Skip to main content

Getting Started

The Vector Inference Platform is available to all Vector Institute community members. For an up-to-date list of available models and their specifications, visit inference.vectorinstitute.ai.

Getting an API Key

Access is managed via invite links. To get started:

  1. Request access via the Slack channel #vector-inference-platform. The AI Engineering team will create your account and send you an invite email.
  2. Click the link in the invite email. It is valid for 48 hours and takes you to the Vector Proxy dashboard.
  3. Your API key is generated and displayed once — copy and save it immediately. The key will not be shown again.

API keys have the format vp_xxxxxxxx.yyyyyy....

Prerequisites

Install the OpenAI Python client:

pip install openai

Usage

The platform exposes an OpenAI-compatible API at https://proxy.vectorinstitute.ai/v1. You can useUse it as a drop-in replacement for any OpenAI client by changing the base_url and model parameters.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://proxy.vectorinstitute.ai/v1",
    api_key="<your-api-key>vp_xxxxxxxx.yyyyyy..."
)

stream = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="<model-id>",  # see inference.vectorinstitute.ai for available models
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain attention mechanisms in transformers."}],
    stream=True,
)

for chunk in stream:
    if chunk.choices:
        print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="", flush=True)

You can also use curl:

curl https://proxy.vectorinstitute.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <your-api-key>vp_xxxxxxxx.yyyyyy..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "<model-id>",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Getting an API Key

API keys are managed by the AI Engineering team. To request access, reach out via the Slack channel #vector-inference-platform.

Listing Available Models

You can retrieveRetrieve the current list of enabled models programmatically via the API:programmatically:

curl https://proxy.vectorinstitute.ai/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <your-api-key>vp_xxxxxxxx.yyyyyy..."

Or simply visit inference.vectorinstitute.ai for a visual overview.

Back to top