Fix some type annotations and edge cases

[s-cerevisiae]

Why are these changes needed?

This PR is a rather conservative attempt to partially fix #513, i.e. to provide a set of more correct type annotations for the library and fix unhandled edge cases found by type checker along the way.

It adjusts some wrong type signatures to fit the actual code implementation.

Related issue number

#513

Remaining problems

1. Now in the docstrings of ConversableAgent.register_reply, reply_func is documented as follows:

def reply_func(
    recipient: ConversableAgent,
    messages: Optional[List[Dict]] = None,
    sender: Optional[Agent] = None, # Some of the registered reply function don't support a `None` parameter
    config: Optional[Any] = None, # Same as above
) -> Tuple[bool, Union[str, Dict, None]] # Originally `Union[str, Dict, None]`, changed after checking many call sites

In reality some of the reply_funcs support None as sender and some don't. I don't know if the documentation or the implementation should be changed so I left it as-is.

2. ConversableAgent.(a)_send and receive actually requires the corresponding target to also be ConversableAgents because the extra silent parameter. There's no way to fix this without breaking changes for many. Since silent is declared experimental I decided to leave it there.

3. Some other rough edges either caused by type checkers or subtle interactions between many functions. They don't cause noticeable bugs as of now, and I'm not going to "fix" them by refactoring the whole codebase.

4. AFAIK oai module and its related code is under a major refactoring. This PR won't touch these unstable code.

Checks

• I've included any doc changes needed for https://microsoft.github.io/autogen/. See https://microsoft.github.io/autogen/docs/Contribute#documentation to build and test documentation locally.
• I've added tests (if relevant) corresponding to the changes introduced in this PR.
• I've made sure all auto checks have passed.

No new tests are required and documentation has been changed accordingly.

[s-cerevisiae]

@microsoft-github-policy-service agree

[sonichi]

Try to be more conservative 😸 I provide some examples of changes that can be undone.

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Merging #572 (4c24437) into main (2a96e4d) will increase coverage by 5.46%.
The diff coverage is 100.00%.

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #572      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   34.04%   39.50%   +5.46%     
==========================================
  Files          25       25              
  Lines        3005     3007       +2     
  Branches      668      668              
==========================================
+ Hits         1023     1188     +165     
+ Misses       1906     1722     -184     
- Partials       76       97      +21     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	39.44% <100.00%> (+5.46%)	⬆️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

Files	Coverage Δ
autogen/agentchat/assistant_agent.py	83.33% <100.00%> (ø)
autogen/agentchat/conversable_agent.py	67.47% <100.00%> (+0.14%)	⬆️
autogen/agentchat/groupchat.py	61.20% <100.00%> (ø)
autogen/agentchat/user_proxy_agent.py	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

... and 3 files with indirect coverage changes

[s-cerevisiae]

Rebased to last commit and removed controversial breaking change.

[BeibinLi]

Nice work!

[BeibinLi]

LGTM. We need to fix "GroupChat" after this PR.