How to pass API key to OpenAI provider?

[AVGVSTVS96]

I wasn't able to find anything in docs about this. createOpenAI exists to create "a customized setup", one of it's parameters is an API key. That's what I'm currently using, and it works, but what is the purpose of the default provider instance openai if I can't pass an API key to it? Am I misunderstanding something?

This is what I attempted:

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

export const prerender = false;

export async function POST(context) {
  const { prompt, messages }: { prompt: string; messages: any[] } =
    await context.request.json();

const openai = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: import.meta.env.OPENAI_API_KEY
});

  const result = await streamText({
    model: openai('gpt-4'),
    system: 'You are a helpful assistant.',
    messages,
  });

  return result.toAIStreamResponse();
}

This doesn't work, error: openai is not a function.

What am I missing?

createOpenAI does work in this way in my application, but then how is openai supposed to work?

[doureyd]

I think you are not using the right function try :

import { createOpenAI } from "@ai-sdk/openai"

const openai = createOpenAI({ apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY })

[AVGVSTVS96]

Yes, that's what I've been using. What I don't understand is how the default provider instance openai is supposed to be used if it can't be passed an api key?

[lgrammel]

It uses the environment variable "OPENAI_API_KEY" by default. However, not all environments automatically add it from the system environment (if it's set there) or from a .env file.

[AVGVSTVS96]

Interesting, would it work in an Astro/vite project? When i tried it in my project It didn't automatically pick up the api key from my .env, is there anything I can do to make it work? Where can I find more information on how this works?

[lgrammel]

That's why there is the option to set it explicitly. In such an environment, you'd use something along the lines of:

import { createOpenAI } from "@ai-sdk/openai"

const openai = createOpenAI({ apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY })

where you'd replace process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY with your way of getting the key.

[AVGVSTVS96]

Yeah that's what I'm using now, i'm just curious in what cases is it possible for this functionality to work automatically, and what is it about my case that is not allowing that to happen? Is it Vite? Where can I learn more about this?

[lgrammel]

It depends on your setup and how environment variables are loaded in that setup.