---
title: Advanced Features
product: vercel
url: /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/anthropic-messages-api/advanced
type: conceptual
prerequisites:
  - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis/anthropic-messages-api
  - /docs/ai-gateway/sdks-and-apis
related:
  - /docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/provider-timeouts
  - /docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/automatic-caching
summary: Advanced Anthropic API features including extended thinking, web search, and automatic caching.
install_vercel_plugin: npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin
---

# Advanced Features

## Extended thinking

Configure extended thinking for models that support chain-of-thought reasoning. The `thinking` parameter allows you to control how reasoning tokens are generated and returned.

Example request

#### TypeScript

```typescript filename="thinking.ts"
import Anthropic from '@anthropic-ai/sdk';

const apiKey = process.env.AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY || process.env.VERCEL_OIDC_TOKEN;

const anthropic = new Anthropic({
  apiKey,
  baseURL: 'https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh',
});

const message = await anthropic.messages.create({
  model: 'anthropic/claude-opus-4.6',
  max_tokens: 2048,
  thinking: {
    type: 'enabled',
    budget_tokens: 5000,
  },
  messages: [
    {
      role: 'user',
      content: 'Explain quantum entanglement in simple terms.',
    },
  ],
});

for (const block of message.content) {
  if (block.type === 'thinking') {
    console.log('🧠 Thinking:', block.thinking);
  } else if (block.type === 'text') {
    console.log('💬 Response:', block.text);
  }
}
```

#### Python

```python filename="thinking.py"
import os
import anthropic

api_key = os.getenv('AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY') or os.getenv('VERCEL_OIDC_TOKEN')

client = anthropic.Anthropic(
    api_key=api_key,
    base_url='https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh'
)

message = client.messages.create(
    model='anthropic/claude-opus-4.6',
    max_tokens=2048,
    thinking={
        'type': 'enabled',
        'budget_tokens': 5000,
    },
    messages=[
        {
            'role': 'user',
            'content': 'Explain quantum entanglement in simple terms.'
        }
    ],
)

for block in message.content:
    if block.type == 'thinking':
        print('🧠 Thinking:', block.thinking)
    elif block.type == 'text':
        print('💬 Response:', block.text)
```

### Thinking parameters

- **`type`**: Set to `'enabled'` to enable extended thinking
- **`budget_tokens`**: Maximum number of tokens to allocate for thinking

### Response with thinking

When thinking is enabled, the response includes thinking blocks:

```json
{
  "id": "msg_123",
  "type": "message",
  "role": "assistant",
  "content": [
    {
      "type": "thinking",
      "thinking": "Let me think about how to explain quantum entanglement...",
      "signature": "anthropic-signature-xyz"
    },
    {
      "type": "text",
      "text": "Quantum entanglement is like having two magic coins..."
    }
  ],
  "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4.6",
  "stop_reason": "end_turn",
  "usage": {
    "input_tokens": 15,
    "output_tokens": 150
  }
}
```

## Web search

Use the built-in web search tool to give the model access to current information from the web.

Example request

#### TypeScript

```typescript filename="web-search.ts"
import Anthropic from '@anthropic-ai/sdk';

const apiKey = process.env.AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY || process.env.VERCEL_OIDC_TOKEN;

const anthropic = new Anthropic({
  apiKey,
  baseURL: 'https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh',
});

const message = await anthropic.messages.create({
  model: 'anthropic/claude-opus-4.6',
  max_tokens: 2048,
  tools: [
    {
      type: 'web_search_20250305',
      name: 'web_search',
    },
  ],
  messages: [
    {
      role: 'user',
      content: 'What are the latest developments in quantum computing?',
    },
  ],
});

for (const block of message.content) {
  if (block.type === 'text') {
    console.log(block.text);
  } else if (block.type === 'web_search_tool_result') {
    console.log('Search results received');
  }
}
```

#### Python

```python filename="web-search.py"
import os
import anthropic

api_key = os.getenv('AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY') or os.getenv('VERCEL_OIDC_TOKEN')

client = anthropic.Anthropic(
    api_key=api_key,
    base_url='https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh'
)

message = client.messages.create(
    model='anthropic/claude-opus-4.6',
    max_tokens=2048,
    tools=[
        {
            'type': 'web_search_20250305',
            'name': 'web_search',
        }
    ],
    messages=[
        {
            'role': 'user',
            'content': 'What are the latest developments in quantum computing?'
        }
    ],
)

for block in message.content:
    if block.type == 'text':
        print(block.text)
    elif block.type == 'web_search_tool_result':
        print('Search results received')
```

## Provider timeouts

You can set per-provider timeouts for BYOK credentials to trigger fast failover when a provider is slow to respond. Pass `providerTimeouts` in `providerOptions.gateway`:

```json
"providerOptions": {
  "gateway": {
    "providerTimeouts": {
      "byok": { "anthropic": 3000, "bedrock": 5000 }
    }
  }
}
```

For full details, limits, and response metadata, see [Provider Timeouts](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/provider-timeouts).

## Automatic caching

Use `caching: 'auto'` in `providerOptions.gateway` to let AI Gateway automatically add `cache_control` breakpoints for Anthropic models. This removes the need to manually mark cacheable content.

For full details, supported providers, and examples, see [Automatic Caching](/docs/ai-gateway/models-and-providers/automatic-caching).


---

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