Cohere Install & Auth

Overview

Set up the Cohere SDK (v2) and configure authentication for Chat, Embed, Rerank, and Classify endpoints.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ or Python 3.10+
• Package manager (npm, pnpm, or pip)
• Cohere account at dashboard.cohere.com
• API key from Cohere dashboard (trial keys are free, production keys require billing)

Instructions

Step 1: Install SDK

# Node.js / TypeScript
npm install cohere-ai

# Python
pip install cohere

Step 2: Configure API Key

# Set environment variable
export CO_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

# Or create .env file (add .env to .gitignore!)
echo 'CO_API_KEY=your-api-key-here' >> .env

Key types:

• Trial key — free, rate-limited (5-20 calls/min per endpoint, 1000/month others)
• Production key — metered billing, 1000 calls/min all endpoints, unlimited monthly

Step 3: Verify Connection (TypeScript)

import { CohereClientV2 } from 'cohere-ai';

const cohere = new CohereClientV2({
  token: process.env.CO_API_KEY,
});

async function verify() {
  const response = await cohere.chat({
    model: 'command-a-03-2025',
    messages: [
      { role: 'user', content: 'Say "connection verified" and nothing else.' },
    ],
  });
  console.log('Status:', response.message?.content?.[0]?.text);
}

verify().catch(console.error);

Step 4: Verify Connection (Python)

import cohere
import os

co = cohere.ClientV2(api_key=os.environ.get("CO_API_KEY"))

response = co.chat(
    model="command-a-03-2025",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "Say 'connection verified' and nothing else."}
    ],
)
print("Status:", response.message.content[0].text)

Available Models

Output

• Installed cohere-ai (TS) or cohere (Python) package
• Environment variable CO_API_KEY configured
• Verified API connectivity with a chat completion

Error Handling

Examples

Use a local secret store or CI secret injection, then fail fast before issuing a request if the key was not supplied. The check prevents an accidental unauthenticated request while keeping the credential out of source control and logs.

import { CohereClientV2 } from 'cohere-ai';

const token = process.env.CO_API_KEY;
if (!token) throw new Error('CO_API_KEY is required; configure it in the secret manager');

const client = new CohereClientV2({ token });
const result = await client.chat({
  model: 'command-r7b-12-2024',
  messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Reply with OK.' }],
  maxTokens: 5,
});
console.log(result.message?.content?.[0]?.text);

For a CI verification, inject CO_API_KEY only into the trusted job that needs it, mask it in the runner, and rotate it immediately if it appears in an artifact or log.

SDK Auto-Detection

The SDK reads CO_API_KEY automatically if set. You can skip the token param:

// Auto-reads CO_API_KEY from environment
const cohere = new CohereClientV2();

Resources

• Cohere API v2 Reference
• Cohere Dashboard
• Cohere Models Overview
• API Key & Rate Limits

Next Steps

After successful auth, proceed to cohere-hello-world for your first real API call.