Vercel AI SDK - Portkey Docs

Portkey seamlessly integrates with the Vercel AI SDK, enabling you to build production-ready AI applications with enterprise-grade reliability, observability, and governance. Simply point the OpenAI provider to Portkey’s gateway and unlock powerful features:

Full-stack observability - Complete tracing and analytics for every request
250+ LLMs - Switch between OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock, and 250+ models
Enterprise reliability - Fallbacks, load balancing, automatic retries, and circuit breakers
Smart caching - Reduce costs up to 80% with semantic and simple caching
Production guardrails - 50+ built-in checks for safety and quality
Prompt management - Version, test, and deploy prompts from Portkey’s studio

Migrated from @portkey-ai/vercel-provider?We’ve updated our integration to use Vercel’s standard OpenAI provider for better compatibility with the rapidly evolving Vercel AI SDK. This new approach gives you access to all Vercel features while maintaining full Portkey functionality.

Quick Start

1. Installation

npm install ai @ai-sdk/openai

2. Get Your Portkey API Key

3. Configure the OpenAI Provider

Point the OpenAI provider to Portkey’s gateway:

import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY', // Your Portkey API key
});

4. Use Any Model

Use models from your AI Providers with the @provider-slug/model-name format:

import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'Write a vegetarian lasagna recipe for 4 people.',
});

console.log(text);

That’s it! Your Vercel AI SDK app now has full Portkey observability and reliability features.

Core Features

Text Generation

Generate text with any model using generateText:

import { generateText } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'Write a haiku about coding.',
});

Use openai() for OpenAI’s completion models and openai.chat() for chat completion models from any provider (Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock, etc.).

Streaming Text

Stream responses in real-time with streamText:

import { streamText } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const result = streamText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'Tell me about the Mission burrito debate in San Francisco.',
});

for await (const chunk of result.fullStream) {
  if (chunk.type === 'text-delta') {
    process.stdout.write(chunk.textDelta);
  }
}

Structured Data Generation

Generate validated, structured outputs with generateObject:

import { generateObject } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const result = await generateObject({
  model: openai.chat('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  schemaName: 'Recipe',
  schemaDescription: 'A recipe for a dish.',
  schema: z.object({
    name: z.string(),
    ingredients: z.array(
      z.object({
        name: z.string(),
        amount: z.string(),
      })
    ),
    steps: z.array(z.string()),
  }),
  prompt: 'Generate a lasagna recipe.',
});

console.log(result.object);

Tool Calling

Enable your AI to use tools and functions:

import { generateText, tool } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  tools: {
    weather: tool({
      description: 'Get the weather in a location',
      inputSchema: z.object({
        location: z.string().describe('The location to get the weather for'),
      }),
      execute: async ({ location }) => ({
        location,
        temperature: 72 + Math.floor(Math.random() * 21) - 10,
      }),
    }),
  },
  prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco?',
});

console.log(result.text);
console.log('Tool Calls:', result.toolCalls);

Image Generation

Generate images with DALL-E or other image models:

import { experimental_generateImage as generateImage } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const { image } = await generateImage({
  model: openai.image('@openai-prod/dall-e-3'),
  prompt: 'Santa Claus driving a Cadillac',
  size: '1024x1024',
  quality: 'standard',
});

console.log('Image URL:', image);

AI Agents

Build autonomous agents with tool usage and reasoning:

import { Experimental_Agent as Agent, tool, stepCountIs } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const weatherAgent = new Agent({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  tools: {
    weather: tool({
      description: 'Get the weather in a location (in Fahrenheit)',
      inputSchema: z.object({
        location: z.string().describe('The location to get the weather for'),
      }),
      execute: async ({ location }) => ({
        location,
        temperature: 72 + Math.floor(Math.random() * 21) - 10,
      }),
    }),
    convertFahrenheitToCelsius: tool({
      description: 'Convert temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius',
      inputSchema: z.object({
        temperature: z.number().describe('Temperature in Fahrenheit'),
      }),
      execute: async ({ temperature }) => ({
        celsius: Math.round((temperature - 32) * (5 / 9)),
      }),
    }),
  },
  stopWhen: stepCountIs(20),
});

const result = await weatherAgent.generate({
  prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco in celsius?',
});

console.log('Agent\'s answer:', result.text);
console.log('Steps taken:', result.steps.length);

Custom Parameters

Fine-tune model behavior with temperature, tokens, and retries:

import { generateText } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const result = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  maxOutputTokens: 512,
  temperature: 0.3,
  maxRetries: 5,
  prompt: 'Invent a new holiday and describe its traditions.',
});

console.log(result.text);

Portkey Headers

Enhance your requests with Portkey’s powerful headers:

Trace ID

Track and debug requests with custom trace IDs:

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
  headers: {
    'x-portkey-trace-id': 'user-123-session-456',
  },
});

Metadata

Add custom metadata for filtering and analytics:

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
  headers: {
    'x-portkey-metadata': JSON.stringify({
      environment: 'production',
      user: 'user-123',
      feature: 'chat',
    }),
  },
});

Configs via Headers

Apply Portkey configs using the config ID or inline JSON:

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
  headers: {
    'x-portkey-config': 'pp-config-xxx', // Your config ID
  },
});

Learn more about Portkey Headers

Using AI Providers & Model Catalog

Portkey’s Model Catalog lets you manage all your AI providers and models from a centralized dashboard with governance, budget limits, and access controls.

