OpenAI TypeScript and JavaScript API Library

This library provides convenient access to the OpenAI REST API from TypeScript or JavaScript.

It is generated from our OpenAPI specification with Stainless.

To learn how to use the OpenAI API, check out our API Reference and Documentation.

npm install openai

deno add jsr:@openai/openai
npx jsr add @openai/openai

These commands will make the module importable from the @openai/openai scope. You can also import directly from JSR without an install step if you're using the Deno JavaScript runtime:

import OpenAI from 'jsr:@openai/openai';

The full API of this library can be found in api.md file along with many code examples.

The primary API for interacting with OpenAI models is the Responses API. You can generate text from the model with the code below.

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env['OPENAI_API_KEY'], // This is the default and can be omitted
});

const response = await client.responses.create({
  model: 'gpt-4o',
  instructions: 'You are a coding assistant that talks like a pirate',
  input: 'Are semicolons optional in JavaScript?',
});

console.log(response.output_text);

The previous standard (supported indefinitely) for generating text is the Chat Completions API. You can use that API to generate text from the model with the code below.

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env['OPENAI_API_KEY'], // This is the default and can be omitted
});

const completion = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: 'gpt-4o',
  messages: [
    { role: 'developer', content: 'Talk like a pirate.' },
    { role: 'user', content: 'Are semicolons optional in JavaScript?' },
  ],
});

console.log(completion.choices[0].message.content);

We provide support for streaming responses using Server Sent Events (SSE).

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const client = new OpenAI();

const stream = await client.responses.create({
  model: 'gpt-4o',
  input: 'Say "Sheep sleep deep" ten times fast!',
  stream: true,
});

for await (const event of stream) {
  console.log(event);
}

Request parameters that correspond to file uploads can be passed in many different forms:

• File (or an object with the same structure)
• a fetch Response (or an object with the same structure)
• an fs.ReadStream
• the return value of our toFile helper

import fs from 'fs';
import fetch from 'node-fetch';
import OpenAI, { toFile } from 'openai';

const client = new OpenAI();

// If you have access to Node `fs` we recommend using `fs.createReadStream()`:
await client.files.create({ file: fs.createReadStream('input.jsonl'), purpose: 'fine-tune' });

// Or if you have the web `File` API you can pass a `File` instance:
await client.files.create({ file: new File(['my bytes'], 'input.jsonl'), purpose: 'fine-tune' });

// You can also pass a `fetch` `Response`:
await client.files.create({ file: await fetch('https://somesite/input.jsonl'), purpose: 'fine-tune' });

// Finally, if none of the above are convenient, you can use our `toFile` helper:
await client.files.create({
  file: await toFile(Buffer.from('my bytes'), 'input.jsonl'),
  purpose: 'fine-tune',
});
await client.files.create({
  file: await toFile(new Uint8Array([0, 1, 2]), 'input.jsonl'),
  purpose: 'fine-tune',
});

When the library is unable to connect to the API, or if the API returns a non-success status code (i.e., 4xx or 5xx response), a subclass of APIError will be thrown:

async function main() {
  const job = await client.fineTuning.jobs
    .create({ model: 'gpt-4o', training_file: 'file-abc123' })
    .catch(async (err) => {
      if (err instanceof OpenAI.APIError) {
        console.log(err.request_id);
        console.log(err.status); // 400
        console.log(err.name); // BadRequestError
        console.log(err.headers); // {server: 'nginx', ...}
      } else {
        throw err;
      }
    });
}

main();

Error codes are as follows:

Certain errors will be 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 will all be retried by default.

You can use the maxRetries option to configure or disable this:

// Configure the default for all requests:
const client = new OpenAI({
  maxRetries: 0, // default is 2
});

// Or, configure per-request:
await client.chat.completions.create({ messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'How can I get the name of the current day in JavaScript?' }], model: 'gpt-4o' }, {
  maxRetries: 5,
});

Requests time out after 10 minutes by default. You can configure this with a timeout option:

// Configure the default for all requests:
const client = new OpenAI({
  timeout: 20 * 1000, // 20 seconds (default is 10 minutes)
});

// Override per-request:
await client.chat.completions.create({ messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'How can I list all files in a directory using Python?' }], model: 'gpt-4o' }, {
  timeout: 5 * 1000,
});

On timeout, an APIConnectionTimeoutError is thrown.

