OpenAI

Learn how to use OpenAI models in Agno.

The GPT models are the best in class LLMs and used as the default LLM by Agents. OpenAI supports a variety of world-class models. See their models here.

We recommend experimenting to find the best-suited model for your use-case. Here are some general recommendations:

• gpt-5-mini is good for most general use-cases.
• gpt-5-nano model is good for smaller tasks and faster inference.
• o1 models are good for complex reasoning and multi-step tasks.
• gpt-5-mini is a strong reasoning model with support for tool-calling and structured outputs, but at a much lower cost.

OpenAI have tier based rate limits. See the docs for more information.

Authentication

Set your OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable. You can get one from OpenAI here.

Mac

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-***

Example

Use OpenAIChat with your Agent:

agent.py

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat

agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5-mini"),
    markdown=True
)

# Print the response in the terminal
agent.print_response("Share a 2 sentence horror story.")

View more examples here.

Parameters

For more information, please refer to the OpenAI docs as well.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
id	str	"gpt-4o"	The id of the OpenAI model to use
name	str	"OpenAIChat"	The name of the model
provider	str	"OpenAI"	The provider of the model
store	Optional[bool]	None	Whether to store the conversation for training purposes
reasoning_effort	Optional[str]	None	The reasoning effort level for o1 models (“low”, “medium”, “high”)
verbosity	Optional[Literal["low", "medium", "high"]]	None	Controls verbosity level of reasoning models
metadata	Optional[Dict[str, Any]]	None	Developer-defined metadata to associate with the completion
frequency_penalty	Optional[float]	None	Penalizes new tokens based on their frequency in the text so far (-2.0 to 2.0)
logit_bias	Optional[Any]	None	Modifies the likelihood of specified tokens appearing in the completion
logprobs	Optional[bool]	None	Whether to return log probabilities of the output tokens
top_logprobs	Optional[int]	None	Number of most likely tokens to return log probabilities for (0 to 20)
max_tokens	Optional[int]	None	Maximum number of tokens to generate (deprecated, use max_completion_tokens)
max_completion_tokens	Optional[int]	None	Maximum number of completion tokens to generate
modalities	Optional[List[str]]	None	List of modalities to use (“text” and/or “audio”)
audio	Optional[Dict[str, Any]]	None	Audio configuration (e.g., {"voice": "alloy", "format": "wav"})
presence_penalty	Optional[float]	None	Penalizes new tokens based on whether they appear in the text so far (-2.0 to 2.0)
seed	Optional[int]	None	Random seed for deterministic sampling
stop	Optional[Union[str, List[str]]]	None	Up to 4 sequences where the API will stop generating further tokens
temperature	Optional[float]	None	Controls randomness in the model’s output (0.0 to 2.0)
user	Optional[str]	None	A unique identifier representing your end-user
top_p	Optional[float]	None	Controls diversity via nucleus sampling (0.0 to 1.0)
service_tier	Optional[str]	None	Service tier to use (“auto”, “default”, “flex”, “priority”)
extra_headers	Optional[Any]	None	Additional headers to include in requests
extra_query	Optional[Any]	None	Additional query parameters to include in requests
extra_body	Optional[Any]	None	Additional body parameters to include in requests
request_params	Optional[Dict[str, Any]]	None	Additional parameters to include in the request
role_map	Optional[Dict[str, str]]	None	Mapping of message roles to OpenAI roles
api_key	Optional[str]	None	The API key for authenticating with OpenAI (defaults to OPENAI_API_KEY env var)
organization	Optional[str]	None	The organization ID to use for requests
base_url	Optional[Union[str, httpx.URL]]	None	The base URL for the OpenAI API
timeout	Optional[float]	None	Request timeout in seconds
max_retries	Optional[int]	None	Maximum number of retries for failed requests
default_headers	Optional[Any]	None	Default headers to include in all requests
default_query	Optional[Any]	None	Default query parameters to include in all requests
http_client	Optional[Union[httpx.Client, httpx.AsyncClient]]	None	HTTP client instance for making requests
client_params	Optional[Dict[str, Any]]	None	Additional parameters for client configuration

OpenAIChat is a subclass of the Model class and has access to the same params.