OpenAI

Configure DB-GPT to use OpenAI's GPT models and embedding models.

Prerequisites

• An OpenAI API key
• DB-GPT installed with proxy_openai extra

Install dependencies

uv sync --all-packages \
  --extra "base" \
  --extra "proxy_openai" \
  --extra "rag" \
  --extra "storage_chromadb" \
  --extra "dbgpts"

Configuration

Edit configs/dbgpt-proxy-openai.toml:

[models]
[[models.llms]]
name = "gpt-4o"
provider = "proxy/openai"
api_base = "https://api.openai.com/v1"
api_key = "sk-your-openai-api-key"

[[models.embeddings]]
name = "text-embedding-3-small"
provider = "proxy/openai"
api_url = "https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings"
api_key = "sk-your-openai-api-key"

Use environment variables

Instead of hardcoding your API key, use environment variables:

api_key = "${env:OPENAI_API_KEY}"

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-your-openai-api-key"

Available models

LLMs

Model	Config name	Notes
GPT-4o	gpt-4o	Recommended — best quality
GPT-4o mini	gpt-4o-mini	Faster and cheaper
GPT-4 Turbo	gpt-4-turbo	Previous generation
GPT-3.5 Turbo	gpt-3.5-turbo	Budget option

Embeddings

Model	Config name	Dimensions
text-embedding-3-small	text-embedding-3-small	1536
text-embedding-3-large	text-embedding-3-large	3072
text-embedding-ada-002	text-embedding-ada-002	1536

Start the server

uv run dbgpt start webserver --config configs/dbgpt-proxy-openai.toml

Azure OpenAI

To use Azure OpenAI, change the api_base to your Azure endpoint:

[[models.llms]]
name = "gpt-4o"
provider = "proxy/openai"
api_base = "https://your-resource.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/your-deployment"
api_key = "your-azure-api-key"

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
AuthenticationError	Check that your API key is valid and has billing enabled
RateLimitError	Reduce request frequency or upgrade your OpenAI plan
Connection timeout	Check network connectivity; configure proxy if needed
Model not found	Verify the model name matches OpenAI's current offerings

What's next

• Getting Started — Full setup walkthrough
• Config Reference — All configuration options
• More Proxy LLMs — Additional API providers