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Command A

Command A is an open-weights enterprise model from Cohere built for tool use, agentic workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and multilingual tasks across a context window of 256K tokens.

View API reference
Input and output price
Input $2.50, Output $10, Per 1M tokens
24h uptime
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Get API keyRead the docs
import { streamText } from 'ai'


const result = streamText({
  model: 'cohere/command-a',
  prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?'
})
Read docs

Copy link to headingPlayground

Try out Command A by Cohere. Usage is billed to your team at API rates. Free users (those who haven't made a payment) get $5 of credits every 30 days.

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Command A

Copy link to headingProviders

Route requests across multiple providers. Copy a provider slug to set your preference. Visit the docs for more info. Using a provider means you agree to their terms, listed under Legal.

Provider
Context
Max Output
Latency
Throughput
Input
Output
Cache
Web Search
Capabilities
ZDR
No Training
Free Tier
Release Date
Cohere
Legal:Terms•Privacy
256K8K0.2 s68 tps
$2.50/M
$10/M
—
03/13/2025

Copy link to headingUptime

Direct request success rate on AI Gateway and per-provider. Visit the docs for more info.

Copy link to headingThroughput

P50 throughput on live AI Gateway traffic, in tokens per second (TPS). Visit the docs for more info.

Copy link to headingLatency

P50 time to first token (TTFT) on live AI Gateway traffic, in milliseconds. View the docs for more info.

Getting started

Call Command A through AI Gateway with the AI SDK generateText and streamText functions, or through the OpenAI Chat Completions, OpenAI Responses, and Anthropic Messages APIs by changing the base URL. AI Gateway authenticates the request and routes it to an available provider.

Install the AI SDK (pnpm add ai dotenv), create an API key from the API Keys page, and set it as AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY in your environment. Full setup is covered in the text generation quickstart.

index.ts
import { generateText } from 'ai';
import 'dotenv/config';


async function main() {
  const result = await generateText({
    model: 'cohere/command-a',
    prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?',
  });


  console.log(result.text);
}


main().catch(console.error);

Top-level parameters

The same Command A request in each API format AI Gateway supports.

top-level-params.ts
import { generateText } from 'ai';
import 'dotenv/config';


async function main() {
  const result = await generateText({
    model: 'cohere/command-a',
    system: 'You are a concise technical assistant.',
    prompt: 'Summarize the tradeoffs between static generation and SSR.',
    maxOutputTokens: 1024,
    temperature: 0.5,
  });


  console.log(result.text);
}


main().catch(console.error);

Standard parameters like prompt, messages, temperature, and tools work as documented in the AI SDK docs. These are the parameters with model-specific behavior.

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
modelstringYesModel ID in the form creator/model, e.g. cohere/command-a. AI Gateway routes the request to an available provider.
maxOutputTokensnumberNoHard cap on generated tokens. Command A supports up to 8,000 output tokens.
providerOptionsRecord<string, JSONValue>NoAI Gateway routing options under gateway, plus any provider-native options under the provider’s own namespace — see the table below.

Input limits

InputFormatsSourcesMax countMax sizeLimits
Text————Prompt and response share the 256K-token context window

Provider options

Set AI Gateway routing options under providerOptions.gateway. For provider-specific options, pass them under the provider’s namespace as documented by the AI SDK.

Learn more in the AI SDK cohere provider docs.

provider-options.ts
import { generateText } from 'ai';
import 'dotenv/config';


async function main() {
  const result = await generateText({
    model: 'cohere/command-a',
    prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?',
    providerOptions: {
      gateway: {
        only: ['cohere'],
      },
    },
  });


  console.log(result.text);
}


main().catch(console.error);

These AI Gateway routing options apply to every model. Provider-specific options pass through under the provider’s own namespace (for example providerOptions.anthropic) exactly as documented by the AI SDK.

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
providerOptions.gateway.onlystring[]NoRestrict routing to these provider slugs. Requests fail over only within the listed providers.
providerOptions.gateway.orderstring[]NoPreferred provider order. Listed providers are tried first; unlisted providers remain available as fallbacks.
providerOptions.gateway.sort'cost' | 'ttft' | 'tps'NoRank candidate providers by price, time to first token, or tokens per second instead of the default routing order.
providerOptions.gateway.zeroDataRetentionbooleanNoRoute only to providers with a zero-data-retention policy for this model.

Routing across providers

AI Gateway serves the same model through multiple providers and fails over automatically. order expresses a preference while keeping every provider eligible; only is a hard allowlist — if none of the listed providers are available the request fails instead of falling back.

Options under a provider's own namespace (for example providerOptions.anthropic) are forwarded to that provider with the request. Providers ignore option namespaces that don't apply to them, so it is safe to set provider options alongside gateway routing options.

