Create a Message

Input messages.

Models are trained to operate on alternating user and assistant conversational turns. When creating a new Message, you specify the prior conversational turns with the messages parameter, and the model then generates the next Message in the conversation. Consecutive user or assistant turns in your request will be combined into a single turn.

Each input message must be an object with a role and content. You can specify a single user-role message, or you can include multiple user and assistant messages.

If the final message uses the assistant role, the response content will continue immediately from the content in that message. This can be used to constrain part of the model's response.

Example with a single user message:

[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]

Example with multiple conversational turns:

[
  {"role": "user", "content": "Hello there."},
  {"role": "assistant", "content": "Hi, I'm here to help. How can I help you?"},
  {"role": "user", "content": "Can you explain LLMs in plain English?"},
]

Example with a partially-filled response from the model:

[
  {"role": "user", "content": "What's the Greek name for Sun? (A) Sol (B) Helios (C) Sun"},
  {"role": "assistant", "content": "The best answer is ("},
]

Each input message content may be either a single string or an array of content blocks, where each block has a specific type. Using a string for content is shorthand for an array of one content block of type "text". The following input messages are equivalent:

{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}

{"role": "user", "content": [{"type": "text", "text": "Hello"}]}

See input examples.

Note that if you want to include a system prompt, you can use the top-level system parameter — there is no "system" role for input messages in the Messages API.

There is a limit of 100,000 messages in a single request.

Custom text sequences that will cause the model to stop generating.

Models will normally stop when they have naturally completed their turn, which will result in a response stop_reason of "end_turn".

If you want the model to stop generating when it encounters custom strings of text, you can use the stop_sequences parameter. If the model encounters one of the custom sequences, the response stop_reason value will be "stop_sequence" and the response stop_sequence value will contain the matched stop sequence.

Definitions of tools that the model may use.

If you include tools in your API request, the model may return tool_use content blocks that represent the model's use of those tools. You can then run those tools using the tool input generated by the model and then optionally return results back to the model using tool_result content blocks.

Each tool definition includes:

• name: Name of the tool.
• description: Optional, but strongly-recommended description of the tool.
• input_schema: JSON schema for the tool input shape that the model will produce in tool_use output content blocks.

For example, if you defined tools as:

[
  {
    "name": "get_stock_price",
    "description": "Get the current stock price for a given ticker symbol.",
    "input_schema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "ticker": {
          "type": "string",
          "description": "The stock ticker symbol, e.g. AAPL for Apple Inc."
        }
      },
      "required": ["ticker"]
    }
  }
]

And then asked the model "What's the S&P 500 at today?", the model might produce tool_use content blocks in the response like this:

[
  {
    "type": "tool_use",
    "id": "toolu_01D7FLrfh4GYq7yT1ULFeyMV",
    "name": "get_stock_price",
    "input": { "ticker": "^GSPC" }
  }
]

You might then run your get_stock_price tool with {"ticker": "^GSPC"} as an input, and return the following back to the model in a subsequent user message:

[
  {
    "type": "tool_result",
    "tool_use_id": "toolu_01D7FLrfh4GYq7yT1ULFeyMV",
    "content": "259.75 USD"
  }
]

Tools can be used for workflows that include running client-side tools and functions, or more generally whenever you want the model to produce a particular JSON structure of output.

See the guide for more details.

Content generated by the model.

This is an array of content blocks, each of which has a type that determines its shape.

Example:

[{"type": "text", "text": "Hi, I'm here to help."}]

If the request input messages ended with an assistant turn, then the response content will continue directly from that last turn. You can use this to constrain the model's output.

For example, if the input messages were:

[
  {"role": "user", "content": "What's the Greek name for Sun? (A) Sol (B) Helios (C) Sun"},
  {"role": "assistant", "content": "The best answer is ("}
]

Then the response content might be:

[{"type": "text", "text": "B)"}]