gpt-4o-search-preview and gpt-4o-mini-search-preview chat completion models

[simonw]

Since gpt-4o-search-preview and gpt-4o-mini-search-preview are separate models I think it makes sense to support them directly as model selections (chat completions only). I'll file a new tickt for that.

Originally posted by @simonw in #831

• https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/tools-web-search?api-mode=chat&lang=curl
• https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-4o-search-preview
• https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-4o-mini-search-preview

[simonw]

This is likely blocked on:

• Annotations abstraction for responses that are not just a stream of plain text #716

Because that's needed to obey the OpenAI requirement to:

When displaying web results or information contained in web results to end users, inline citations must be made clearly visible and clickable in your user interface.

[simonw]

Need to support some options:

        "web_search_options": {
            "search_context_size": "low"
        },

That's low or medium or high which has a big impact on price: https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing#web-search

        "web_search_options": {
            "user_location": {
                "type": "approximate",
                "approximate": {
                    "country": "GB",
                    "city": "London",
                    "region": "London"
                }
            }
        },

Also accepts timezone.

[simonw]

Streaming output from OpenAI looks like this:

curl -X POST "https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-type: application/json" \
    -d '{
        "model": "gpt-4o-search-preview",
        "stream": true,
        "web_search_options": {},
        "messages": [{
            "role": "user",
            "content": "What was a positive news story from today?"
        }]
    }'

Truncated:

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-3d393fb6-508b-4ae0-90bc-6fddbd84e9d8","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":1742342019,"model":"gpt-4o-search-preview-2025-03-11","service_tier":"default","system_fingerprint":"","choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{"role":"assistant","content":"","refusal":null},"finish_reason":null}]}

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-3d393fb6-508b-4ae0-90bc-6fddbd84e9d8","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":1742342019,"model":"gpt-4o-search-preview-2025-03-11","service_tier":"default","system_fingerprint":"","choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{"content":"As"},"finish_reason":null}]}

...

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-3d393fb6-508b-4ae0-90bc-6fddbd84e9d8","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":1742342019,"model":"gpt-4o-search-preview-2025-03-11","service_tier":"default","system_fingerprint":"","choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{"annotations":[{"type":"url_citation","url_citation":{"end_index":432,"start_index":358,"title":"2025","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"}},{"type":"url_citation","url_citation":{"end_index":812,"start_index":738,"title":"2025","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"}},{"type":"url_citation","url_citation":{"end_index":1141,"start_index":1067,"title":"2025","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"}}]},"finish_reason":"stop"}]}

data: [DONE]

The citations all came back in that last data chunk:

{
    "id": "chatcmpl-3d393fb6-508b-4ae0-90bc-6fddbd84e9d8",
    "object": "chat.completion.chunk",
    "created": 1742342019,
    "model": "gpt-4o-search-preview-2025-03-11",
    "service_tier": "default",
    "system_fingerprint": "",
    "choices": [
        {
            "index": 0,
            "delta": {
                "annotations": [
                    {
                        "type": "url_citation",
                        "url_citation": {
                            "end_index": 432,
                            "start_index": 358,
                            "title": "2025",
                            "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "url_citation",
                        "url_citation": {
                            "end_index": 812,
                            "start_index": 738,
                            "title": "2025",
                            "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "url_citation",
                        "url_citation": {
                            "end_index": 1141,
                            "start_index": 1067,
                            "title": "2025",
                            "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025?utm_source=openai"
                        }
                    }
                ]
            },
            "finish_reason": "stop"
        }
    ]
}

Full output here: https://gist.github.com/simonw/a3bf3c6ea865195268ccab612d6008a1