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Streaming Response Best Practices

Streaming responses can return model-generated content in real-time, suitable for chat, real-time translation, and similar scenarios.

Enable Streaming​

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-4o",
    messages=[...],
    stream=True  # Enable streaming
)

Best Practices​

  1. Handle Initial Latency: The first chunk may take 1–3 seconds. Consider showing a loading state.
  2. Error Handling: Capture and handle errors in streaming responses as well.
  3. Connection Management: Set reasonable timeout values (recommended 60 seconds).
  4. Token Statistics: Token statistics for streaming responses are returned in the last chunk.

Common Questions​

Does streaming affect billing?

No. Streaming and non-streaming responses are billed identically.