Chat Completions

The Chat Completions API endpoint will generate a model response from a list of messages comprising a conversation.

Related guides:

Starting a new project? We recommend trying Responses to take advantage of the latest OpenAI platform features. Compare Chat Completions with Responses.

Create chat completion

post https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions

Starting a new project? We recommend trying Responses to take advantage of the latest OpenAI platform features. Compare Chat Completions with Responses.


Creates a model response for the given chat conversation. Learn more in the text generation, vision, and audio guides.

Parameter support can differ depending on the model used to generate the response, particularly for newer reasoning models. Parameters that are only supported for reasoning models are noted below. For the current state of unsupported parameters in reasoning models, refer to the reasoning guide.

Request body

A list of messages comprising the conversation so far. Depending on the model you use, different message types (modalities) are supported, like text, images, and audio.

Model ID used to generate the response, like gpt-4o or o3. OpenAI offers a wide range of models with different capabilities, performance characteristics, and price points. Refer to the model guide to browse and compare available models.

Parameters for audio output. Required when audio output is requested with modalities: ["audio"]. Learn more.

Number between -2.0 and 2.0. Positive values penalize new tokens based on their existing frequency in the text so far, decreasing the model's likelihood to repeat the same line verbatim.

Deprecated in favor of tool_choice.

Controls which (if any) function is called by the model.

none means the model will not call a function and instead generates a message.

auto means the model can pick between generating a message or calling a function.

Specifying a particular function via {"name": "my_function"} forces the model to call that function.

none is the default when no functions are present. auto is the default if functions are present.

Deprecated in favor of tools.

A list of functions the model may generate JSON inputs for.

Modify the likelihood of specified tokens appearing in the completion.

Accepts a JSON object that maps tokens (specified by their token ID in the tokenizer) to an associated bias value from -100 to 100. Mathematically, the bias is added to the logits generated by the model prior to sampling. The exact effect will vary per model, but values between -1 and 1 should decrease or increase likelihood of selection; values like -100 or 100 should result in a ban or exclusive selection of the relevant token.

Whether to return log probabilities of the output tokens or not. If true, returns the log probabilities of each output token returned in the content of message.

An upper bound for the number of tokens that can be generated for a completion, including visible output tokens and reasoning tokens.

The maximum number of tokens that can be generated in the chat completion. This value can be used to control costs for text generated via API.

This value is now deprecated in favor of max_completion_tokens, and is not compatible with o-series models.

Set of 16 key-value pairs that can be attached to an object. This can be useful for storing additional information about the object in a structured format, and querying for objects via API or the dashboard.

Keys are strings with a maximum length of 64 characters. Values are strings with a maximum length of 512 characters.

Output types that you would like the model to generate. Most models are capable of generating text, which is the default:

["text"]

The gpt-4o-audio-preview model can also be used to generate audio. To request that this model generate both text and audio responses, you can use:

["text", "audio"]

How many chat completion choices to generate for each input message. Note that you will be charged based on the number of generated tokens across all of the choices. Keep n as 1 to minimize costs.

Whether to enable parallel function calling during tool use.

Configuration for a Predicted Output, which can greatly improve response times when large parts of the model response are known ahead of time. This is most common when you are regenerating a file with only minor changes to most of the content.

Number between -2.0 and 2.0. Positive values penalize new tokens based on whether they appear in the text so far, increasing the model's likelihood to talk about new topics.

Used by OpenAI to cache responses for similar requests to optimize your cache hit rates. Replaces the user field. Learn more.

The retention policy for the prompt cache. Set to 24h to enable extended prompt caching, which keeps cached prefixes active for longer, up to a maximum of 24 hours. Learn more.

Constrains effort on reasoning for reasoning models. Currently supported values are none, minimal, low, medium, high, and xhigh. Reducing reasoning effort can result in faster responses and fewer tokens used on reasoning in a response.

  • gpt-5.1 defaults to none, which does not perform reasoning. The supported reasoning values for gpt-5.1 are none, low, medium, and high. Tool calls are supported for all reasoning values in gpt-5.1.
  • All models before gpt-5.1 default to medium reasoning effort, and do not support none.
  • The gpt-5-pro model defaults to (and only supports) high reasoning effort.
  • xhigh is currently only supported for gpt-5.1-codex-max.

An object specifying the format that the model must output.

Setting to { "type": "json_schema", "json_schema": {...} } enables Structured Outputs which ensures the model will match your supplied JSON schema. Learn more in the Structured Outputs guide.