Tool calling

Expose tools the model can call. Define each tool’s inputs with a Zod schema.

tool-calling.ts
import { generateText, tool } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';
import 'dotenv/config';


async function main() {
  const result = await generateText({
    model: 'cohere/command-a',
    prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco?',
    tools: {
      getWeather: tool({
        description: 'Get the current weather for a location',
        inputSchema: z.object({ location: z.string() }),
        execute: async ({ location }) => ({ location, temperatureC: 18 }),
      }),
    },
  });


  console.log(result.text);
}


main().catch(console.error);

Copy link to headingMore models by Cohere

Model
Context
Latency
Throughput
Input
Output
Cache
Web Search
Capabilities
Providers
ZDR
No Training
Free Tier
Release Date
cohere/rerank-v4-fast
32K
$2/K
—
cohere logo
12/11/2025
cohere/rerank-v4-pro
32K
$2.50/K
—
cohere logo
12/11/2025
cohere/embed-v4.0
128K
$0.12/M
—
bedrock logo
cohere logo
04/15/2025
cohere/rerank-v3.5
4K
$2/K
—
bedrock logo
12/02/2024

Copy link to headingAbout Command A

Command A is a 111-billion-parameter open-weights language model released March 13, 2025. It uses a transformer stack with three sliding-window attention layers (4,096-token window each) and one global attention layer. The global layer allows token interaction across the full context of 256K tokens. This hybrid attention design handles local context and long-range dependencies in one request.

Tool use and multi-step ReAct agent behavior are core strengths. Command A delivers higher throughput than Command R+ 08-2024 on comparable setups. Structured output, citation generation, safety modes, and RAG are built-in API features rather than prompt-only patterns. The knowledge cutoff is June 2024.

Command A covers 23 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Dutch, Czech, Indonesian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Greek, Hindi, Hebrew, and Persian. This breadth supports multilingual enterprise deployments without separate regional models.

See https://docs.cohere.com/v2/docs/command-a for API details. Typical output length is capped at 8K tokens per generation where the API enforces a limit.

Copy link to headingWhat To Consider When Choosing a Provider

  • Configuration: For enterprise deployments across regions or language markets, confirm your provider choice meets data residency needs. Command A lists 23 training languages, so residency and language policy still matter.
  • Zero Data Retention: Zero Data Retention is offered on a per-provider and model basis. See the documentation for details.
  • Authentication: AI Gateway authenticates requests using an API key or OIDC token. You do not need to manage provider credentials directly.

Copy link to headingWhen to Use Command A

Best for

  • Multi-step ReAct agents: Tool use and decision chaining spanning many turns
  • Large-corpus RAG: Context window of 256K tokens fits retrieval results, source documents, and instructions in one prompt
  • Multilingual applications: Single model covers any of the 23 supported training languages without separate regional variants
  • Citation workflows: Legal review, regulatory compliance, and research summarization where traceable sourcing is required
  • High-throughput production: Higher throughput than Command R+ 08-2024 cuts infrastructure cost at scale

Consider alternatives when

  • Creative generation focus: Workload centers on open-ended conversation rather than structured enterprise tasks
  • Reasoning specialist needed: Mathematical or formal logic chains need a reasoning-tuned model
  • Smaller context suffices: A smaller model would reduce per-token cost at your volume
  • Unsupported language: Your target language falls outside the 23 supported languages

Copy link to headingConclusion

Command A targets enterprise teams that need an open-weights foundation for agent systems, multilingual deployments, and retrieval-heavy pipelines with unified billing through AI Gateway. It brings a context of 256K tokens, 23-language training coverage, and the throughput gains Cohere cites over Command R+ 08-2024.

Copy link to headingFrequently Asked Questions

  • What is Command A's hybrid attention architecture?

    It combines three sliding-window attention layers (4,096-token window each) with one global attention layer that has no positional constraint. The sliding windows handle local context efficiently. The global layer models long-range dependencies across the full context window of 256K tokens.

  • How does Command A compare to Command R+ 08-2024?

    Command A delivers higher throughput than Command R+ 08-2024. Cohere positions it as the successor tuned for agentic performance and enterprise task execution.

  • Which languages does Command A support?

    23 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Dutch, Czech, Indonesian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Greek, Hindi, Hebrew, and Persian.

  • Does Command A support citation generation natively?

    Yes. Citation generation is a built-in feature, so you can ground outputs in retrieved or cited sources without bolting on a separate citation stack.

  • What is the knowledge cutoff date for Command A?

    June 2024.

  • Is Command A open-weights?

    Yes. Cohere released it as an open-weights model. On Hugging Face it lives under CohereLabs/c4ai-command-a-03-2025.

  • How much does Command A cost on AI Gateway?

    See the pricing section on this page for today's rates. AI Gateway exposes each provider's pricing for Command A.

Your use is subject to Cohere's Terms & Privacy Policies.