Note that requests which time out will be retried twice by default.

For more information on debugging requests, see these docs

All object responses in the SDK provide a _request_id property which is added from the x-request-id response header so that you can quickly log failing requests and report them back to OpenAI.

const response = await client.responses.create({ model: 'gpt-4o', input: 'testing 123' });
console.log(response._request_id) // req_123

You can also access the Request ID using the .withResponse() method:

const { data: stream, request_id } = await openai.responses
  .create({
    model: 'gpt-4o',
    input: 'Say this is a test',
    stream: true,
  })
  .withResponse();

List methods in the OpenAI API are paginated. You can use the for await … of syntax to iterate through items across all pages:

async function fetchAllFineTuningJobs(params) {
  const allFineTuningJobs = [];
  // Automatically fetches more pages as needed.
  for await (const fineTuningJob of client.fineTuning.jobs.list({ limit: 20 })) {
    allFineTuningJobs.push(fineTuningJob);
  }
  return allFineTuningJobs;
}

Alternatively, you can request a single page at a time:

let page = await client.fineTuning.jobs.list({ limit: 20 });
for (const fineTuningJob of page.data) {
  console.log(fineTuningJob);
}

// Convenience methods are provided for manually paginating:
while (page.hasNextPage()) {
  page = await page.getNextPage();
  // ...
}

The Realtime API enables you to build low-latency, multi-modal conversational experiences. It currently supports text and audio as both input and output, as well as function calling through a WebSocket connection.

import { OpenAIRealtimeWebSocket } from 'openai/beta/realtime/websocket';

const rt = new OpenAIRealtimeWebSocket({ model: 'gpt-4o-realtime-preview-2024-12-17' });

rt.on('response.text.delta', (event) => process.stdout.write(event.delta));

For more information see realtime.md.

To use this library with Azure OpenAI, use the AzureOpenAI class instead of the OpenAI class.

import { AzureOpenAI } from 'openai';
import { getBearerTokenProvider, DefaultAzureCredential } from '@azure/identity';

const credential = new DefaultAzureCredential();
const scope = 'https://cognitiveservices.azure.com/.default';
const azureADTokenProvider = getBearerTokenProvider(credential, scope);

const openai = new AzureOpenAI({ azureADTokenProvider, apiVersion: "<The API version, e.g. 2024-10-01-preview>" });

const result = await openai.chat.completions.create({
  model: 'gpt-4o',
  messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Say hello!' }],
});

console.log(result.choices[0]!.message?.content);

For more information on support for the Azure API, see azure.md.

The "raw" Response returned by fetch() can be accessed through the .asResponse() method on the APIPromise type that all methods return.

You can also use the .withResponse() method to get the raw Response along with the parsed data.

const client = new OpenAI();

const httpResponse = await client.responses
  .create({ model: 'gpt-4o', input: 'say this is a test.' })
  .asResponse();

// access the underlying web standard Response object
console.log(httpResponse.headers.get('X-My-Header'));
console.log(httpResponse.statusText);

const { data: modelResponse, response: raw } = await client.responses
  .create({ model: 'gpt-4o', input: 'say this is a test.' })
  .withResponse();
console.log(raw.headers.get('X-My-Header'));
console.log(modelResponse);

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.

To make requests to undocumented endpoints, you can use client.get, client.post, and other HTTP verbs. Options on the client, such as retries, will be respected when making these requests.

await client.post('/some/path', {
  body: { some_prop: 'foo' },
  query: { some_query_arg: 'bar' },
});

To make requests using undocumented parameters, you may use // @ts-expect-error on the undocumented parameter. This library doesn't validate at runtime that the request matches the type, so any extra values you send will be sent as-is.

client.foo.create({
  foo: 'my_param',
  bar: 12,
  // @ts-expect-error baz is not yet public
  baz: 'undocumented option',
});

For requests with the GET verb, any extra params will be in the query, all other requests will send the extra param in the body.