Setting to { "type": "json_object" } enables the older JSON mode, which ensures the message the model generates is valid JSON. Using json_schema is preferred for models that support it.

A stable identifier used to help detect users of your application that may be violating OpenAI's usage policies. The IDs should be a string that uniquely identifies each user. We recommend hashing their username or email address, in order to avoid sending us any identifying information. Learn more.

This feature is in Beta. If specified, our system will make a best effort to sample deterministically, such that repeated requests with the same seed and parameters should return the same result. Determinism is not guaranteed, and you should refer to the system_fingerprint response parameter to monitor changes in the backend.

Specifies the processing type used for serving the request.

  • If set to 'auto', then the request will be processed with the service tier configured in the Project settings. Unless otherwise configured, the Project will use 'default'.
  • If set to 'default', then the request will be processed with the standard pricing and performance for the selected model.
  • If set to 'flex' or 'priority', then the request will be processed with the corresponding service tier.
  • When not set, the default behavior is 'auto'.

When the service_tier parameter is set, the response body will include the service_tier value based on the processing mode actually used to serve the request. This response value may be different from the value set in the parameter.

Not supported with latest reasoning models o3 and o4-mini.

Up to 4 sequences where the API will stop generating further tokens. The returned text will not contain the stop sequence.

Whether or not to store the output of this chat completion request for use in our model distillation or evals products.

Supports text and image inputs. Note: image inputs over 8MB will be dropped.

If set to true, the model response data will be streamed to the client as it is generated using server-sent events. See the Streaming section below for more information, along with the streaming responses guide for more information on how to handle the streaming events.

Options for streaming response. Only set this when you set stream: true.

What sampling temperature to use, between 0 and 2. Higher values like 0.8 will make the output more random, while lower values like 0.2 will make it more focused and deterministic. We generally recommend altering this or top_p but not both.

Controls which (if any) tool is called by the model. none means the model will not call any tool and instead generates a message. auto means the model can pick between generating a message or calling one or more tools. required means the model must call one or more tools. Specifying a particular tool via {"type": "function", "function": {"name": "my_function"}} forces the model to call that tool.

none is the default when no tools are present. auto is the default if tools are present.

A list of tools the model may call. You can provide either custom tools or function tools.

An integer between 0 and 20 specifying the number of most likely tokens to return at each token position, each with an associated log probability.

An alternative to sampling with temperature, called nucleus sampling, where the model considers the results of the tokens with top_p probability mass. So 0.1 means only the tokens comprising the top 10% probability mass are considered.

We generally recommend altering this or temperature but not both.

This field is being replaced by safety_identifier and prompt_cache_key. Use prompt_cache_key instead to maintain caching optimizations. A stable identifier for your end-users. Used to boost cache hit rates by better bucketing similar requests and to help OpenAI detect and prevent abuse. Learn more.

Constrains the verbosity of the model's response. Lower values will result in more concise responses, while higher values will result in more verbose responses. Currently supported values are low, medium, and high.

This tool searches the web for relevant results to use in a response. Learn more about the web search tool.

Returns

Returns a chat completion object, or a streamed sequence of chat completion chunk objects if the request is streamed.

Example request
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curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-5.1",
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "developer",
        "content": "You are a helpful assistant."
      },
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Hello!"
      }
    ]
  }'
Response
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{
  "id": "chatcmpl-B9MBs8CjcvOU2jLn4n570S5qMJKcT",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1741569952,
  "model": "gpt-4.1-2025-04-14",
  "choices": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": "Hello! How can I assist you today?",
        "refusal": null,
        "annotations": []
      },
      "logprobs": null,
      "finish_reason": "stop"
    }
  ],
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 19,
    "completion_tokens": 10,
    "total_tokens": 29,
    "prompt_tokens_details": {
      "cached_tokens": 0,
      "audio_tokens": 0
    },
    "completion_tokens_details": {
      "reasoning_tokens": 0,
      "audio_tokens": 0,
      "accepted_prediction_tokens": 0,
      "rejected_prediction_tokens": 0
    }
  },
  "service_tier": "default"
}

Get chat completion

get https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/{completion_id}

Get a stored chat completion. Only Chat Completions that have been created with the store parameter set to true will be returned.

Path parameters

The ID of the chat completion to retrieve.

Returns

The ChatCompletion object matching the specified ID.

