Ox Alpha chat completions: Step-by-Step API Setup Guide

Ox Alpha chat completions provide a server-side API interface for sending conversational messages to the stealth/ox-alpha model. The basic request uses JSON and requires two fields: model and messages. Optional controls can adjust reasoning, output length, sampling, and tool behavior.

The integration is designed around a familiar chat-completion structure. Each message includes a role and content, allowing applications to send user prompts and, when needed, system or assistant context. This makes the endpoint suitable for chat interfaces, internal tools, automation workflows, and structured application features.

The official Ox Alpha API documentation describes the required request structure, authentication headers, available parameters, and successful response format.

The API key should remain on a trusted server or protected backend. Do not place a production key in browser JavaScript, public repositories, mobile bundles, or other client-side packages that users can inspect.

Authentication uses a Tokenra API key in the Authorization header. The value follows the Bearer token convention. Requests should also declare JSON content with Content-Type: application/json.

The HTTP-Referer and X-Title headers are optional metadata. They can identify the application or provide provider-ranking context, but they are not listed as required headers for a basic request.

A minimal JavaScript pattern can keep the endpoint configurable without hard-coding deployment details:

const response = await fetch(process.env.CHAT_COMPLETIONS_URL, {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.TOKENRA_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    model: "stealth/ox-alpha",
    messages: [
      {
        role: "user",
        content: "What AI model are you?"
      }
    ]
  })
})

const data = await response.json()
const answer = data.choices?.[0]?.message?.content

The required request body is intentionally small, but Ox Alpha supports several optional controls. Use them selectively because each parameter changes how the application handles generation.

max_tokens limits the maximum number of generated tokens. temperature changes sampling variety, while top_p limits selection to a cumulative probability range. The documented defaults are 1 for temperature and 0.95 for top-p. top_k defaults to 0 and can limit the number of candidate tokens considered at each generation step.

Reasoning is controlled through an object rather than a standalone Boolean. Set reasoning.enabled to true when the application needs the provider to return reasoning-related fields and the selected service supports them.

A practical configuration should match the task:

• For classification or extraction, favor constrained output and a conservative sampling setup.
• For brainstorming, allow more sampling variety while keeping a reasonable output limit.
• For tool calling, define the tool schema clearly and validate returned arguments before execution.
• For reasoning-enabled requests, decide which returned fields should be stored, displayed, or omitted.

A successful response uses the chat-completion structure. The generated assistant message is located at choices[0].message.content. The response also includes an identifier, object type, creation timestamp, selected model, provider information, completion status, and usage details.

When reasoning is enabled and available, inspect choices[0].message.reasoning and choices[0].message.reasoning_details. These fields may contain provider-supplied reasoning output and should be handled according to the privacy, security, and product requirements of your application.

The finish_reason field explains why generation stopped. A value such as stop indicates normal completion, while a token-limit state signals that the configured output limit may have been reached.

Use defensive parsing rather than assuming every optional property is present. A valid application should handle an empty choices array, a missing content value, an unavailable reasoning field, and an unexpected finish state without crashing.

Before releasing an Ox Alpha integration, verify the request path, secret handling, response parser, and operational safeguards. Test both ordinary completions and edge cases such as empty output, long prompts, tool calls, or incomplete generation.

For ongoing maintenance, keep the endpoint configuration separate from application logic. Log request identifiers and completion states where appropriate, but avoid recording sensitive prompts, API keys, or provider-returned reasoning unless there is a clear operational need.