Content Types¶

Provider-agnostic content type classification for conversation messages.

Overview¶

The content types module provides a standardized 7-value vocabulary for classifying message content across all providers. Each message carries both a raw provider-specific content_type and a normalized content_type_category in its metadata.

ContentTypeCategory¶

from echomine.models.content_types import ContentTypeCategory

# Literal type with 7 values:
# "conversational" | "reasoning" | "tool_io" | "system" | "media" | "attachment" | "unknown"

Category	Description
`conversational`	Regular chat messages (text, multimodal text, voice notes)
`reasoning`	Model thinking and chain-of-thought (thoughts, reasoning recap)
`tool_io`	Tool calls, code execution, and results (also any message with `author.role == "tool"`)
`system`	System-level messages (context, errors, token budgets)
`media`	Standalone media content (images without accompanying text)
`attachment`	Standalone file attachments (no accompanying text)
`unknown`	Unmapped or unrecognized content types

classify_content_type¶

classify_content_type ¶

classify_content_type(raw_type: str, provider: str) -> ContentTypeCategory

Classify a raw content type string into a standardized category.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Description	Default
`raw_type`	`str`	Provider-specific content type (e.g., "text", "thinking")	required
`provider`	`str`	Provider name ("openai" or "claude")	required

Returns:

Type	Description
`ContentTypeCategory`	Standardized category from the pinned vocabulary, or "unknown"

Source code in src/echomine/models/content_types.py

def classify_content_type(raw_type: str, provider: str) -> ContentTypeCategory:
    """Classify a raw content type string into a standardized category.

    Args:
        raw_type: Provider-specific content type (e.g., "text", "thinking")
        provider: Provider name ("openai" or "claude")

    Returns:
        Standardized category from the pinned vocabulary, or "unknown"
    """
    provider_map = _PROVIDER_MAPS.get(provider)
    if provider_map is None:
        return "unknown"
    return provider_map.get(raw_type, "unknown")

Category Maps¶

OPENAI_CATEGORY_MAP¶

Maps 13 OpenAI raw content types to categories:

Raw Type	Category
`text`	conversational
`multimodal_text`	conversational
`thoughts`	reasoning
`reasoning_recap`	reasoning
`code`	tool_io
`execution_output`	tool_io
`tether_quote`	tool_io
`tether_browsing_display`	tool_io
`user_editable_context`	system
`app_pairing_content`	system
`system_error`	system
`image_asset_pointer`	media
`image`	media

CLAUDE_CATEGORY_MAP¶

Maps 6 Claude block types to categories:

Block Type	Category
`text`	conversational
`voice_note`	conversational
`thinking`	reasoning
`tool_use`	tool_io
`tool_result`	tool_io
`token_budget`	system

Usage Examples¶

Classify Content Types¶

from echomine.models.content_types import classify_content_type

# OpenAI
classify_content_type("text", "openai")           # "conversational"
classify_content_type("thoughts", "openai")        # "reasoning"
classify_content_type("code", "openai")            # "tool_io"

# Claude
classify_content_type("thinking", "claude")        # "reasoning"
classify_content_type("tool_use", "claude")        # "tool_io"

# Unknown returns "unknown"
classify_content_type("new_type", "openai")        # "unknown"

Access Category from Messages¶

from echomine import OpenAIAdapter
from pathlib import Path

adapter = OpenAIAdapter()
for conv in adapter.stream_conversations(Path("export.json")):
    for msg in conv.messages:
        category = msg.metadata.get("content_type_category", "unknown")
        if category == "reasoning":
            print(f"Thinking: {msg.metadata.get('reasoning', '')[:80]}")