Example request
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curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/chatcmpl-abc123 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
Response
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{
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "id": "chatcmpl-abc123",
  "model": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
  "created": 1738960610,
  "request_id": "req_ded8ab984ec4bf840f37566c1011c417",
  "tool_choice": null,
  "usage": {
    "total_tokens": 31,
    "completion_tokens": 18,
    "prompt_tokens": 13
  },
  "seed": 4944116822809979520,
  "top_p": 1.0,
  "temperature": 1.0,
  "presence_penalty": 0.0,
  "frequency_penalty": 0.0,
  "system_fingerprint": "fp_50cad350e4",
  "input_user": null,
  "service_tier": "default",
  "tools": null,
  "metadata": {},
  "choices": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "content": "Mind of circuits hum,  \nLearning patterns in silence—  \nFuture's quiet spark.",
        "role": "assistant",
        "tool_calls": null,
        "function_call": null
      },
      "finish_reason": "stop",
      "logprobs": null
    }
  ],
  "response_format": null
}

Get chat messages

get https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/{completion_id}/messages

Get the messages in a stored chat completion. Only Chat Completions that have been created with the store parameter set to true will be returned.

Path parameters

The ID of the chat completion to retrieve messages from.

Query parameters

Identifier for the last message from the previous pagination request.

Number of messages to retrieve.

Sort order for messages by timestamp. Use asc for ascending order or desc for descending order. Defaults to asc.

Returns

A list of messages for the specified chat completion.

Example request
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curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/chat_abc123/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
Response
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{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
      "role": "user",
      "content": "write a haiku about ai",
      "name": null,
      "content_parts": null
    }
  ],
  "first_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
  "last_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
  "has_more": false
}

List Chat Completions

get https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions

List stored Chat Completions. Only Chat Completions that have been stored with the store parameter set to true will be returned.

Query parameters

Identifier for the last chat completion from the previous pagination request.

Number of Chat Completions to retrieve.

A list of metadata keys to filter the Chat Completions by. Example:

metadata[key1]=value1&metadata[key2]=value2

The model used to generate the Chat Completions.

Sort order for Chat Completions by timestamp. Use asc for ascending order or desc for descending order. Defaults to asc.

Returns

A list of Chat Completions matching the specified filters.

Example request
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curl https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
Response
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{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "object": "chat.completion",
      "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
      "model": "gpt-4.1-2025-04-14",
      "created": 1738960610,
      "request_id": "req_ded8ab984ec4bf840f37566c1011c417",
      "tool_choice": null,
      "usage": {
        "total_tokens": 31,
        "completion_tokens": 18,
        "prompt_tokens": 13
      },
      "seed": 4944116822809979520,
      "top_p": 1.0,
      "temperature": 1.0,
      "presence_penalty": 0.0,
      "frequency_penalty": 0.0,
      "system_fingerprint": "fp_50cad350e4",
      "input_user": null,
      "service_tier": "default",
      "tools": null,
      "metadata": {},
      "choices": [
        {
          "index": 0,
          "message": {
            "content": "Mind of circuits hum,  \nLearning patterns in silence—  \nFuture's quiet spark.",
            "role": "assistant",
            "tool_calls": null,
            "function_call": null
          },
          "finish_reason": "stop",
          "logprobs": null
        }
      ],
      "response_format": null
    }
  ],
  "first_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "last_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "has_more": false
}

Update chat completion

post https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/{completion_id}

Modify a stored chat completion. Only Chat Completions that have been created with the store parameter set to true can be modified. Currently, the only supported modification is to update the metadata field.

Path parameters

The ID of the chat completion to update.

Request body

Set of 16 key-value pairs that can be attached to an object. This can be useful for storing additional information about the object in a structured format, and querying for objects via API or the dashboard.

Keys are strings with a maximum length of 64 characters. Values are strings with a maximum length of 512 characters.

Returns

The ChatCompletion object matching the specified ID.

Example request
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curl -X POST https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/chat_abc123 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"metadata": {"foo": "bar"}}'
Response
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{
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "model": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
  "created": 1738960610,
  "request_id": "req_ded8ab984ec4bf840f37566c1011c417",
  "tool_choice": null,
  "usage": {
    "total_tokens": 31,
    "completion_tokens": 18,
    "prompt_tokens": 13
  },
  "seed": 4944116822809979520,
  "top_p": 1.0,
  "temperature": 1.0,
  "presence_penalty": 0.0,
  "frequency_penalty": 0.0,
  "system_fingerprint": "fp_50cad350e4",
  "input_user": null,
  "service_tier": "default",
  "tools": null,
  "metadata": {
    "foo": "bar"
  },
  "choices": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "content": "Mind of circuits hum,  \nLearning patterns in silence—  \nFuture's quiet spark.",
        "role": "assistant",
        "tool_calls": null,
        "function_call": null
      },
      "finish_reason": "stop",
      "logprobs": null
    }
  ],
  "response_format": null
}

Delete chat completion

delete https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/{completion_id}

Delete a stored chat completion. Only Chat Completions that have been created with the store parameter set to true can be deleted.

