Perplexity

The Perplexity API provides chat completion models with built-in search capabilities, citations, and structured output support. Perplexity follows OpenAI's chat completion API format - see our OpenAI documentation for the base API details.

Setup

1. Get an API key from your Perplexity Settings
2. Set the PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable or specify apiKey in your config

Supported Models

Model	Context Length	Description	Use Case
sonar-pro	200k	Chat completion model with 8k max output tokens	Long-form content, complex reasoning
sonar	127k	Chat completion model	General purpose, search-augmented responses

Basic Configuration

providers:
  - id: perplexity:sonar-pro
    config:
      temperature: 0.7
      max_tokens: 4000

  - id: perplexity:sonar
    config:
      temperature: 0.2
      max_tokens: 8000
      search_domain_filter: ['wikipedia.org', 'nature.com', '-reddit.com'] # Include wikipedia/nature, exclude reddit
      search_recency_filter: 'week' # Only use recent sources

Unique Features

Search and Citations

Perplexity models automatically search the internet and cite sources. You can control this with:

• search_domain_filter: List of domains to include/exclude (prefix with - to exclude)
• search_recency_filter: Time filter for sources ('month', 'week', 'day', 'hour')
• return_related_questions: Get follow-up question suggestions

Structured Output (Beta, sonar only)

Get responses in specific formats using JSON Schema or Regex patterns:

providers:
  - id: perplexity:sonar
    config:
      response_format:
        type: 'json_schema'
        json_schema:
          schema:
            type: 'object'
            properties:
              title: { type: 'string' }
              year: { type: 'integer' }
              summary: { type: 'string' }
            required: ['title', 'year', 'summary']

Note: First request with a new schema may take 10-30 seconds to prepare.

Additional Perplexity-specific options:

• return_images (default: false) - Include images in responses
• return_related_questions (default: false) - Get follow-up questions

Best Practices

• Use sonar-pro for tasks requiring deep analysis or long outputs
• Use sonar for factual queries that benefit from up-to-date information
• Set search_domain_filter to trusted domains for higher quality citations
• Consider search_recency_filter for time-sensitive topics