Implementation:Openai Openai python Response Reasoning Item

Knowledge Sources	Openai_Openai_python OpenAI API Reference
Domains	API_Types, Responses_API
Last Updated	2026-02-15 00:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete type for representing a reasoning chain-of-thought item returned by reasoning models in the Responses API, provided by the openai-python SDK.

Description

ResponseReasoningItem is a Pydantic model describing the chain of thought used by a reasoning model while generating a response. It contains a required summary list of Summary objects (each with text and type fields), an optional content list of Content objects holding the actual reasoning text, an optional encrypted_content string (populated when reasoning.encrypted_content is included), and a status field indicating whether the reasoning is in_progress, completed, or incomplete. These items should be included in subsequent input for multi-turn conversations.

Usage

Import this type when processing reasoning output items from models like o1 or o3, or when preserving reasoning context across conversation turns.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: openai-python
• File: src/openai/types/responses/response_reasoning_item.py

Signature

class ResponseReasoningItem(BaseModel):
    """A description of the chain of thought used by a reasoning model."""

    id: str
    summary: List[Summary]
    type: Literal["reasoning"]
    content: Optional[List[Content]] = None
    encrypted_content: Optional[str] = None
    status: Optional[Literal["in_progress", "completed", "incomplete"]] = None

Import

from openai.types.responses import ResponseReasoningItem

I/O Contract

Fields

Name	Type	Required	Description
id	str	Yes	The unique identifier of the reasoning content.
summary	List[Summary]	Yes	Reasoning summary content. Each Summary has text (str) and type (Literal["summary_text"]).
type	Literal["reasoning"]	Yes	The type of the object. Always reasoning.
content	Optional[List[Content]]	No	Reasoning text content. Each Content has text (str) and type (Literal["reasoning_text"]).
encrypted_content	Optional[str]	No	Encrypted content of the reasoning item, populated when requested via the include parameter.
status	Optional[Literal["in_progress", "completed", "incomplete"]]	No	The status of the item. Populated when items are returned via API.

Usage Examples

import openai

client = openai.OpenAI()

response = client.responses.create(
    model="o3-mini",
    input="Explain step by step: why is the sky blue?",
    include=["reasoning.encrypted_content"],
)

for item in response.output:
    if item.type == "reasoning":
        for s in item.summary:
            print(f"Summary: {s.text}")
        if item.encrypted_content:
            print(f"Encrypted content length: {len(item.encrypted_content)}")

Related Pages

• Environment:Openai_Openai_python_Python_3_9_Plus