--- title: OpenResponses Reasoning with AI Gateway product: vercel url: /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/reasoning canonical_url: "https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/reasoning" last_updated: 2026-09-08 type: reference prerequisites: - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis related: - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses - /docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/structured-outputs - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/streaming summary: Control how much a reasoning model thinks before answering with the OpenResponses API through AI Gateway. install_vercel_plugin: npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin --- # OpenResponses Reasoning with AI Gateway Reasoning models work through a problem before answering. With the [OpenResponses API](/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses), set the `reasoning` object to control how much thinking the model does. AI Gateway translates it to each provider's native reasoning configuration, so the same request shape works across providers. ## Related pages > **For AI agents:** Follow these links to understand how this page connects to the rest of the Vercel ecosystem. For the full cross-link map (inbound, outbound, prerequisites, and semantic neighbors), see the .graph.md link below. - [OpenAI Responses Reasoning with AI Gateway](https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/responses/reasoning?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=related) — Control how much a model thinks before answering with the OpenAI Responses API through AI Gateway. - [AI Gateway OpenAI Reasoning](https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning/openai?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=related) — Configure reasoning and thinking for OpenAI models with the AI SDK and AI Gateway. - [OpenAI Chat Completions Reasoning with AI Gateway](https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openai-chat-completions/reasoning?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=related) — Control how much a model thinks before answering with the OpenAI Chat Completions API through AI Gateway. - [Anthropic Messages Extended Thinking with AI Gateway](https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/anthropic-messages-api/reasoning?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=related) — Configure how much Claude thinks before answering, using the Anthropic Messages API thinking parameter through AI Gatewa - [AI Gateway Amazon Bedrock Reasoning](https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning/amazon-bedrock?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=related) — Configure reasoning for models hosted on Amazon Bedrock with the AI SDK and AI Gateway. Full cross-link map for this page: [/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/reasoning.graph.md](/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/reasoning.graph.md?from=related&source_path=%2Fdocs%2Fai-gateway%2Fsdks-and-apis%2Fopenresponses%2Freasoning&source_site=vercel-docs&relationship=graph) #### TypeScript ```typescript filename="reasoning.ts" {18-20} const apiKey = process.env.AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY; const response = await fetch('https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/responses', { method: 'POST', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', Authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}`, }, body: JSON.stringify({ model: 'openai/gpt-6-astra', input: [ { type: 'message', role: 'user', content: 'A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?', }, ], reasoning: { effort: 'high', }, }), }); const result = await response.json(); console.log(result.usage.output_tokens_details.reasoning_tokens); ``` #### Python ```python filename="reasoning.py" {22-24} import os import requests api_key = os.environ["AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY"] response = requests.post( "https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/responses", headers={ "Content-Type": "application/json", "Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}", }, json={ "model": "openai/gpt-6-astra", "input": [ { "type": "message", "role": "user", "content": "A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?", } ], "reasoning": { "effort": "high", }, }, ) result = response.json() print(result["usage"]["output_tokens_details"]["reasoning_tokens"]) ``` #### cURL ```bash filename="reasoning.sh" {13-15} curl -X POST "https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/responses" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "model": "openai/gpt-6-astra", "input": [ { "type": "message", "role": "user", "content": "A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?" } ], "reasoning": { "effort": "high" } }' ``` ## Effort levels Set `reasoning.effort` to request relative reasoning depth. The HTTP schema accepts `none`, `minimal`, `low`, `medium`, `high`, `xhigh`, and `max`. Choose a model-supported value from the `effort` entry in [`GET /v1/models`](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning#discover-model-reasoning-support). The catalog doesn't provide a structured default. AI Gateway translates shared effort for the serving provider. Some routes map it to token budgets or a smaller set of native levels. In cross-provider translation, `max` can map to `xhigh`; Anthropic adaptive thinking can retain `max`. See [API-format differences](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning#reasoning-levels) and [provider-specific options](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning#provider-specific-configuration) when exact native control matters. ## Reasoning summaries Set `reasoning.summary` to `auto` to ask for a readable summary of the model's thinking alongside the answer: ```json {2-5} { "reasoning": { "effort": "low", "summary": "auto" } } ``` ## Reading the response When the provider reports reasoning, the `output` array can contain a `reasoning` item and `usage` can report reasoning tokens: ```typescript {3} const result = await response.json(); const reasoning = result.output.find( (item: { type: string }) => item.type === 'reasoning', ); const message = result.output.find( (item: { type: string }) => item.type === 'message', ); console.log(result.usage.output_tokens_details.reasoning_tokens); for (const block of message.content) { if (block.type === 'output_text') console.log(block.text); } ``` > **💡 Note:** The raw chain of thought isn't returned. A `reasoning` item may carry an > `encrypted_content` field rather than readable text, so treat it as an opaque > value to pass back rather than something to display. Use `summary: "auto"` > to request readable text on models that support summaries. An empty summary > doesn't prove that reasoning was disabled. ## Next steps - [Reasoning](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/reasoning) - Per-provider configuration and the full effort reference - [Structured outputs](/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/structured-outputs) - Constrain the answer to a schema - [Streaming](/docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/openresponses/streaming) - Stream tokens as they're generated --- [View full sitemap](/docs/sitemap)