LM Studio API
LM Studio's REST API for local inference and model management
LM Studio offers a powerful REST API with first-class support for local inference and model management. In addition to our native API, we provide OpenAI-compatible endpoints (learn more) and Anthropic-compatible endpoints (learn more).
What's new
Previously, there was a v0 REST API. With LM Studio 0.4.0, we have officially released our native v1 REST API at /api/v1/* endpoints and recommend using it.
The v1 REST API includes enhanced features such as:
- MCP via API
- Stateful chats
- Authentication configuration with API tokens
- Model download, load and unload endpoints
Supported endpoints
The following endpoints are available in LM Studio's v1 REST API.
| Endpoint | Method | Docs |
|---|---|---|
/api/v1/chat | POST | Chat |
/api/v1/models | GET | List Models |
/api/v1/models/load | POST | Load |
/api/v1/models/unload | POST | Unload |
/api/v1/models/download | POST | Download |
/api/v1/models/download/status | GET | Download Status |
Inference endpoint comparison
The table below compares the features of LM Studio's /api/v1/chat endpoint with OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible inference endpoints.
| Feature | /api/v1/chat | /v1/responses | /v1/chat/completions | /v1/messages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Streaming | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Stateful chat | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Remote MCPs | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| MCPs you have in LM Studio | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Custom tools | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Include assistant messages in the request | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Model load streaming events | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Prompt processing streaming events | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Specify context length in the request | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Please report bugs by opening an issue on Github.