Path parameters

The ID of the chat completion to delete.

Returns

A deletion confirmation object.

Example request
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curl -X DELETE https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions/chat_abc123 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
Response
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{
  "object": "chat.completion.deleted",
  "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "deleted": true
}

The chat completion object

Represents a chat completion response returned by model, based on the provided input.

A list of chat completion choices. Can be more than one if n is greater than 1.

The Unix timestamp (in seconds) of when the chat completion was created.

A unique identifier for the chat completion.

The model used for the chat completion.

The object type, which is always chat.completion.

Specifies the processing type used for serving the request.

  • If set to 'auto', then the request will be processed with the service tier configured in the Project settings. Unless otherwise configured, the Project will use 'default'.
  • If set to 'default', then the request will be processed with the standard pricing and performance for the selected model.
  • If set to 'flex' or 'priority', then the request will be processed with the corresponding service tier.
  • When not set, the default behavior is 'auto'.

When the service_tier parameter is set, the response body will include the service_tier value based on the processing mode actually used to serve the request. This response value may be different from the value set in the parameter.

This fingerprint represents the backend configuration that the model runs with.

Can be used in conjunction with the seed request parameter to understand when backend changes have been made that might impact determinism.

Usage statistics for the completion request.

OBJECT The chat completion object
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{
  "id": "chatcmpl-B9MHDbslfkBeAs8l4bebGdFOJ6PeG",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1741570283,
  "model": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
  "choices": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": "The image shows a wooden boardwalk path running through a lush green field or meadow. The sky is bright blue with some scattered clouds, giving the scene a serene and peaceful atmosphere. Trees and shrubs are visible in the background.",
        "refusal": null,
        "annotations": []
      },
      "logprobs": null,
      "finish_reason": "stop"
    }
  ],
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 1117,
    "completion_tokens": 46,
    "total_tokens": 1163,
    "prompt_tokens_details": {
      "cached_tokens": 0,
      "audio_tokens": 0
    },
    "completion_tokens_details": {
      "reasoning_tokens": 0,
      "audio_tokens": 0,
      "accepted_prediction_tokens": 0,
      "rejected_prediction_tokens": 0
    }
  },
  "service_tier": "default",
  "system_fingerprint": "fp_fc9f1d7035"
}

The chat completion list object

An object representing a list of Chat Completions.

An array of chat completion objects.

The identifier of the first chat completion in the data array.

Indicates whether there are more Chat Completions available.

The identifier of the last chat completion in the data array.

The type of this object. It is always set to "list".

OBJECT The chat completion list object
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{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "object": "chat.completion",
      "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
      "model": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
      "created": 1738960610,
      "request_id": "req_ded8ab984ec4bf840f37566c1011c417",
      "tool_choice": null,
      "usage": {
        "total_tokens": 31,
        "completion_tokens": 18,
        "prompt_tokens": 13
      },
      "seed": 4944116822809979520,
      "top_p": 1.0,
      "temperature": 1.0,
      "presence_penalty": 0.0,
      "frequency_penalty": 0.0,
      "system_fingerprint": "fp_50cad350e4",
      "input_user": null,
      "service_tier": "default",
      "tools": null,
      "metadata": {},
      "choices": [
        {
          "index": 0,
          "message": {
            "content": "Mind of circuits hum,  \nLearning patterns in silence—  \nFuture's quiet spark.",
            "role": "assistant",
            "tool_calls": null,
            "function_call": null
          },
          "finish_reason": "stop",
          "logprobs": null
        }
      ],
      "response_format": null
    }
  ],
  "first_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "last_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2",
  "has_more": false
}

The chat completion message list object

An object representing a list of chat completion messages.

An array of chat completion message objects.

The identifier of the first chat message in the data array.

Indicates whether there are more chat messages available.

The identifier of the last chat message in the data array.

The type of this object. It is always set to "list".

OBJECT The chat completion message list object
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{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
      "role": "user",
      "content": "write a haiku about ai",
      "name": null,
      "content_parts": null
    }
  ],
  "first_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
  "last_id": "chatcmpl-AyPNinnUqUDYo9SAdA52NobMflmj2-0",
  "has_more": false
}