLOYMENT,
-        embedding_model=OPENAI_EMB_MODEL,
-        embedding_deployment=AZURE_OPENAI_EMB_DEPLOYMENT,
-        embedding_dimensions=OPENAI_EMB_DIMENSIONS,
-        embedding_field=AZURE_SEARCH_FIELD_NAME_EMBEDDING,
-        sourcepage_field=KB_FIELDS_SOURCEPAGE,
-        content_field=KB_FIELDS_CONTENT,
-        query_language=AZURE_SEARCH_QUERY_LANGUAGE,
-        query_speller=AZURE_SEARCH_QUERY_SPELLER,
-        prompt_manager=prompt_manager,
-        reasoning_effort=OPENAI_REASONING_EFFORT,
-        multimodal_enabled=USE_MULTIMODAL,
-        image_embeddings_client=image_embeddings_client,
-        global_blob_manager=global_blob_manager,
-        user_blob_manager=user_blob_manager,
-        use_web_source=current_app.config[CONFIG_WEB_SOURCE_ENABLED],
-        use_sharepoint_source=current_app.config[CONFIG_SHAREPOINT_SOURCE_ENABLED],
-        retrieval_reasoning_effort=AGENTIC_KNOWLEDGEBASE_REASONING_EFFORT,
-    )
-
     # ChatReadRetrieveReadApproach is used by /chat for multi-turn conversation
     current_app.config[CONFIG_CHAT_APPROACH] = ChatReadRetrieveReadApproach(
         search_client=search_client,