Anthropic offers two ways to build with Claude, each suited to different use cases:

This guide covers common patterns for working with the Messages API, including basic requests, multi-turn conversations, prefill techniques, and vision capabilities. For complete API specifications, see the Messages API reference.

Basic request and response

{
 "id": "msg_01XFDUDYJgAACzvnptvVoYEL",
 "type": "message",
 "role": "assistant",
 "content": [
 {
 "type": "text",
 "text": "Hello!"
 }
 ],
 "model": "claude-opus-4-8",
 "stop_reason": "end_turn",
 "stop_sequence": null,
 "usage": {
 "input_tokens": 12,
 "output_tokens": 6
 }
}

On Claude Opus 4.7 and later models, refusal responses (stop_reason: "refusal") also include a stop_details object identifying the policy category that triggered the refusal. See Handling stop reasons for the field reference and example handling code.

Multiple conversational turns

The Messages API is stateless, which means that you always send the full conversational history to the API. You can use this pattern to build up a conversation over time. Earlier conversational turns don't necessarily need to actually originate from Claude. You can use synthetic assistant messages.

{
 "id": "msg_018gCsTGsXkYJVqYPxTgDHBU",
 "type": "message",
 "role": "assistant",
 "content": [
 {
 "type": "text",
 "text": "Sure, I'd be happy to provide..."
 }
 ],
 "model": "claude-opus-4-8",
 "stop_reason": "end_turn",
 "stop_sequence": null,
 "usage": {
 "input_tokens": 30,
 "output_tokens": 309
 }
}

System role in messages

On Claude Opus 4.8, you can include messages with "role": "system" after a user turn (subject to placement rules) to add a new system instruction partway through a conversation. A system message cannot be the first entry in messages; use the top-level system field for instructions that apply from the start.

A mid-conversation system message has the same authority as the top-level system field, but because it is appended to the end of the message history, it does not invalidate any cached prefix that came before it. Use the top-level system field for instructions that should apply from the very first turn, and a mid-conversation system message for instructions that only become relevant later.

See Mid-conversation system messages for the complete guide, including how to combine it with prompt caching.

Putting words in Claude's mouth

You can pre-fill part of Claude's response in the last position of the input messages list. This can be used to shape Claude's response. The example below uses "max_tokens": 1 to get a single multiple choice answer from Claude.

{
 "id": "msg_01Q8Faay6S7QPTvEUUQARt7h",
 "type": "message",
 "role": "assistant",
 "content": [
 {
 "type": "text",
 "text": "C"
 }
 ],
 "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
 "stop_reason": "max_tokens",
 "stop_sequence": null,
 "usage": {
 "input_tokens": 42,
 "output_tokens": 1
 }
}

Vision

Claude can read both text and images in requests. Images can be supplied using the base64, url, or file source types. The file source type references an image uploaded through the Files API. Supported media types are image/jpeg, image/png, image/gif, and image/webp. See the vision guide for more details.

{
 "id": "msg_01EcyWo6m4hyW8KHs2y2pei5",
 "type": "message",
 "role": "assistant",
 "content": [
 {
 "type": "text",
 "text": "This image shows an ant, specifically a close-up view of an ant. The ant is shown in detail, with its distinct head, antennae, and legs clearly visible. The image is focused on capturing the intricate details and features of the ant, likely taken with a macro lens to get an extreme close-up perspective."
 }
 ],
 "model": "claude-opus-4-8",
 "stop_reason": "end_turn",
 "stop_sequence": null,
 "usage": {
 "input_tokens": 1551,
 "output_tokens": 71
 }
}

Next steps