README.md

metadata

title: Using External Apis
emoji: 🌖
colorFrom: yellow
colorTo: purple
sdk: gradio
sdk_version: 6.14.0
app_file: app.py
pinned: false
license: mit
short_description: using-external-apis

Using external APIs (OpenAI) on Hugging Face Spaces

This Space runs a small Gradio app with two tabs that both call OpenAI Chat Completions the same way a student would in a notebook—once with plain HTTP (requests) and once with Hugging Face’s client (huggingface_hub.InferenceClient).

Official Space configuration reference: Spaces config reference.

How to use the app

1. Set your API key (see Secrets below). Without OPENAI_API_KEY, the app will raise when it reads the environment variable.
2. Open the Space and pick a tab:
   • requests — builds a POST to https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions with JSON model + messages and a Bearer token header. Useful when you are teaching REST, curl, or reading OpenAI’s HTTP docs side by side with the code.
   • huggingface_hub — creates an InferenceClient aimed at OpenAI’s /v1 base URL and calls chat.completions.create(...). The request shape matches the “OpenAI-style” chat API described in the huggingface_hub inference guide.
3. Type a question, submit, and read the answer in the output box. Both tabs use the same model name (MODEL in app.py).

Secrets: OPENAI_API_KEY

• In the Space: Settings → Variables and secrets (or Repository secrets depending on UI), add a secret named exactly OPENAI_API_KEY with your OpenAI API key as the value.
• Hugging Face exposes repository secrets to the running app as environment variables with the same name. The code uses os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"]—no key files, no pasting keys into the README or app.py.
• Do not commit keys to git or put them in this README’s YAML frontmatter. If a key ever leaks, rotate it in the OpenAI dashboard.

Gotchas with secrets

• Name must match: OPENAI_API_KEY (case-sensitive) must match what app.py expects.
• Restart: After adding or changing a secret, restart the Space (or trigger a new build) if the app still behaves as if the variable were missing.
• Local runs: On your laptop, export the variable yourself, for example:
  • macOS/Linux: export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..." then run the app.
  • Never check a .env file with real keys into version control.

requirements.txt on Hugging Face Spaces

This repo’s requirements.txt lists one Python package per line. Spaces use it to pip install dependencies before starting the app.

• Blank lines are usually fine; avoid stray text that is not a valid pip requirement.
• Pinning (e.g. gradio==6.14.0) improves reproducibility so a future gradio major release does not surprise your class. The README frontmatter’s sdk_version should stay compatible with the Gradio version you install (see below).
• Order does not matter for pip, but keeping standard library–heavy teachers first (requests, huggingface_hub) can make the file easier to read.

README formatting for Hugging Face Spaces

Spaces treat the top of this file specially:

• The block between the first --- and the second --- is YAML frontmatter. Hugging Face reads fields like sdk, sdk_version, app_file, and title from it.
• Do not remove that block unless you know how you will configure the Space elsewhere.
• Common gotchas:
  • app_file must point to the file that calls launch() (here: app.py).
  • sdk_version should match the Gradio major/minor you rely on; a mismatch with requirements.txt can produce confusing import or layout errors.
  • Indentation in YAML matters; keep values simple strings without unquoted colons that break parsing.
• Content below the closing --- is normal Markdown for humans (this section). You can edit it freely without changing how the Space boots, as long as the frontmatter stays valid.

Other setup gotchas

• Model name: MODEL in app.py must be a model your OpenAI account and billing can access. If OpenAI returns an error, the simplified app does not catch it—you will see the raw exception in the Space logs, which is fine for teaching debugging.
• Network: The Space runtime must reach api.openai.com. Corporate or restricted networks are rare on HF but worth knowing for local copies.
• huggingface_hub vs Hub login: This app sends your OpenAI key to OpenAI (base_url="https://api.openai.com/v1"). You do not need a Hugging Face user token for these two tabs unless you change the code to call HF Inference Providers or the HF router instead.

Local quick start (optional)

From this directory, with Python 3 and a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."   # use your real key; do not commit it
python app.py

Then open the URL Gradio prints (often http://127.0.0.1:7860).