Together AI Production Checklist

Overview

Together AI provides OpenAI-compatible inference across 100+ open-source models (Llama, Mixtral, Qwen, FLUX) plus fine-tuning and batch processing. A production integration routes completions, embeddings, or image generation through Together's API. Failures mean inference latency spikes, model availability gaps, or unexpected cost overruns from uncontrolled batch jobs.

Authentication & Secrets

• TOGETHER_API_KEY stored in secrets manager (not source code)
• API key restricted to production workspace
• Key rotation schedule documented (90-day cycle)
• Separate keys for dev/staging/prod environments
• Fine-tuning job tokens scoped separately from inference tokens

API Integration

• Production base URL configured (https://api.together.xyz/v1)
• Rate limit handling with exponential backoff
• Model IDs validated against client.models.list() before deployment
• Completion streaming implemented for real-time use cases
• Embedding batch size optimized (max 2048 inputs per request)
• Batch inference configured for non-real-time workloads (50% cost savings)
• Fallback model configured if primary model is unavailable

Error Handling & Resilience

• Circuit breaker configured for Together API outages
• Retry with backoff for 429/5xx responses
• Model-not-found errors caught before user-facing requests
• Token usage tracked per request to prevent budget overruns
• Fine-tuning job failure alerts configured
• Timeout handling for long-running generation requests (>30s)

Monitoring & Alerting

• API latency tracked per model and endpoint (chat, embeddings, images)
• Error rate alerts set (threshold: >5% over 5 minutes)
• Token consumption monitored against daily/monthly budget caps
• Model availability checked (Together status page integration)
• Batch job completion rate tracked

Validation Script

async function checkTogetherReadiness(): Promise<void> {
  const checks: { name: string; pass: boolean; detail: string }[] = [];
  // API connectivity
  try {
    const res = await fetch('https://api.together.xyz/v1/models', {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TOGETHER_API_KEY}` },
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'Together API', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Connected' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'Together API', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  // Credentials present
  checks.push({ name: 'API Key Set', pass: !!process.env.TOGETHER_API_KEY, detail: process.env.TOGETHER_API_KEY ? 'Present' : 'MISSING' });
  // Inference test
  try {
    const res = await fetch('https://api.together.xyz/v1/chat/completions', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TOGETHER_API_KEY}`, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
      body: JSON.stringify({ model: 'meta-llama/Llama-3-8b-chat-hf', messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'ping' }], max_tokens: 5 }),
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'Inference', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Model responding' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'Inference', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  for (const c of checks) console.log(`[${c.pass ? 'PASS' : 'FAIL'}] ${c.name}: ${c.detail}`);
}
checkTogetherReadiness();

Error Handling

Check	Risk if Skipped	Priority
API key rotation	Expired key halts all inference	P1
Token budget monitoring	Unexpected cost overruns	P1
Model availability check	Requests fail on deprecated models	P2
Rate limit backoff	Burst traffic triggers 429 cascade	P2
Fine-tuning job alerts	Failed jobs waste compute budget	P3

Resources

• Together AI Docs
• API Reference
• Model List

Next Steps

See together-security-basics for API key management and cost controls.