# Introducing the Agent API — A Managed Runtime for Agentic Workflows

**URL:** <https://community.perplexity.ai/t/introducing-the-agent-api-a-managed-runtime-for-agentic-workflows/4733>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Created:** [March 11, 2026, 10:00am UTC](https://community.perplexity.ai/t/introducing-the-agent-api-a-managed-runtime-for-agentic-workflows/4733 "2026-03-11T10:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kesku](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/community.perplexity.ai/kesku/32/898_2.png) [@Kesku](https://community.perplexity.ai/u/Kesku)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2026, 10:00am UTC](https://community.perplexity.ai/t/introducing-the-agent-api-a-managed-runtime-for-agentic-workflows/4733/1 "2026-03-11T10:00:00Z")

</div>

The Agent API is now live at `POST /v1/agent`.

It’s a single endpoint for building agentic workflows with integrated search, tool execution, and multi-model orchestration. Swap between the latest frontier models, configure presets, tool access, step limits, and token budgets — all from one endpoint.

### Presets

Skip the configuration and use a curated preset:

| Preset | Best For |
| --- | --- |
| `fast-search` | Quick factual lookups |
| `pro-search` | Balanced multi-step research |
| `deep-research` | Deep multi-source analysis |
| `advanced-deep-research` | Institutional-grade research |

```python
from perplexity import Perplexity

client = Perplexity()
response = client.responses.create(
    preset="pro-search",
    input="Compare current open-source LLM evaluation benchmarks."
)
print(response.output_text)

```

### Key Features

- **Multi-provider models** — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, and Perplexity’s own Sonar, all at direct provider pricing with no markup
- **Built-in tools** — `web_search` ($0.005/call) and `fetch_url` ($0.0005/call) for real-time web grounding
- **Custom function calling** — Define your own tools to connect the model to your databases, APIs, and business logic
- **Model fallback chains** — Pass a list of models and we’ll try them in order
- **Structured outputs** — JSON Schema enforcement for predictable downstream parsing
- **OpenAI compatible** — The `/v1/responses` path is accepted as an alias, so the OpenAI SDK works out of the box by pointing `base_url` to `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1`

### OpenAI SDK Compatibility

```python
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key="YOUR_PERPLEXITY_API_KEY",
    base_url="https://api.perplexity.ai/v1"
)

response = client.responses.create(
    model="openai/gpt-5.1",
    input="What are the latest developments in AI?"
)
print(response.output_text)

```

### Get Started

- [Quickstart](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/quickstart)
- [Models & Pricing](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/models)
- [Presets](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/presets)
- [Tools & Function Calling](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/tools)
- [API Reference](https://docs.perplexity.ai/api-reference/agent-post)
- [Blog Post](https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/agent-api-a-managed-runtime-for-agentic-workflows)