With stream: true enabled, OpenPAI pushes chunks as Server-Sent Events (SSE) , so the client can render as it receives.
Notes:
Each chunk starts with data: and ends with two \n.
A final data: [DONE] is sent to signal the end (the Anthropic / Gemini protocols have no such convention).
The gateway sends a :keep-alive comment line as a heartbeat every 15 seconds; the client doesn’t need to handle it.
Python (openai SDK)
Node.js
Browser / Fetch API
Connecting directly from the browser exposes your API key; in production, forward through your own backend.
Errors during streaming
If the upstream errors mid-stream, it’s sent as SSE:
The client must check the error field, not just the HTTP status code (the streaming response already returned 200 early).
include_usage
With stream_options.include_usage: true, an extra chunk with no content but with usage is sent at the end of the stream, for accounting:
Claude / Gemini streaming
Claude : events come in the order message_start → content_block_start → content_block_delta → content_block_stop → message_delta → message_stop; see Messages .
Gemini : with ?alt=sse, chunks are pushed as data: {...} with no [DONE] terminator — detect the end via finishReason.
Notes
Timeouts : the OpenPAI gateway defaults to 600 seconds; for long outputs ensure your client timeout is long enough too.
Cancel mid-stream : after the client disconnects, the gateway immediately stops the upstream request and settles by tokens already generated .
Proxy / CDN : every intermediate hop must support chunked transfer, or SSE will be buffered.