GPT 5.6 Sol
GPT 5.6 Sol is the flagship of the GPT-5.6 family and the most capable of the three GPT-5.6 models on AI Gateway, with stronger agentic work across coding, biology, and cybersecurity than the previous generation, better token efficiency, and a context window of 1.1M tokens. Your use is subject to OpenAI's Terms & Privacy Policies.
View API reference- Input and output price50% off
- Prices from: Input $2, Output $10, Per 1M tokens
- 24h uptime
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import { streamText } from 'ai'
const result = streamText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?'})Copy link to headingPlayground
Try out GPT 5.6 Sol by OpenAI. Usage is billed to your team at API rates. Free users (those who haven't made a payment) get $5 of credits every 30 days.
GPT 5.6 Sol
Copy link to headingProviders
Route requests across multiple providers. Copy a provider slug to set your preference. Visit the docs for more info. Using a provider means you agree to their terms, listed under Legal.
| Provider |
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Copy link to headingUptime24 hours
Direct request success rate on AI Gateway and per-provider. Visit the docs for more info.
Copy link to headingThroughput24 hours
P50 throughput on live AI Gateway traffic, in tokens per second (TPS). Visit the docs for more info.
Copy link to headingLatency24 hours
P50 time to first token (TTFT) on live AI Gateway traffic, in milliseconds. View the docs for more info.
Getting started
Call GPT 5.6 Sol through AI Gateway with the AI SDK generateText and streamText functions, or through the OpenAI Chat Completions, OpenAI Responses, and Anthropic Messages APIs by changing the base URL. AI Gateway authenticates the request and routes it to an available provider.
Install the AI SDK (pnpm add ai dotenv), create an API key from the API Keys page, and set it as AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY in your environment. Full setup is covered in the text generation quickstart.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?', });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Top-level parameters
The same GPT 5.6 Sol request in each API format AI Gateway supports.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', system: 'You are a concise technical assistant.', prompt: 'Summarize the tradeoffs between static generation and SSR.', maxOutputTokens: 1024, });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Standard parameters like prompt, messages, temperature, and tools work as documented in the AI SDK docs. These are the parameters with model-specific behavior.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
model | string | Yes | Model ID in the form creator/model, e.g. openai/gpt-5.6-sol. AI Gateway routes the request to an available provider. |
maxOutputTokens | number | No | Hard cap on generated tokens. GPT 5.6 Sol supports up to 128,000 output tokens. Reasoning tokens count toward this limit. |
reasoning | 'provider-default' | 'none' | 'minimal' | 'low' | 'medium' | 'high' | 'xhigh' | No | Provider-agnostic reasoning effort, available in AI SDK 7 or later. Maps to the provider’s native reasoning configuration; reasoning settings under providerOptions take precedence when both are set. See the Reasoning section below. |
providerOptions | Record<string, JSONValue> | No | AI Gateway routing options under gateway, plus any provider-native options under the provider’s own namespace — see the table below. |
Input limits
| Input | Formats | Sources | Max count | Max size | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | — | — | — | — | Prompt and response share the 1.1M-token context window |
| Image | — | URL, base64, Uint8Array | — | — | Sent as image parts in messages; counts as input tokens |
| — | URL, base64, Uint8Array | — | — | Sent as file parts in messages; counts as input tokens |
Provider options
Set AI Gateway routing options under providerOptions.gateway. For provider-specific options, pass them under the provider’s namespace as documented by the AI SDK.
Learn more in the AI SDK openai provider docs.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?', providerOptions: { gateway: { only: ['openai', 'azure'], }, }, });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);These AI Gateway routing options apply to every model. Provider-specific options pass through under the provider’s own namespace (for example providerOptions.anthropic) exactly as documented by the AI SDK.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
providerOptions.gateway.only | string[] | No | Restrict routing to these provider slugs. Requests fail over only within the listed providers. |
providerOptions.gateway.order | string[] | No | Preferred provider order. Listed providers are tried first; unlisted providers remain available as fallbacks. |
providerOptions.gateway.sort | 'cost' | 'ttft' | 'tps' | No | Rank candidate providers by price, time to first token, or tokens per second instead of the default routing order. |
providerOptions.gateway.zeroDataRetention | boolean | No | Route only to providers with a zero-data-retention policy for this model. |
Routing across providers
AI Gateway serves the same model through multiple providers and fails over automatically. order expresses a preference while keeping every provider eligible; only is a hard allowlist — if none of the listed providers are available the request fails instead of falling back.
