OpenAI Python API library
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The OpenAI Python library provides convenient access to the OpenAI REST API from any Python 3.7+
application. The library includes type definitions for all request params and response fields,
and offers both synchronous and asynchronous clients powered by httpx.
It is generated from our OpenAPI specification with Stainless.
Documentation
The REST API documentation can be found on platform.openai.com. The full API of this library can be found in api.md.
Installation
[!IMPORTANT]
The SDK was rewritten in v1, which was released November 6th 2023. See the v1 migration guide, which includes scripts to automatically update your code.
pip install openai
Usage
The full API of this library can be found in api.md.
import os
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
api_key=os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
)
chat_completion = client.chat.completions.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Say this is a test",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)
While you can provide an api_key
keyword argument,
we recommend using python-dotenv
to add OPENAI_API_KEY="My API Key"
to your .env
file
so that your API Key is not stored in source control.
Polling Helpers
When interacting with the API some actions such as starting a Run and adding files to vector stores are asynchronous and take time to complete. The SDK includes
helper functions which will poll the status until it reaches a terminal state and then return the resulting object.
If an API method results in an action that could benefit from polling there will be a corresponding version of the
method ending in '_and_poll'.
For instance to create a Run and poll until it reaches a terminal state you can run:
run = client.beta.threads.runs.create_and_poll(
thread_id=thread.id,
assistant_id=assistant.id,
)
More information on the lifecycle of a Run can be found in the Run Lifecycle Documentation
Bulk Upload Helpers
When creating and interacting with vector stores, you can use polling helpers to monitor the status of operations.
For convenience, we also provide a bulk upload helper to allow you to simultaneously upload several files at once.
sample_files = [Path("sample-paper.pdf"), ...]
batch = await client.vector_stores.file_batches.upload_and_poll(
store.id,
files=sample_files,
)
Streaming Helpers
The SDK also includes helpers to process streams and handle incoming events.
with client.beta.threads.runs.stream(
thread_id=thread.id,
assistant_id=assistant.id,
instructions="Please address the user as Jane Doe. The user has a premium account.",
) as stream:
for event in stream:
if event.type == "thread.message.delta" and event.data.delta.content:
print(event.data.delta.content[0].text)
More information on streaming helpers can be found in the dedicated documentation: helpers.md
Async usage
Simply import AsyncOpenAI
instead of OpenAI
and use await
with each API call:
import os
import asyncio
from openai import AsyncOpenAI
client = AsyncOpenAI(
api_key=os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
)
async def main() -> None:
chat_completion = await client.chat.completions.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Say this is a test",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)
asyncio.run(main())
Functionality between the synchronous and asynchronous clients is otherwise identical.
Streaming responses
We provide support for streaming responses using Server Side Events (SSE).
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
stream = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say this is a test"}],
stream=True,
)
for chunk in stream:
print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="")
The async client uses the exact same interface.
from openai import AsyncOpenAI
client = AsyncOpenAI()
async def main():
stream = await client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say this is a test"}],
stream=True,
)
async for chunk in stream:
print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="")
asyncio.run(main())
Module-level client
[!IMPORTANT]
We highly recommend instantiating client instances instead of relying on the global client.
We also expose a global client instance that is accessible in a similar fashion to versions prior to v1.
import openai
openai.api_key = '...'
openai.base_url = "https://..."
openai.default_headers = {"x-foo": "true"}
completion = openai.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4",
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How do I output all files in a directory using Python?",
},
],
)
print(completion.choices[0].message.content)
The API is the exact same as the standard client instance-based API.
This is intended to be used within REPLs or notebooks for faster iteration, not in application code.
We recommend that you always instantiate a client (e.g., with client = OpenAI()
) in application code because:
- It can be difficult to reason about where client options are configured
- It's not possible to change certain client options without potentially causing race conditions
- It's harder to mock for testing purposes
- It's not possible to control cleanup of network connections
Using types
Nested request parameters are TypedDicts. Responses are Pydantic models which also provide helper methods for things like:
- Serializing back into JSON,
model.to_json()
- Converting to a dictionary,
model.to_dict()
Typed requests and responses provide autocomplete and documentation within your editor. If you would like to see type errors in VS Code to help catch bugs earlier, set python.analysis.typeCheckingMode
to basic
.
