Snowflake chat results in 400 error

[robert-norberg]

library(ellmer)

# you'll have to trust me that I've gotten these right.
# Just setting SNOWFLAKE_ACCOUNT, SNOWFLAKE_USER, and SNOWFLAKE_PRIVATE_KEY environment variables doesn't work for orgs that use Snowflake PrivateLink.
# I can open a separate issue and a PR to go with it later.
auth_headers <- ... 

chat <- chat_snowflake(
  system_prompt = NULL,
  account = "our.privatelink.baseurl",
  credentials = auth_headers,
  model = "claude-3-5-sonnet"
)
httr2::with_verbosity({
  chat$chat("Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query.", echo = FALSE)},
  verbosity = 3
)

*  Connected to our.privatelink.baseurl.snowflakecomputing.com (**.***.***.***) port 443 (#2)
*  ALPN, offering h2
*  ALPN, offering http/1.1
*   CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
*   CApath: /etc/ssl/certs
*  TLSv1.0 (OUT), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server key exchange (12):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server finished (14):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS header, Finished (20):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Finished (20):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Certificate Status (22):
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
*  SSL connection using TLSv1.2 / ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
*  ALPN, server did not agree to a protocol
*  Server certificate:
*   <redacted>
*   SSL certificate verify ok.
*  TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS header, Supplemental data (23):
-> POST /api/v2/cortex/inference:complete HTTP/1.1
-> Host: our.privatelink.baseurl.snowflakecomputing.com
-> User-Agent: posit_workbench_rstudio
-> Accept: */*
-> Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip, br, zstd
-> Authorization: <REDACTED>
-> X-Snowflake-Authorization-Token-Type: <REDACTED>
-> Content-Type: application/json
-> Content-Length: 229
-> 
>> {
>>   "messages": [
>>     {
>>       "role": "user",
>>       "content": "Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query.",
>>       "content_list": [
>>         {
>>           "type": "text",
>>           "text": "Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query."
>>         }
>>       ]
>>     }
>>   ],
>>   "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet",
>>   "stream": false
>> }
*  TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS header, Supplemental data (23):
*  Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
<- HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
<- Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:07:03 GMT,Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:07:04 GMT
<- Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8
<- X-Accel-Buffering: no
<- Cache-Control: no-cache
<- X-Snowflake-Request-Id: ********-****-****-****-********
<- Server: SF-LB
<- X-Envoy-Attempt-Count: 1
<- X-Envoy-Upstream-Service-Time: 1036
<- X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
<- X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block
<- Expect-Ct: enforce, max-age=3600
<- Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000
<- X-Frame-Options: deny
<- Content-Encoding: gzip
<- Vary: Accept-Encoding
<- Transfer-Encoding: chunked
<- 
*  Connection #2 to host our.privatelink.baseurl.snowflakecomputing.com left intact
<< {"message":"invalid request parameters: contentList text block cannot be used with content","request_id":"********-****-****-****-********"}
<< 

I'm not 100% sure what this means, but it mentions contentList and the "content_list": [...] part of the request body doesn't seem to match what Snowflake is expecting.

When I build the request body myself, omitting the "content_list": [...] part, I get a 200 back from Snowflake:

resp <- httr2::request(base_url = "https://our.privatelink.baseurl.snowflakecomputing.com") |>
  httr2::req_headers_redacted(unlist(auth_headers)) |>
  httr2::req_url_path("api/v2/cortex/inference:complete") |>
  httr2::req_body_json(data = list(
    "model" = "claude-3-5-sonnet",
    "messages" = list(
      list("role" = "user", "content" = "Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query.")
    )
  )) |>
  httr2::req_perform()

resp |> httr2::resp_status()

[1] 200

I can't really tell where the extra "content_list": [...] part of the request body is coming from because I'm not really familiar with the S7 object oriented stuff going on in provider-snowflake.R, but I think that's the issue.

Update: If I get rid of the "content": "Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query." part of the request body and keep the "content_list": [...] part, that also results in a 200 response. It just seems that a message must have either content or content_list, but it can't have both.