Options under a provider's own namespace (for example providerOptions.anthropic) are forwarded to that provider with the request. Providers ignore option namespaces that don't apply to them, so it is safe to set provider options alongside gateway routing options.
Reasoning
AI Gateway bridges reasoning across every API format. The AI SDK exposes a provider-agnostic top-level reasoning level (none, minimal, low, medium, high, or xhigh); the Chat Completions and Responses formats take the same effort under reasoning.effort; and the Anthropic Messages format uses a native thinking token budget. Whichever you send, the gateway maps it to the target model’s native configuration, converting between effort levels and token budgets as needed. Reasoning-related settings under providerOptions take full precedence over the top-level reasoning value and are never merged. Reasoning tokens typically count toward your output-token usage, though how they’re reported and billed varies by provider.
Learn more in the AI Gateway reasoning guide.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', prompt: 'Explain the Monty Hall problem step by step.', reasoning: 'high', });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Image input
Send images alongside text as message parts. Images count as input tokens.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', messages: [ { role: 'user', content: [ { type: 'text', text: 'Describe this image.' }, { type: 'image', image: 'https://example.com/photo.jpg' }, ], }, ], });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);PDF input
Attach PDFs as file parts. Their contents count as input tokens.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', messages: [ { role: 'user', content: [ { type: 'text', text: 'Summarize this document.' }, { type: 'file', mediaType: 'application/pdf', data: 'https://example.com/document.pdf', }, ], }, ], });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Tool calling
Expose tools the model can call. Define each tool’s inputs with a Zod schema.
import { generateText, tool } from 'ai';import { z } from 'zod';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol', prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco?', tools: { getWeather: tool({ description: 'Get the current weather for a location', inputSchema: z.object({ location: z.string() }), execute: async ({ location }) => ({ location, temperatureC: 18 }), }), }, });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Fast mode
GPT 5.6 Sol can run in fast mode for lower latency by appending -fast to the model ID.
import { generateText } from 'ai';import 'dotenv/config';
async function main() { const result = await generateText({ model: 'openai/gpt-5.6-sol-fast', prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?', });
console.log(result.text);}
main().catch(console.error);Copy link to headingAbout GPT 5.6 Sol
GPT 5.6 Sol became available on AI Gateway on July 9, 2026, alongside GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.6 Luna. All three GPT-5.6 models handle agentic work across coding, biology, and cybersecurity better than the previous generation, and all three use fewer tokens to reach an answer. GPT 5.6 Sol is the most capable of the set.
OpenAI positions GPT 5.6 Sol as the frontier model of the family for complex professional work. It corresponds to the unsuffixed tier of earlier GPT-5 families, so teams running a standard GPT-5.5 model today are looking at the direct successor. OpenAI routes the gpt-5.6 alias to GPT 5.6 Sol.
GPT 5.6 Sol accepts text and image input and returns text. The context window is 1.1M tokens, with up to 128K tokens of output per request. Reasoning tokens, streaming, function calling, and structured outputs are supported, along with web search, file search, code interpreter, computer use, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools through the Responses API. A fast mode is available when you want quicker responses from the same model, and it got faster after launch. See the live metrics on this page for current throughput.
Set the model to openai/gpt-5.6-sol in the AI SDK, the Chat Completions API, the Responses API, or another supported API format, from TypeScript or Python. AI Gateway routing rules can also rewrite an existing model slug to openai/gpt-5.6-sol, which moves production traffic onto GPT 5.6 Sol without a code change. List pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.2. AI Gateway mirrors provider pricing with no markup and adds no platform fee on inference, including for Bring Your Own Key requests.
