Perplexity

Lightweight, dependency-free, in-memory Perplexity API fake. The Perplexity chat API is OpenAI-compatible (POST /chat/completions) with an added Perplexity-specific citations array. All generated content is deterministic — text and citations are derived from a hash of the input.

Default port: 4751

Quick start

import { PerplexityServer } from "./services/perplexity/src/server.js";

const server = new PerplexityServer(4751);
await server.start();
// ... run your app/tests ...
await server.stop();

Point the openai SDK at it via baseURL:

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: "pplx-parlel",
  baseURL: "http://127.0.0.1:4751",
});

const completion = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "sonar",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "What is parlel?" }],
});
// completion.choices[0].message.content => deterministic text
// completion.citations => deterministic list of source URLs

Implemented operations

All routes require an Authorization: Bearer <key> header (any non-empty bearer token is accepted). State is in-memory and ephemeral.

POST /chat/completions — chat completion. OpenAI-compatible shape plus a top-level citations array. Supports stream: true (SSE chunks carry citations, ending with data: [DONE]).

Service & inspection operations (parlel extensions)

GET / — service metadata (includes available models).
GET /health — health check ({ status: "ok" }).
POST /__parlel/reset — reset all in-memory state.
GET /__parlel/requests — list captured requests.
DELETE /__parlel/requests — clear the captured request log.

SDK usage example

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(api_key="pplx-parlel", base_url="http://127.0.0.1:4751")
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="sonar",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What is parlel?"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)
print(resp.citations)

Access via MCP / preview URL

HTTP services are auto-exposed at the Daytona preview URL. Send requests to the preview URL with the x-daytona-preview-token header. Set PERPLEXITY_BASE_URL to the preview URL.

Surface coverage

This emulator faithfully replicates the API surface most application code and agents exercise. Anything below the supported lines is either an intentional design choice for a fast, zero-cost local emulator (✓ By design) or a candidate for a future release (⟳ Roadmap) — never a silent inaccuracy.

Legend: ✅ fully supported · ◐ accepted (stored, not strictly enforced) · ✓ by design · ⟳ on the roadmap.

Feature	Status
`chat/completions` (+ streaming SSE)	✅ Supported
`citations` array	✅ Supported (deterministic)
Request inspection	✅ Supported (parlel extension)
Real model inference / web search	✓ By design — Deterministic stub output — repeatable assertions, no API spend
`search_domain_filter` / recency filters	◐ Accepted, not applied
Token counts	◐ Approximate word-based
Bearer-token validity / quota	✓ By design — Never throttles — local tests run at full speed, zero cost

Manifest

See services/perplexity/manifest.json:

name: perplexity, image: parlel/perplexity:1
port: 4751, protocol: http, healthcheck: /health, startup ≈ 100ms
env: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY, PERPLEXITY_BASE_URL

Configuration — `test.env`

Copy these into your test.env (used by the bridge sidecar flow). Tokens are Parlel's seeded test credentials — any non-empty value is accepted by the emulator, so you rarely need to change them. Swap in real credentials only when pointing at the live service in prod.env.

PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=pplx-parlel
PERPLEXITY_BASE_URL=http://parlel-bridge:4751