Use_threads is removed?

General
,
1

I’ve run into an issue with the Perplexity API and wanted to check whether anyone else has seen this.

This request works fine:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer pplx-..." \
  --data '{
    "model": "sonar-pro",
    "use_threads": false,
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Which movie won the Cannes film festival special jury prize in 1996?"
      }
    ],
    "stream": false,
    "web_search_options": {
      "search_type": "pro"
    }
  }'

I get a valid response.

However, if I change just one parameter:

"use_threads": true

the API responds with:

{"error":{"message":"Unauthorized","type":"unauthorized","code":401}}

A few things that make this confusing:

  • This exact example with use_threads used to be present in the Perplexity documentation.

  • It has since been removed.

  • I can’t find any up-to-date explanation of how threading is supposed to work now.

  • The response I got at the time came from an Perplexity Agent support agent and did not provide any meaningful or actionable explanation.

Questions:

  1. Is use_threads still supported?

  2. Does enabling threads require additional permissions, a different endpoint, or a different auth scope?

  3. Is this expected behavior or a bug in the API?

  4. What is the current, recommended way to handle conversation threads in Perplexity?