Setting Up Providers

Go to the Model Catalog in Portkey dashboard
Click “Add Provider” and choose your AI service (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
Add your API credentials
Give your provider a unique slug (e.g., @openai-prod)

Using Provider Models

Reference models using the @provider-slug/model-name format:

// Use your configured providers
const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),        // OpenAI
  prompt: 'Hello!',
});

const { text: claudeText } = await generateText({
  model: openai.chat('@anthropic-prod/claude-3-5-sonnet'),  // Anthropic
  prompt: 'Hello!',
});

const { text: geminiText } = await generateText({
  model: openai.chat('@google-prod/gemini-2.0-flash'),  // Google
  prompt: 'Hello!',
});

Model Catalog

Centralized management for all your AI providers and models

Budget & Rate Limits

Set spending controls and rate limits for your providers

Portkey Configs

Portkey Configs enable advanced routing, reliability, and governance for your AI requests. You can apply configs in two ways:

Method 1: Inline in Model Name

Reference a saved prompt or config directly in the model name:

import { generateText } from 'ai';
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

// Use a saved prompt with config
const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('@my-prompt-config/gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'User query here',
});

Method 2: Via Headers

Pass config ID or inline config via headers:

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
  headers: {
    'x-portkey-config': 'pp-config-xxx', // Your saved config ID
  },
});

Enterprise Features

Observability & Analytics

Get complete visibility into your AI operations with automatic request logging, performance metrics, and cost tracking:

Every request through Portkey is automatically logged with:

Request/response payloads - Full tracing of inputs and outputs
Performance metrics - Latency, tokens, and throughput
Cost tracking - Real-time spend across all providers
Error monitoring - Automatic error detection and alerts

Observability

Explore Portkey’s full observability suite

AI Gateway Features

Portkey’s AI Gateway makes your AI applications production-ready with enterprise reliability:

Fallbacks

Automatic failover between models and providers

Load Balancing

Distribute traffic across multiple providers

Automatic Retries

Smart retry logic for transient failures

Caching

Reduce costs by 80% with semantic caching

Request Timeouts

Handle unresponsive requests gracefully

Conditional Routing

Route requests based on custom logic

AI Gateway

View all gateway features and capabilities

Guardrails

Enforce safety, quality, and compliance with real-time guardrails:

{
  "before_request_hooks": [{
    "id": "input-guardrail-xxx"
  }],
  "after_request_hooks": [{
    "id": "output-guardrail-xxx"
  }]
}

Portkey offers 50+ built-in guardrails including:

PII detection and redaction
Toxic content filtering
Prompt injection protection
Custom regex and keyword filters
Sensitive data detection

Guardrails

Set up real-time safety and compliance checks

Prompt Management

Manage, version, and deploy prompts from Portkey’s Prompt Studio:

Prompt Playground

Test prompts across 250+ models side-by-side

Prompt Versioning

Version control for all your prompts

Prompt Library

Centralized prompt repository

Prompt API

Deploy prompts via API endpoints

Migration Guide

From `@portkey-ai/vercel-provider`

If you’re migrating from the old Portkey Vercel provider package: Before:

import { createPortkey } from '@portkey-ai/vercel-provider';

const portkey = createPortkey({
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
  config: { /* ... */ }
});

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: portkey.chatModel('gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'Hello',
});

After:

import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';

const openai = createOpenAI({
  baseURL: 'https://api.portkey.ai/v1',
  apiKey: 'YOUR_PORTKEY_API_KEY',
});

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: openai('@openai-prod/gpt-4o'),
  prompt: 'Hello',
});

Key Changes:

Use @ai-sdk/openai instead of @portkey-ai/vercel-provider
Set baseURL to Portkey’s gateway
Reference models using @provider-slug/model-name format
Pass configs via headers or inline in model names

Benefits:

✅ Better compatibility with Vercel AI SDK updates
✅ Access to all Vercel AI SDK features immediately
✅ Simpler setup with standard OpenAI provider
✅ More flexible config management

Support & Resources

API Reference

Complete API documentation

Discord Community

Get help from the community

Contact Support

Reach out to our team

GitHub

Contribute to Portkey Gateway

Ecosystem

LLM Integrations

Cloud Platforms

Guardrails

Plugins

Vector Databases

Agents

AI Apps

Libraries

Tracing Providers

MCP Clients

MCP Servers

​Quick Start

​1. Installation

​2. Get Your Portkey API Key

​3. Configure the OpenAI Provider

​4. Use Any Model

​Core Features

​Text Generation

​Streaming Text

​Structured Data Generation

​Tool Calling

​Image Generation

​AI Agents

​Custom Parameters

​Portkey Headers

​Trace ID

​Metadata

​Configs via Headers

Learn more about Portkey Headers

​Using AI Providers & Model Catalog

​Setting Up Providers

​Using Provider Models

Model Catalog

Budget & Rate Limits

​Portkey Configs

​Method 1: Inline in Model Name

​Method 2: Via Headers

​Enterprise Features

​Observability & Analytics

Observability

​AI Gateway Features

Fallbacks

Load Balancing

Automatic Retries

Caching

Request Timeouts

Conditional Routing

AI Gateway

​Guardrails

Guardrails

​Prompt Management

Prompt Playground

Prompt Versioning

Prompt Library

Prompt API

​Migration Guide

​From @portkey-ai/vercel-provider

​Support & Resources

API Reference

Discord Community

Contact Support

GitHub

Quick Start

1. Installation

2. Get Your Portkey API Key

3. Configure the OpenAI Provider

4. Use Any Model

Core Features

Text Generation

Streaming Text

Structured Data Generation

Tool Calling

Image Generation

AI Agents

Custom Parameters

Portkey Headers

Trace ID

Metadata

Configs via Headers

Using AI Providers & Model Catalog

Setting Up Providers

Using Provider Models

Portkey Configs

Method 1: Inline in Model Name

Method 2: Via Headers

Enterprise Features

Observability & Analytics

AI Gateway Features

Guardrails

Prompt Management

Migration Guide

From `@portkey-ai/vercel-provider`

Support & Resources