Venice AI API: First request in five minutes

Base URL and Authentication

Start by creating an account at the Get API key page. You only need an email and a password; no credit card is required to receive the $0.50 trial credit valid for seven days. Your API key is displayed immediately after signup and can be regenerated at any time, which revokes the old key.

Use the base URL https://api.veniceapialternative.com/v1 with the official OpenAI SDKs or any OpenAI-compatible client. Set your API key as the bearer token in the Authorization header. This venice ai api endpoint replaces the default OpenAI base URL in your client configuration.

First Request

Send a simple chat completion request to test the connection. The model ID is always uncensored. This open-weight model runs on our GPU servers and is tuned to answer without content refusals for lawful adult use.

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key. The response returns text output based on your prompt.

Copycurl https://api.veniceapialternative.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "uncensored",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Write a blunt product review of a cheap VPN."}]
  }'

Python SDK Example

Install the OpenAI Python library and configure it to use our base URL. This allows you to leverage existing codebases that expect OpenAI endpoints.

Copyfrom openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.veniceapialternative.com/v1", api_key="YOUR_KEY")

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="uncensored",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise this thread without softening it."}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

Node SDK Example

For Node.js environments, use the openai package. Initialize the client with the custom base URL and your API key. This ensures all requests route through the venice ai api infrastructure.

Copyimport OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({ baseURL: "https://api.veniceapialternative.com/v1", apiKey: process.env.API_KEY });

const resp = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "uncensored",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Draft a villain monologue for my game." }],
});
console.log(resp.choices[0].message.content);

Streaming Responses

Enable streaming by setting stream: true in your request. The API returns Server-Sent Events (SSE) for real-time token delivery. This is useful for chat interfaces that need to display text as it generates.

Copystream = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="uncensored",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Tell the story in second person."}],
    stream=True,
)
for chunk in stream:
    if chunk.choices and chunk.choices[0].delta.content:
        print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content, end="", flush=True)

Rate Limits and Constraints

The uncensored model supports a 100,000-token context window for prompt and completion combined. You are limited to 300 requests per minute per API key. Request bodies must not exceed 8 MB.

Common errors include 401 (invalid key), 402 (insufficient credit), and 429 (rate limit exceeded). Top up prepaid credit starting at $10; credits never expire. No monthly subscription locks your usage.