List methods in the OpenAI API are paginated.
This library provides auto-paginating iterators with each list response, so you do not have to request successive pages manually:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
all_jobs = []
for job in client.fine_tuning.jobs.list(
limit=20,
):
all_jobs.append(job)
print(all_jobs)
Or, asynchronously:
import asyncio
from openai import AsyncOpenAI
client = AsyncOpenAI()
async def main() -> None:
all_jobs = []
async for job in client.fine_tuning.jobs.list(
limit=20,
):
all_jobs.append(job)
print(all_jobs)
asyncio.run(main())
Alternatively, you can use the .has_next_page()
, .next_page_info()
, or .get_next_page()
methods for more granular control working with pages:
first_page = await client.fine_tuning.jobs.list(
limit=20,
)
if first_page.has_next_page():
print(f"will fetch next page using these details: {first_page.next_page_info()}")
next_page = await first_page.get_next_page()
print(f"number of items we just fetched: {len(next_page.data)}")
Or just work directly with the returned data:
first_page = await client.fine_tuning.jobs.list(
limit=20,
)
print(f"next page cursor: {first_page.after}")
for job in first_page.data:
print(job.id)
Nested params
Nested parameters are dictionaries, typed using TypedDict
, for example:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
completion = client.chat.completions.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Can you generate an example json object describing a fruit?",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo-1106",
response_format={"type": "json_object"},
)
File uploads
Request parameters that correspond to file uploads can be passed as bytes
, a PathLike
instance or a tuple of (filename, contents, media type)
.
from pathlib import Path
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
client.files.create(
file=Path("input.jsonl"),
purpose="fine-tune",
)
The async client uses the exact same interface. If you pass a PathLike
instance, the file contents will be read asynchronously automatically.
Handling errors
When the library is unable to connect to the API (for example, due to network connection problems or a timeout), a subclass of openai.APIConnectionError
is raised.
When the API returns a non-success status code (that is, 4xx or 5xx
response), a subclass of openai.APIStatusError
is raised, containing status_code
and response
properties.
All errors inherit from openai.APIError
.
import openai
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
try:
client.fine_tuning.jobs.create(
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
training_file="file-abc123",
)
except openai.APIConnectionError as e:
print("The server could not be reached")
print(e.__cause__)
except openai.RateLimitError as e:
print("A 429 status code was received; we should back off a bit.")
except openai.APIStatusError as e:
print("Another non-200-range status code was received")
print(e.status_code)
print(e.response)
Error codes are as followed:
Status Code | Error Type |
---|
400 | BadRequestError |
401 | AuthenticationError |
403 | PermissionDeniedError |
404 | NotFoundError |
422 | UnprocessableEntityError |
429 | RateLimitError |
>=500 | InternalServerError |
N/A | APIConnectionError |
Retries
Certain errors are automatically retried 2 times by default, with a short exponential backoff.
Connection errors (for example, due to a network connectivity problem), 408 Request Timeout, 409 Conflict,
429 Rate Limit, and >=500 Internal errors are all retried by default.
You can use the max_retries
option to configure or disable retry settings:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
max_retries=0,
)
client.with_options(max_retries=5).chat.completions.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How can I get the name of the current day in Node.js?",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)
Timeouts
By default requests time out after 10 minutes. You can configure this with a timeout
option,
which accepts a float or an httpx.Timeout
object:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
timeout=20.0,
)
client = OpenAI(
timeout=httpx.Timeout(60.0, read=5.0, write=10.0, connect=2.0),
)
client.with_options(timeout=5.0).chat.completions.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How can I list all files in a directory using Python?",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)
On timeout, an APITimeoutError
is thrown.
Note that requests that time out are retried twice by default.
Advanced
Logging
We use the standard library logging
module.
You can enable logging by setting the environment variable OPENAI_LOG
to debug
.
$ export OPENAI_LOG=debug
How to tell whether None
means null
or missing
In an API response, a field may be explicitly null
, or missing entirely; in either case, its value is None
in this library. You can differentiate the two cases with .model_fields_set
:
if response.my_field is None:
if 'my_field' not in response.model_fields_set:
print('Got json like {}, without a "my_field" key present at all.')
else:
print('Got json like {"my_field": null}.')
