chat_azure_openai: Chat with a model hosted on Azure OpenAI

In ellmer: Chat with Large Language Models

Chat with a model hosted on Azure OpenAI

Description

The Azure OpenAI server hosts a number of open source models as well as proprietary models from OpenAI.

Built on top of chat_openai_compatible().

Authentication

chat_azure_openai() supports API keys and the credentials parameter, but it also makes use of:

• Azure service principals (when the AZURE_TENANT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_ID, and AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET environment variables are set).

• Interactive Entra ID authentication, like the Azure CLI.

• Viewer-based credentials on Posit Connect. Requires the connectcreds package.

Usage

chat_azure_openai(
  endpoint = azure_endpoint(),
  model,
  params = NULL,
  api_version = NULL,
  system_prompt = NULL,
  api_key = NULL,
  credentials = NULL,
  api_args = list(),
  echo = c("none", "output", "all"),
  api_headers = character(),
  deployment_id = deprecated()
)

Arguments

endpoint	Azure OpenAI endpoint url with protocol and hostname, i.e. ⁠https://{your-resource-name}.openai.azure.com⁠. Defaults to using the value of the AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT environment variable.
model	The deployment id for the model you want to use.
params	Common model parameters, usually created by params().
api_version	The API version to use.
system_prompt	A system prompt to set the behavior of the assistant.
api_key	Use credentials instead.
credentials	Override the default credentials. You generally should not need this argument; instead set the AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable. The best place to set this is in .Renviron, which you can easily edit by calling usethis::edit_r_environ(). If you do need additional control, this argument takes a zero-argument function that returns either a string (the API key), or a named list (added as additional headers to every request).
api_args	Named list of arbitrary extra arguments appended to the body of every chat API call. Combined with the body object generated by ellmer with modifyList().
echo	One of the following options: none: don't emit any output (default when running in a function). output: echo text and tool-calling output as it streams in (default when running at the console). all: echo all input and output. Note this only affects the chat() method.
api_headers	Named character vector of arbitrary extra headers appended to every chat API call.
deployment_id	Use model instead.

Value

A Chat object.

See Also

Other chatbots: chat_anthropic(), chat_aws_bedrock(), chat_cloudflare(), chat_databricks(), chat_deepseek(), chat_github(), chat_google_gemini(), chat_groq(), chat_huggingface(), chat_lmstudio(), chat_mistral(), chat_ollama(), chat_openai(), chat_openai_compatible(), chat_openrouter(), chat_perplexity(), chat_portkey(), chat_posit()

Examples

## Not run: 
chat <- chat_azure_openai(model = "gpt-4o-mini")
chat$chat("Tell me three jokes about statisticians")

## End(Not run)

ellmer documentation built on July 14, 2026, 1:07 a.m.