---
id: azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker
version: "0.3.1"
license: MIT License
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker — Microsoft Azure QnA Maker Client Library for Python

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 73.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

This package provides a Python SDK for the Azure QnA Maker service, a cloud-based question-answering platform. It offers both authoring (knowledge base creation and management) and runtime (query answering) capabilities through the QnAMakerClient class. The library wraps Azure's REST API, handling authentication and serialization through its dependencies on msrest and azure-common.

However, the package is no longer actively maintained. Microsoft has migrated QnA Maker functionality into the broader azure-ai-language-questionanswering package, and this library should not be used for new projects. Existing codebases depending on it will need to migrate to the replacement package to receive updates, bug fixes, and compatibility with current Azure services.

Use it for:

- Querying an existing Azure QnA Maker knowledge base from a Python application (runtime operations).
- Building or updating QnA Maker knowledge bases programmatically via the authoring API.
- Maintaining legacy Python applications that were built against this SDK before the migration to azure-ai-language-questionanswering.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Provides a Python client library for interacting with Microsoft Azure's QnA Maker service, though the package is no longer maintained and has been superseded by azure-ai-language-questionanswering.

No. Do not install this package for new projects—use azure-ai-language-questionanswering instead. The package is explicitly unmaintained as of August 2024 and will not receive updates or security patches. Only consider it if you are maintaining existing code that already depends on it and cannot yet migrate.

## Install

pip install azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker
uv add azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker
poetry add azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker

## Installing azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker

Before you install: Low install friction with stable dependencies (msrest, azure-common, azure-mgmt-core, azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-nspkg), but the package is explicitly marked inactive and no longer maintained as of version 0.3.1 (2024-08-13). The repository remains active, but new development has ceased.

License in practice: Licensed under MIT (permissive), so you may use, modify, and distribute it freely with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

# Install
pip install azure-cognitiveservices-knowledge-qnamaker

# Import and use (example)
from azure.cognitiveservices.knowledge.qnamaker import QnAMakerClient
from msrest.authentication import CognitiveServicesCredentials

credentials = CognitiveServicesCredentials('<your-api-key>')
client = QnAMakerClient(endpoint='<your-endpoint>', credentials=credentials)

This package is no longer maintained. Microsoft recommends migrating to azure-ai-language-questionanswering for ongoing support and compatibility with current Azure services.

Verify before relying:

- Whether existing code using this package will continue to work with current Azure QnA Maker API versions after the package's maintenance ended.
- Compatibility with Python versions beyond 3.10 or with modern dependency versions of msrest and azure-common.

## Package facts

- License: MIT License (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 73.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

azure qna maker client, question answering service python, azure cognitive services qna, qna maker sdk python, azure knowledge base client, deprecated, azure-sdk, unmaintained

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