Quickstart

The Stav API speaks both OpenAI and Anthropic contracts. Pick the SDK you already use, point it at https://api.stav.ai/v1, and you're done.

What you'll need

• A Stav API key. If you don't have one, follow Authentication & API keys first — it takes about two minutes.
• Python 3.9+ or Node 18+ or curl. Pick whichever you're most comfortable in.

Your first completion

curl

curl https://api.stav.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $STAV_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "qwen3-32b",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "In one sentence, what is EU sovereignty for AI?"}
    ]
  }'

You should get a JSON response back with choices[0].message.content containing the answer. The response also carries an X-Stav-Sovereignty-Tier header — for qwen3-32b it will read sovereign, meaning the request ran end-to-end on Stav-hosted infrastructure in the EU.

Python — OpenAI SDK

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.stav.ai/v1",
    api_key="hm_live_...",  # or read from STAV_API_KEY env var
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3-32b",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "In one sentence, what is EU sovereignty for AI?"}
    ],
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

If you've been using openai.com already, the only thing that changes is the base_url. Every other call — streaming, tools, structured output, embeddings — works the same way.

TypeScript — Anthropic SDK

import Anthropic from "@anthropic-ai/sdk";

const client = new Anthropic({
  baseURL: "https://api.stav.ai/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.STAV_API_KEY,
});

const message = await client.messages.create({
  model: "claude-sonnet-4-5",
  max_tokens: 1024,
  messages: [
    { role: "user", content: "In one sentence, what is EU sovereignty for AI?" },
  ],
});

console.log(message.content);

For claude-* models, Stav proxies your request verbatim to Anthropic — all features including cache_control, extended thinking, and beta flags work as-is. For every other catalogue model, Stav translates the Anthropic Messages contract to the OpenAI Chat Completions contract under the hood — same call from your side, different upstream.

Streaming

Pass stream: true (OpenAI) or stream: true (Anthropic). Stav forwards the server-sent events from the upstream in the exact format your SDK expects.

stream = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3-32b",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Tell me a short story about Rjukan."}],
    stream=True,
)

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

Smart Router

Set model="auto" and Stav picks the right model for each request based on prompt classification (complexity, domain, sensitivity) and your team's routing policy. The response includes a routing_metadata field showing what was picked and why.

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="auto",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Refactor this Python function..."}],
)

print(response.routing_metadata.selected_model)  # e.g. "llama-4-maverick:precision"
print(response.routing_metadata.reason)
# "complexity=high, code=true, sensitive=false → llama-4-maverick:precision"

Next steps

• Authentication & API keys — scopes, rotation, the IP allowlist.
• Sovereignty — what the three tiers (sovereign, routed-commercial, ) actually guarantee.