The "raw" Response object can be accessed by prefixing .with_raw_response.
to any HTTP method call, e.g.,
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI()
response = client.chat.completions.with_raw_response.create(
messages=[{
"role": "user",
"content": "Say this is a test",
}],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)
print(response.headers.get('X-My-Header'))
completion = response.parse()
print(completion)
These methods return an LegacyAPIResponse
object. This is a legacy class as we're changing it slightly in the next major version.
For the sync client this will mostly be the same with the exception
of content
& text
will be methods instead of properties. In the
async client, all methods will be async.
A migration script will be provided & the migration in general should
be smooth.
.with_streaming_response
The above interface eagerly reads the full response body when you make the request, which may not always be what you want.
To stream the response body, use .with_streaming_response
instead, which requires a context manager and only reads the response body once you call .read()
, .text()
, .json()
, .iter_bytes()
, .iter_text()
, .iter_lines()
or .parse()
. In the async client, these are async methods.
As such, .with_streaming_response
methods return a different APIResponse
object, and the async client returns an AsyncAPIResponse
object.
with client.chat.completions.with_streaming_response.create(
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Say this is a test",
}
],
model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
) as response:
print(response.headers.get("X-My-Header"))
for line in response.iter_lines():
print(line)
The context manager is required so that the response will reliably be closed.
Making custom/undocumented requests
This library is typed for convenient access to the documented API.
If you need to access undocumented endpoints, params, or response properties, the library can still be used.
Undocumented endpoints
To make requests to undocumented endpoints, you can make requests using client.get
, client.post
, and other
http verbs. Options on the client will be respected (such as retries) will be respected when making this
request.
import httpx
response = client.post(
"/foo",
cast_to=httpx.Response,
body={"my_param": True},
)
print(response.headers.get("x-foo"))
Undocumented request params
If you want to explicitly send an extra param, you can do so with the extra_query
, extra_body
, and extra_headers
request
options.
Undocumented response properties
To access undocumented response properties, you can access the extra fields like response.unknown_prop
. You
can also get all the extra fields on the Pydantic model as a dict with
response.model_extra
.
Configuring the HTTP client
You can directly override the httpx client to customize it for your use case, including:
- Support for proxies
- Custom transports
- Additional advanced functionality
from openai import OpenAI, DefaultHttpxClient
client = OpenAI(
base_url="http://my.test.server.example.com:8083",
http_client=DefaultHttpxClient(
proxies="http://my.test.proxy.example.com",
transport=httpx.HTTPTransport(local_address="0.0.0.0"),
),
)
You can also customize the client on a per-request basis by using with_options()
:
client.with_options(http_client=DefaultHttpxClient(...))
Managing HTTP resources
By default the library closes underlying HTTP connections whenever the client is garbage collected. You can manually close the client using the .close()
method if desired, or with a context manager that closes when exiting.
Microsoft Azure OpenAI
To use this library with Azure OpenAI, use the AzureOpenAI
class instead of the OpenAI
class.
[!IMPORTANT]
The Azure API shape differs from the core API shape which means that the static types for responses / params
won't always be correct.
from openai import AzureOpenAI
client = AzureOpenAI(
api_version="2023-07-01-preview",
azure_endpoint="https://example-endpoint.openai.azure.com",
)
completion = client.chat.completions.create(
model="deployment-name",
messages=[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How do I output all files in a directory using Python?",
},
],
)
print(completion.to_json())
In addition to the options provided in the base OpenAI
client, the following options are provided:
azure_endpoint
(or the AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT
environment variable)azure_deployment
api_version
(or the OPENAI_API_VERSION
environment variable)azure_ad_token
(or the AZURE_OPENAI_AD_TOKEN
environment variable)azure_ad_token_provider
An example of using the client with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) can be found here.
Versioning
This package generally follows SemVer conventions, though certain backwards-incompatible changes may be released as minor versions:
- Changes that only affect static types, without breaking runtime behavior.
- Changes to library internals which are technically public but not intended or documented for external use. (Please open a GitHub issue to let us know if you are relying on such internals).
- Changes that we do not expect to impact the vast majority of users in practice.
We take backwards-compatibility seriously and work hard to ensure you can rely on a smooth upgrade experience.
We are keen for your feedback; please open an issue with questions, bugs, or suggestions.
Requirements
Python 3.7 or higher.