diff --git a/backend/danswer/chat/process_message.py b/backend/danswer/chat/process_message.py
index 1f8ecc55a0e..7295682dd4f 100644
--- a/backend/danswer/chat/process_message.py
+++ b/backend/danswer/chat/process_message.py
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@
 from danswer.search.search_runner import inference_documents_from_ids
 from danswer.secondary_llm_flows.choose_search import check_if_need_search
 from danswer.secondary_llm_flows.query_expansion import history_based_query_rephrase
+from danswer.server.query_and_chat.models import ChatMessageDetail
 from danswer.server.query_and_chat.models import CreateChatMessageRequest
 from danswer.server.utils import get_json_line
 from danswer.utils.logger import setup_logger
@@ -153,8 +154,7 @@ def translate_citations(
     return citation_to_saved_doc_id_map
 
 
-@log_generator_function_time()
-def stream_chat_message(
+def stream_chat_message_objects(
     new_msg_req: CreateChatMessageRequest,
     user: User | None,
     db_session: Session,
@@ -164,7 +164,14 @@ def stream_chat_message(
     # For flow with search, don't include as many chunks as possible since we need to leave space
     # for the chat history, for smaller models, we likely won't get MAX_CHUNKS_FED_TO_CHAT chunks
     max_document_percentage: float = CHAT_TARGET_CHUNK_PERCENTAGE,
-) -> Iterator[str]:
+) -> Iterator[
+    StreamingError
+    | QADocsResponse
+    | LLMRelevanceFilterResponse
+    | ChatMessageDetail
+    | DanswerAnswerPiece
+    | CitationInfo
+]:
     """Streams in order:
     1. [conditional] Retrieved documents if a search needs to be run
     2. [conditional] LLM selected chunk indices if LLM chunk filtering is turned on
@@ -313,10 +320,8 @@ def stream_chat_message(
                 # only allow the final document to get truncated
                 # if more than that, then the user message is too long
                 if final_doc_ind != len(tokens_per_doc) - 1:
-                    yield get_json_line(
-                        StreamingError(
-                            error="LLM context window exceeded. Please de-select some documents or shorten your query."
-                        ).dict()
+                    yield StreamingError(
+                        error="LLM context window exceeded. Please de-select some documents or shorten your query."
                     )
                     return
 
@@ -417,8 +422,8 @@ def stream_chat_message(
                 applied_source_filters=retrieval_request.filters.source_type,
                 applied_time_cutoff=time_cutoff,
                 recency_bias_multiplier=recency_bias_multiplier,
-            ).dict()
-            yield get_json_line(initial_response)
+            )
+            yield initial_response
 
             # Get the final ordering of chunks for the LLM call
             llm_chunk_selection = cast(list[bool], next(documents_generator))
@@ -430,8 +435,8 @@ def stream_chat_message(
                 ]
                 if run_llm_chunk_filter
                 else []
-            ).dict()
-            yield get_json_line(llm_relevance_filtering_response)
+            )
+            yield llm_relevance_filtering_response
 
             # Prep chunks to pass to LLM
             num_llm_chunks = (
@@ -497,7 +502,7 @@ def stream_chat_message(
                 gen_ai_response_message
             )
 
-            yield get_json_line(msg_detail_response.dict())
+            yield msg_detail_response
 
             # Stop here after saving message details, the above still needs to be sent for the
             # message id to send the next follow-up message
@@ -530,17 +535,13 @@ def stream_chat_message(
                 citations.append(packet)
                 continue
 
-            yield get_json_line(packet.dict())
+            yield packet
     except Exception as e:
         logger.exception(e)
 
         # Frontend will erase whatever answer and show this instead
         # This will be the issue 99% of the time
-        error_packet = StreamingError(
-            error="LLM failed to respond, have you set your API key?"
-        )
-
-        yield get_json_line(error_packet.dict())
+        yield StreamingError(error="LLM failed to respond, have you set your API key?")
         return
 
     # Post-LLM answer processing
@@ -564,11 +565,24 @@ def stream_chat_message(
             gen_ai_response_message
         )
 
-        yield get_json_line(msg_detail_response.dict())
+        yield msg_detail_response
     except Exception as e:
         logger.exception(e)
 
         # Frontend will erase whatever answer and show this instead
-        error_packet = StreamingError(error="Failed to parse LLM output")
+        yield StreamingError(error="Failed to parse LLM output")
 
-        yield get_json_line(error_packet.dict())
+
+@log_generator_function_time()
+def stream_chat_message(
+    new_msg_req: CreateChatMessageRequest,
+    user: User | None,
+    db_session: Session,
+) -> Iterator[str]:
+    objects = stream_chat_message_objects(
+        new_msg_req=new_msg_req,
+        user=user,
+        db_session=db_session,
+    )
+    for obj in objects:
+        yield get_json_line(obj.dict())
diff --git a/backend/danswer/search/models.py b/backend/danswer/search/models.py
index 93c5a18688b..db3dc31f83b 100644
--- a/backend/danswer/search/models.py
+++ b/backend/danswer/search/models.py
@@ -86,10 +86,10 @@ class RetrievalDetails(BaseModel):
     # Use LLM to determine whether to do a retrieval or only rely on existing history
     # If the Persona is configured to not run search (0 chunks), this is bypassed
     # If no Prompt is configured, the only search results are shown, this is bypassed
-    run_search: OptionalSearchSetting
+    run_search: OptionalSearchSetting = OptionalSearchSetting.ALWAYS
     # Is this a real-time/streaming call or a question where Danswer can take more time?
     # Used to determine reranking flow
-    real_time: bool
+    real_time: bool = True
     # The following have defaults in the Persona settings which can be overriden via
     # the query, if None, then use Persona settings
     filters: BaseFilters | None = None