If you want to explicitly send an extra argument, you can do so with the query, body, and headers request options.

To access undocumented response properties, you may access the response object with // @ts-expect-error on the response object, or cast the response object to the requisite type. Like the request params, we do not validate or strip extra properties from the response from the API.

We're actively working on a new alpha version that migrates from node-fetch to builtin fetch.

Please try it out and let us know if you run into any issues! https://community.openai.com/t/your-feedback-requested-node-js-sdk-5-0-0-alpha/1063774

By default, this library uses node-fetch in Node, and expects a global fetch function in other environments.

If you would prefer to use a global, web-standards-compliant fetch function even in a Node environment, (for example, if you are running Node with --experimental-fetch or using NextJS which polyfills with undici), add the following import before your first import from "OpenAI":

// Tell TypeScript and the package to use the global web fetch instead of node-fetch.
// Note, despite the name, this does not add any polyfills, but expects them to be provided if needed.
import 'openai/shims/web';
import OpenAI from 'openai';

To do the inverse, add import "openai/shims/node" (which does import polyfills). This can also be useful if you are getting the wrong TypeScript types for Response (more details).

You may also provide a custom fetch function when instantiating the client, which can be used to inspect or alter the Request or Response before/after each request:

import { fetch } from 'undici'; // as one example
import OpenAI from 'openai';

const client = new OpenAI({
  fetch: async (url: RequestInfo, init?: RequestInit): Promise<Response> => {
    console.log('About to make a request', url, init);
    const response = await fetch(url, init);
    console.log('Got response', response);
    return response;
  },
});

Note that if given a DEBUG=true environment variable, this library will log all requests and responses automatically. This is intended for debugging purposes only and may change in the future without notice.

By default, this library uses a stable agent for all http/https requests to reuse TCP connections, eliminating many TCP & TLS handshakes and shaving around 100ms off most requests.

If you would like to disable or customize this behavior, for example to use the API behind a proxy, you can pass an httpAgent which is used for all requests (be they http or https), for example:

import http from 'http';
import { HttpsProxyAgent } from 'https-proxy-agent';

// Configure the default for all requests:
const client = new OpenAI({
  httpAgent: new HttpsProxyAgent(process.env.PROXY_URL),
});

// Override per-request:
await client.models.list({
  httpAgent: new http.Agent({ keepAlive: false }),
});

This package generally follows SemVer conventions, though certain backwards-incompatible changes may be released as minor versions:

1. Changes that only affect static types, without breaking runtime behavior.
2. 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.)
3. 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.

TypeScript >= 4.5 is supported.

The following runtimes are supported:

• Node.js 18 LTS or later (non-EOL) versions.

• Deno v1.28.0 or higher.

• Bun 1.0 or later.

• Cloudflare Workers.

• Vercel Edge Runtime.

• Jest 28 or greater with the "node" environment ("jsdom" is not supported at this time).

• Nitro v2.6 or greater.

• Web browsers: disabled by default to avoid exposing your secret API credentials. Enable browser support by explicitly setting dangerouslyAllowBrowser to true'.

  More explanation

  Why is this dangerous?

  Enabling the dangerouslyAllowBrowser option can be dangerous because it exposes your secret API credentials in the client-side code. Web browsers are inherently less secure than server environments, any user with access to the browser can potentially inspect, extract, and misuse these credentials. This could lead to unauthorized access using your credentials and potentially compromise sensitive data or functionality.

  When might this not be dangerous?

  In certain scenarios where enabling browser support might not pose significant risks:

  • Internal Tools: If the application is used solely within a controlled internal environment where the users are trusted, the risk of credential exposure can be mitigated.
  • Public APIs with Limited Scope: If your API has very limited scope and the exposed credentials do not grant access to sensitive data or critical operations, the potential impact of exposure is reduced.
  • Development or debugging purpose: Enabling this feature temporarily might be acceptable, provided the credentials are short-lived, aren't also used in production environments, or are frequently rotated.

Note that React Native is not supported at this time.

If you are interested in other runtime environments, please open or upvote an issue on GitHub.

See the contributing documentation.