perplexity-deploy-integration

Perplexity Deploy Integration

Overview

Deploy applications using Perplexity Sonar API to edge and server platforms. Perplexity's OpenAI-compatible endpoint at https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions works from any platform that can make HTTPS requests.

Prerequisites

• Perplexity API key stored in PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
• Platform CLI installed (vercel, gcloud, or docker)
• Application tested locally

Instructions

Step 1: Vercel Edge Function

// api/search.ts
import OpenAI from "openai";

export const config = { runtime: "edge" };

const perplexity = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.PERPLEXITY_API_KEY!,
  baseURL: "https://api.perplexity.ai",
});

export default async function handler(req: Request) {
  const { query, model = "sonar", stream = false } = await req.json();

  if (stream) {
    const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
      model,
      messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
      stream: true,
      max_tokens: 2048,
    });

    return new Response(response.toReadableStream(), {
      headers: { "Content-Type": "text/event-stream" },
    });
  }

  const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
    model,
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
    max_tokens: 2048,
  });

  return Response.json({
    answer: response.choices[0].message.content,
    citations: (response as any).citations || [],
    model: response.model,
  });
}

set -euo pipefail
# Deploy to Vercel
vercel env add PERPLEXITY_API_KEY production
vercel deploy --prod

Step 2: Cloud Run with Redis Cache

// server.ts
import express from "express";
import OpenAI from "openai";
import { createClient } from "redis";
import { createHash } from "crypto";

const app = express();
app.use(express.json());

const perplexity = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.PERPLEXITY_API_KEY!,
  baseURL: "https://api.perplexity.ai",
});

const redis = createClient({ url: process.env.REDIS_URL });
await redis.connect();

app.post("/api/search", async (req, res) => {
  const { query, model = "sonar" } = req.body;
  const cacheKey = `pplx:${createHash("sha256").update(`${model}:${query}`).digest("hex")}`;

  // Check cache first
  const cached = await redis.get(cacheKey);
  if (cached) {
    return res.json({ ...JSON.parse(cached), cached: true });
  }

  const response = await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
    model,
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }],
    max_tokens: 2048,
  });

  const result = {
    answer: response.choices[0].message.content,
    citations: (response as any).citations || [],
    model: response.model,
    tokens: response.usage?.total_tokens,
  };

  // Cache for 1 hour
  await redis.setEx(cacheKey, 3600, JSON.stringify(result));
  res.json(result);
});

app.listen(8080);

set -euo pipefail
# Deploy to Cloud Run
gcloud secrets create perplexity-api-key --data-file=<(echo -n "$PERPLEXITY_API_KEY")
gcloud run deploy perplexity-search \
  --source . \
  --set-secrets=PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=perplexity-api-key:latest \
  --port=8080 \
  --allow-unauthenticated

Step 3: Docker

FROM node:20-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --production
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

ENV NODE_ENV=production
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["node", "dist/server.js"]

Step 4: Vercel Configuration

{
  "functions": {
    "api/search.ts": {
      "maxDuration": 30
    }
  }
}

Step 5: Health Check

app.get("/health", async (req, res) => {
  const start = Date.now();
  try {
    await perplexity.chat.completions.create({
      model: "sonar",
      messages: [{ role: "user", content: "ping" }],
      max_tokens: 5,
    });
    res.json({ status: "healthy", latencyMs: Date.now() - start });
  } catch {
    res.status(503).json({ status: "unhealthy", latencyMs: Date.now() - start });
  }
});

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Edge function timeout	sonar-pro takes >30s	Use sonar or increase maxDuration
Cache stale for news	TTL too long	Use search_recency_filter + shorter TTL
API key invalid after deploy	Wrong secret reference	Verify vercel env ls or gcloud secrets
Stream interrupted	Client disconnect	Handle abort signal gracefully

Output

• Deployed API endpoint serving Perplexity search
• Cached responses with configurable TTL
• Health check endpoint
• Platform-specific secret management

Resources

• Perplexity API Documentation
• Vercel Edge Functions
• Cloud Run Docs

Next Steps

For multi-environment setup, see perplexity-multi-env-setup.