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

Model	ID	Context	Best For
Command A	command-a-03-2025	256K	Latest, most capable
Command R+	command-r-plus-08-2024	128K	Complex RAG, agents
Command R	command-r-08-2024	128K	RAG, cost-effective
Command R7B	command-r7b-12-2024	128K	Fast, lightweight
Embed English v4	embed-v4.0	128K	Embeddings (EN)
Embed Multilingual v3	embed-multilingual-v3.0	512	Embeddings (100+ langs)
Rerank v3.5	rerank-v3.5	4K	Search reranking

Output

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

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
CohereApiError: invalid api token	Wrong or expired key	Regenerate at dashboard.cohere.com
CohereConnectionError	Network blocked	Ensure HTTPS to api.cohere.com allowed
429 Too Many Requests	Trial rate limit hit	Wait 60s or upgrade to production key
MODULE_NOT_FOUND cohere-ai	Package not installed	Run npm install cohere-ai

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.