Copy link to headingWhat To Consider When Choosing a Provider
- Configuration: GPT 5.6 Sol sits at the top of the GPT-5.6 lineup, so it carries the highest list price of the three. Route your hardest agentic and research requests here and send routine turns to GPT-5.6 Terra or GPT-5.6 Luna. A small routing layer keyed on task complexity keeps the cost profile predictable.
- Configuration: Token efficiency improved across the GPT-5.6 family, so a request can finish in fewer tokens than the previous generation needed. Pricing splits into short-context and long-context rates, and very large prompts bill at the long-context rate. Read the pricing panel on this page before you routinely fill the context window of 1.1M tokens.
- Zero Data Retention: Zero Data Retention is available for this model. It is offered on a per-provider and model basis. See the documentation for details.
- Authentication: AI Gateway authenticates requests using an API key or OIDC token. You do not need to manage provider credentials directly.
Copy link to headingWhen to Use GPT 5.6 Sol
Best for
- Agentic Coding Workflows: Multi-step engineering tasks where smaller tiers stall and the flagship finishes the job
- Security and Biology Research: Two domains the GPT-5.6 family improved over the previous generation
- Long-Context Analysis: Whole repositories, filings, or research corpora that fit inside the context window
- Tool-Heavy Agents: Web search, file search, code interpreter, computer use, and MCP tools in one pipeline
- Quality-Critical Traffic: Requests where the answer ceiling decides the outcome rather than the unit cost
Consider alternatives when
- Everyday Production Traffic: GPT-5.6 Terra balances intelligence against cost across routine work
- High-Volume Cost Control: GPT-5.6 Luna carries the lowest price in the GPT-5.6 family
- Autonomous Coding Agents: GPT-5.x codex variants target sandboxed software engineering directly
- Live Voice Interfaces: The gpt-realtime family handles speech-to-speech conversation natively
Copy link to headingConclusion
GPT 5.6 Sol is the top of the GPT-5.6 lineup: the most capable of the three models, stronger on agentic coding, biology, and cybersecurity than the previous generation, and more token efficient. Send it the work a mid-tier model cannot close, and route the rest to GPT-5.6 Terra or GPT-5.6 Luna.
Copy link to headingFrequently Asked Questions
What is GPT 5.6 Sol built for?
Complex professional work. OpenAI positions GPT 5.6 Sol as the frontier model of the GPT-5.6 family, with agentic gains over the previous generation in coding, biology, and cybersecurity.
How does GPT 5.6 Sol compare with GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.6 Luna?
GPT 5.6 Sol is the most capable of the three. GPT-5.6 Terra balances intelligence against cost for everyday work, and GPT-5.6 Luna handles fast, cost-sensitive traffic at the lowest price in the family.
What context window and output limit does GPT 5.6 Sol support?
1.1M tokens, with up to 128K tokens of output per request. That covers full repositories, long document sets, and extended agent histories in a single call.
What inputs does GPT 5.6 Sol accept?
Text and images, with text output. Audio and video input are not supported, so route voice work to the gpt-realtime family instead.
Which APIs can I use to call GPT 5.6 Sol?
Set the model to
openai/gpt-5.6-solin the AI SDK, the Chat Completions API, the Responses API, or another supported API format. AI Gateway accepts each format and routes the request.Can I move existing traffic to GPT 5.6 Sol without changing my code?
Yes. Add an AI Gateway routing rule that rewrites your current model slug to
openai/gpt-5.6-sol. Requests keep their existing code path and land on GPT 5.6 Sol.What does GPT 5.6 Sol cost?
List pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.2. Short-context and long-context requests are priced separately, and AI Gateway mirrors provider pricing with no markup.
Does GPT 5.6 Sol support zero data retention through AI Gateway?
Yes, Zero Data Retention is available for this model. Zero Data Retention is offered on a per-provider basis. See https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/capabilities/zdr for details.
What are typical latency characteristics?
This page shows live throughput and time-to-first-token metrics measured across real AI Gateway traffic. GPT 5.6 Sol also offers a fast mode for quicker responses from the same model.