Background Mode for Long-Running Research Tasks
The Research API now supports a background parameter on POST /v1/research. Set background: true to queue the request as an asynchronous task and receive a task handle immediately, instead of waiting for the final answer inline. Poll GET /v1/research/{task_id} for status and results, or stream real-time progress via GET /v1/research/{task_id}/stream using Server-Sent Events.
Background mode works with deep, exhaustive, and frontier effort levels. It’s the recommended approach when research may exceed client-side timeouts.
New frontier Research Effort Level
A new frontier effort level is available for long-running, deep research tasks that require the maximum compute budget. Frontier is priced at $1,200 per 1k requests, with latency ranging from 30s to 12000s (p50: 300s).
Frontier requires background: true — synchronous requests with research_effort: "frontier" return 422. Structured output via output_schema is supported.