# Observability for Cohere with Opik

> Start here to integrate Opik into your Cohere-based genai application for end-to-end LLM observability, unit testing, and optimization.

[Cohere](https://cohere.com/) provides state-of-the-art large language models that excel at text generation, summarization, classification, and retrieval-augmented generation.

This guide explains how to integrate Opik with Cohere using the OpenAI SDK Compatibility API. By using the `track_openai` method provided by opik with Cohere's compatibility endpoint, you can easily track and evaluate your Cohere API calls within your Opik projects as Opik will automatically log the input prompt, model used, token usage, and response generated.

## Getting Started

### Configuring Opik

To start tracking your Cohere LLM calls, you'll need to have both `opik` and `openai` packages installed. You can install them using pip:

```bash
pip install opik openai
```

In addition, you can configure Opik using the `opik configure` command which will prompt you for the correct local server address or if you are using the Cloud platform your API key:

```bash
opik configure
```

### Configuring Cohere

You'll need to set your Cohere API key as an environment variable:

```bash
export COHERE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
```

## Tracking Cohere API calls

Leverage the OpenAI Compatibility API by replacing the base URL with Cohere's endpoint when initializing the client:

```python
import os
from opik.integrations.openai import track_openai
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key=os.environ.get("COHERE_API_KEY"),
    base_url="https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1"  # Cohere Compatibility API endpoint
)

client = track_openai(client)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="command-r7b-12-2024",  # Replace with the desired Cohere model
    messages=[
        {"role": "system", "content": "You are an assistant."},
        {"role": "user", "content": "Why is tracking and evaluation of LLMs important?"}
    ],
    temperature=0.7,
    max_tokens=100
)

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

The `track_openai` will automatically track and log the API call, including the input prompt, model used, and response generated. You can view these logs in your Opik project dashboard.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://files.buildwithfern.com/https://opik.docs.buildwithfern.com/docs/opik/2026-01-30T17:33:07.444Z/img/tracing/cohere_integration.png" />
</Frame>

## Using Cohere within a tracked function

If you are using Cohere within a function tracked with the [`@track`](/tracing/log_traces#using-function-decorators) decorator, you can use the tracked client as normal:

```python
from opik import track
from opik.integrations.openai import track_openai
from openai import OpenAI
import os

client = OpenAI(
    api_key=os.environ.get("COHERE_API_KEY"),
    base_url="https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1"
)
tracked_client = track_openai(client)

@track
def generate_story(prompt):
    response = tracked_client.chat.completions.create(
        model="command-r7b-12-2024",
        messages=[
            {"role": "user", "content": prompt}
        ]
    )
    return response.choices[0].message.content

@track
def generate_topic():
    prompt = "Generate a topic for a story about Opik."
    response = tracked_client.chat.completions.create(
        model="command-r7b-12-2024",
        messages=[
            {"role": "user", "content": prompt}
        ]
    )
    return response.choices[0].message.content

@track
def generate_opik_story():
    topic = generate_topic()
    story = generate_story(topic)
    return story

generate_opik_story()
```

<Frame>
  <img src="https://files.buildwithfern.com/https://opik.docs.buildwithfern.com/docs/opik/2026-01-30T17:33:07.444Z/img/tracing/cohere_trace_decorator.png" />
</Frame>

## Supported Cohere models

The `track_openai` wrapper with Cohere's compatibility API supports the following Cohere models:

* `command-r7b-12-2024` - Command R 7B model
* `command-r-plus` - Command R Plus model
* `command-r` - Command R model
* `command-light` - Command Light model
* `command` - Command model

## Supported OpenAI methods

The `track_openai` wrapper supports the following OpenAI methods when used with Cohere:

* `client.chat.completions.create()`, including support for stream=True mode
* `client.beta.chat.completions.parse()`
* `client.beta.chat.completions.stream()`
* `client.responses.create()`

If you would like to track another OpenAI method, please let us know by opening an issue on [GitHub](https://github.com/comet-ml/opik/issues).