Perplexity

Troubleshooting

If requests fail, run zero doctor check-connector --env-name PERPLEXITY_TOKEN or zero doctor check-connector --url https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions --method POST

How to Use

1. Chat Completions (Recommended)

AI-powered Q&A with web search and citations. OpenAI SDK compatible.

Basic query with sonar model:

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "What is the current price of Bitcoin?"}
  ]
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

With system prompt:

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "system", "content": "Be precise and concise. Answer in bullet points."},
    {"role": "user", "content": "What are the latest developments in AI?"}
  ]
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

Advanced query with sonar-pro:

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar-pro",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Compare the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy flagship phones"}
  ],
  "temperature": 0.2,
  "web_search_options": {
    "search_context_size": "high"
  }
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

2. Search with Domain Filter

Limit search to specific domains.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Latest research on transformer architectures"}
  ],
  "search_domain_filter": ["arxiv.org", "openai.com", "anthropic.com"]
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

Exclude domains (add `-` prefix):

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Best programming practices"}
  ],
  "search_domain_filter": ["-reddit.com", "-quora.com"]
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

3. Search with Time Filter

Filter by recency.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Major tech news"}
  ],
  "search_recency_filter": "week"
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

Filter by date range:

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "AI announcements"}
  ],
  "search_after_date_filter": "12/01/2024",
  "search_before_date_filter": "12/31/2024"
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

4. Academic Search

Search academic sources.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Recent papers on large language model alignment"}
  ],
  "search_mode": "academic"
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

5. Raw Search API

Get raw search results without AI synthesis.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "query": "Claude AI Anthropic",
  "max_results": 5
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/search" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

With domain and time filters:

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "query": "machine learning tutorials",
  "max_results": 10,
  "search_domain_filter": ["github.com", "medium.com"],
  "search_recency_filter": "month",
  "country": "US"
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/search" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

6. Deep Research (Long-form)

For comprehensive research reports.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar-deep-research",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Write a comprehensive analysis of the electric vehicle market in 2024"}
  ],
  "reasoning_effort": "high"
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

7. Reasoning Model

For complex problem-solving.

Write to /tmp/perplexity_request.json:

{
  "model": "sonar-reasoning-pro",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Analyze the pros and cons of microservices vs monolithic architecture for a startup"}
  ]
}

Then run:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" --header "Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_TOKEN" --header "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/perplexity_request.json

Models

Response Format

Chat completions return:

{
  "id": "uuid",
  "model": "sonar",
  "choices": [
  {
  "message": {
  "role": "assistant",
  "content": "The answer with [1] citations..."
  }
  }
  ],
  "citations": ["https://source1.com", "https://source2.com"],
  "search_results": [
  {
  "title": "Source Title",
  "url": "https://source.com",
  "snippet": "Relevant excerpt..."
  }
  ],
  "usage": {
  "prompt_tokens": 10,
  "completion_tokens": 150,
  "total_tokens": 160
  }
}

Guidelines

1. Model Selection: Use sonar for simple queries, sonar-pro for complex ones 2. Cost Optimization: Lower search_context_size reduces costs (low/medium/high) 3. Domain Filters: Limit to 20 domains max; use - prefix to exclude 4. Recency Filters: Options are day, week, month, year 5. Temperature: Lower (0.1-0.3) for factual queries, higher for creative 6. Rate Limits: Vary by tier; check https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/rate-limits-usage-tiers 7. Citations: Response includes numbered citations [1] that map to citations array